they don't even speak to their own
Legislators criticize White House for nuclear deal with India
Pact would mark US policy change
By Dafna Linzer, Washington Post | September 9, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration came under heavy criticism yesterday by Republican and Democratic members of Congress for signing a major nuclear deal with India, which has expressed support for Iran's right to a nuclear energy program despite US efforts to pressure Tehran into giving it up.
Members of the House International Relations Committee also chided two administration officials for reaching the India deal, which would reverse decades of US policy and could require significant changes to US laws, without first consulting Congress.
''You chose an initiative for which you may not be able to deliver, and you chose to make this initiative without, to my knowledge, any serious prior consultation with the Congress," said Representative Jim Leach, Republican of Iowa.
The India deal, announced at the White House in July, would for the first time provide New Delhi with sensitive civilian nuclear technology. That would create an exception to the US ban on nuclear assistance to any country that does not accept international monitoring of its nuclear facilities. India has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires such oversight, and conducted its first nuclear detonation in 1974.