India Nuclear Deal May Face Hard Sell

One U.S. official involved in the briefing said Zelikow's statement went beyond the talking points drafted for the news conference -- but as time passed, it was clear his bolder pronouncement reflected the administration's true position.

"We had been thinking about this question: How much should you go for? Would an incremental approach be better, would it be more easily digestible [by Congress]?" a senior official asked. "We decided to go for the big bang."

At this critical junction, one of the leading skeptics of a nuclear deal with India -- John R. Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control -- was nominated U.N. ambassador. The long battle over his appointment delayed confirmation of his replacement, Robert G. Joseph, until May 26. Other key posts in the nonproliferation ranks were unfilled, leaving officials in that area thinking they had no voice in the debate. The Pentagon, meanwhile, fully backed closer relations with India.

By the time Joseph arrived at the State Department on June 1, the initiative with India was largely underway. Rice dispatched Burns to begin negotiations with India, working mainly with his counterpart, Foreign Secretary Saran.

Because neither Zelikow nor Burns was an expert in nuclear specifics, Joseph and John D. Rood, his successor and counterpart at the National Security Council, began outlining, with input from their staffs, commitments they hoped to extract from India.

Leading the nonproliferation interests of the administration, Rood and Joseph envisioned a deal in which India would, among other things, agree to limit production of plutonium to a level that ensured the minimal deterrent capability it sought.

The two nuclear experts also wanted India to place all of its electricity-producing reactors under permanent safeguards to be monitored by U.N. inspectors. Such an arrangement would ensure, in accordance with U.S. law, that any American technology going to India would not be used for its weapons program.

But by the time U.S. negotiators agreed on a number of requests -- just days before Singh's arrival on July 18 -- many of the key items on the Joseph-Rood list had been taken off the table, said senior officials who were involved. "We never even got to the stage where we could negotiate them," one official said. The Indians had already made clear to Burns in discussions weeks earlier that they were not interested in outside influence over their nuclear weapons program. "We knew well before Singh's arrival that the Indians wouldn't accept most of that," another senior U.S. negotiator said.

When the final negotiations began before Singh's visit, Joseph wasn't there. Instead, he went overseas on other business, leaving Rood as the lone senior nonproliferation voice on a negotiating team stacked with officials eager to clinch a deal upon Singh's arrival.

Officials said Rood delivered forceful presentations to Burns and others throughout the negotiating process, laying out key nonproliferation concerns. Without a limit on fissile material production, the deal could allow India to make many more weapons than it needed. There was also concern about rewarding a country that built nuclear weapons in secret, which North Korea and Iran are accused of doing. Some in the administration said the deal would hurt U.S. efforts to pressure those countries on their programs.

Few Indian officials expected a breakthrough during the Bush-Singh meeting in July, but Rice was determined to see the negotiations succeed. Bush had reached the conclusion that the nuclear concerns carried less weight than the enormous benefits that a broad partnership with a large and friendly democracy could bring.

The Final Push

Burns, Saran and other officials conferred for nearly three days. From the start, negotiators said the conversations were tense as it became clear that the U.S. goals were not what India was hoping to hear. One by one, Indian negotiators balked at requests, indicating they would walk away before accepting conditions for inspections and other safeguards.