Republican India policy will lead to expanded nukes

Mr. Bush's team says it designed the India deal as a way to build a "strategic partnership" with the world's largest democracy, after decades of estrangement. India has proved itself a responsible power, Mr. Bush said. That the country is one of the fastest-growing emerging markets, a favorite destination for technology companies, a market for his rich friends.

The part of the deal the administration likes to talk about allows India to buy American fuel for its civilian reactors for the first time, in exchange for opening them to international inspection.

But India only designated 14 of its sites as "civilian" plants that it permanently guarantees can be inspected (up from four a few months ago), meaning that the additional eight can be used to make bomb fuel.

The administration's negotiator "caved on that one early on," in the words of Robert J. Einhorn, a nonproliferation expert who served under President Clinton and in the early days of Mr. Bush's tenure.

Since the United States would now sell India fuel for its newly declared civilian reactors — assuming Congress goes along — the Indians can devote their domestic uranium supply to weapons. It substantially expands the supply of uranium the Indians have for military purposes.