Bush Signing Statement Waters Down India Nuke Bill

The latest signing statement by George Bush, his 137th, shows his contempt for congress, his belief that he alone should be the arbiter of America's foreign policy and his utter disinterest in any meaningful strategy on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.

In all, President Bush took exception to nine full sections of the bill approved by Congress.

First, President Bush took particular exception to a section declaring the policies of the United States, noting that his "approval of the Act does not constitute my adoption of the statements of policy as U.S. foreign policy." The statements of policy included opposition to nuclear weapons production by all non-nuclear weapons states, as well as promoting India's commitments to control the proliferation of nuclear fuel cycle technology, cooperate in preventing Iran's development of nuclear weapons, and limit expansion of existing nuclear arsenals in South Asia.

Next, President Bush said that a control placed by Congress on transfers to India of items that would run afoul of Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines "unconstitutionally delegated legislative power to an international body," and he therefore considered the section "advisory" in nature.

Then, the president declared that 8 sections of the bill in total had to be construed "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to protect and control information that could impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties."

One section of the bill to which the president qualified his assent called on the the National Nuclear Security Administration of the US Department of Energy to engage the nuclear scientific community in India to develop cooperative nonproliferation activities, particularly with nuclear safeguards in mind. In another section of the bill, Congress had called on the president to issue determinations to Capitol Hill that India was aligning its nonproliferation policy in a manner consistent with US global nonproliferation goals, and also that civil cooperation with the US was not contributing to India's nuclear weapons program.

Immediately, India decided that they too could play this game. Reuters reported India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as responding to domestic critics of the agreement that "India would not be bound by 'extraneous' conditions attached to the deal when it was passed by the U.S. Congress this month, rejecting efforts to constrain New Delhi's policy towards Iran or its own nuclear weapons programme."

India's foreign minister also took his cue from Bush, rather than the US Congress, as he told the Indian parliament that the deal "was not intended to inhibit our nuclear weapons programme," and that "we will keep the option open on future testing if national interest demands we do so." Since the PR in the States was that the deal was designed to do exactly what the Indians now say it doesn't, there's only one conclusion to draw.

Yet again, Dubya has managed to make the world a less safe place.