WASHINGTON, Sept 9: The Bush administration came under heavy fire from the US Congress for bypassing it and negotiating a significant civilian nuclear deal with India despite its known support for Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the US stand on the issue. At a three-hour hearing of the House International Relations Committee this week, key lawmakers, visibly upset and at times angry, made no bones about their being kept in the dark over the India-US nuke deal, which reverses decades of US non-proliferation policy and could require significant changes to US laws.

“You chose an initiative, which you may not be able to deliver and you chose to make the initiative without, to my knowledge, any serious prior consultations with the Congress,” complained Republican Congressman Jim Leach of Iowa.

The India-US deal was signed during the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Washington in July and allows India to get for the first time sensitive civilian nuclear technology, creating an exception to the US ban on nuclear assistance to any country that is not a signatory to the NPT.

Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said the Bush administration would hold ‘’any number of consultations with the Congress’ as the president ‘wants to see this deal through’.

Even though most of the Congressmen present at the hearing supported the new ‘’realignment’’ of bilateral relations between India and the United States, they were sceptical on providing dual use technology to India as it refuses to sign the NPT and has openly supported Iran.

“It is critical that we consider the far-reaching implications of a full nuclear cooperation with India and how a de facto recognition of India as a nuclear weapons state would undermine US non-proliferation policy,” said Rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican.

“Did we ignore the most important nuclear proliferation issue facing America today, namely Iran, in negotiating a nuclear treaty with India?” Rep Brad Sherman, a Democrat, asked Mr Burns and Robert Joseph, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.

Mr Joseph said India’s stand on the Iran issue had not come up in negotiations and that the administration faces an ‘’uphill battle’ to persuade New Delhi and others to support US policy on Iran.