Washington, July 5 (IANS) If Congress approves the India-US nuclear deal, it would cement a historic new alliance between the two countries and open the doors to billions of dollars worth of high-tech and military sales to the South Asian nation, says an American daily.
Boston Globe suggested that the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) spent more than $1 million on fact-finding trips to India for members of the US Congress, their staff, and spouses and on lobbying Congress to lift the ban on nuclear commerce with India.
'It is clear that business interests and US defence contractors and former US officials involved in South Asia policy have been working hard to push this deal,' said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
'History has shown that US non-proliferation policy has consistently been compromised by interests in maintaining good relations or expanding business ties.'
Few deny that the prospect of business opportunities worth billions of dollars helped fuel the deal, the paper said. For Indian entrepreneurs, it is an opportunity to make money on privatised nuclear power plants and buy high-tech equipment that has been restricted for decades.
For US businesses, it is a chance to invest in India's rapidly growing energy sector, to sell supplies to Indian nuclear reactors, and - for the first time - to have a shot at large-scale military contracts.
'I believe that all things being equal, we will get a considerable portion of the $20 (billion) to $40 billion in acquisition that the Indians plan on making by 2020,' said Raymond Vickery, a senior adviser to the US-India Business Council.
Vickery said congressional approval of the deal would give Lockheed Martin a reasonable chance to get a $4 billion to $9 billion contract to supply 126 combat fighter planes to India's Navy, a contract that India would have been unlikely to approve while sanctions were in place.
Westinghouse, whose nuclear division is based in Western Pennsylvania, could help India build a civilian nuclear reactor, and Atlanta-based General Electric would be well placed to get a contract to supply India's reactors with nuclear fuel, Vickery said.
The business prospects have spurred the US-India Business Council, which represents 200 US businesses operating in India, to hire heavyweight lobbying firm Patton Boggs to work on the issue and hold strategy meetings about how to approach sceptics on Capitol Hill. Reports on the expenses of the American group's lobbying on India have not been filed.
But one of the quietest and most persistent efforts to influence Congress on India policy has come from the Indian industrial lobby CII, which represents some of India's most profitable companies, Boston Globe claimed.
The group was among the top international organisations paying for congressional travel between 2000 and 2005, even though they were not registered to lobby at the time, according to a review of congressional disclosure records conducted by the Center for Public Integrity, a non-profit research organisation in Washington.
During that period, they paid more than $538,000 in travel expenses for trips by 19 Congress members, 11 spouses, and 58 congressional staffers, according to the records.
Of the 50 members serving on the House Foreign Relations Committee, eight had trips to India paid for by CII, travelling or sending a staffer. One of the eight, Representative Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, voted against the proposal last week when the committee overwhelmingly approved the deal.
In April 2005, the Confederation registered to lobby for the first time, paying Barbour Griffith & Rogers, a well-connected lobbying firm, $520,000 to lobby US government agencies, including Congress, the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Defense.
Robert Blackwill, who served as ambassador to India and deputy national security adviser under Bush, was hired by the firm to run the effort. A former foreign policy staffer for Senator Chuck Hagel assisted. In September 2005, the embassy of India also hired the firm, paying $240,000, Boston Globe said.
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