Bush administration freezes
By Sue Pleming
Reuters
September 8, 2008
"The president intends to
notify Congress that he has today rescinded his prior determination regarding
the U.S.-Russia agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation, the so-called 1-2-3
Agreement," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
While Bush's decision to withdraw
the agreement from congressional review was seen as punitive, it was also meant
to preserve the deal, a senior
That official said the
administration wanted to ensure the accord did not go to a vote in Congress,
where it could have been rejected following
"It (the nuclear accord) was
likely to be killed simply as a protest in the Senate and so therefore what we
are doing is rescinding the certificate that he (President Bush) had to give
due to the situation in
"It is something that we can
reverse at any time either by sending a new certificate or lifting this
action," he added. "What it does is freezes the status of it."
Bush or a future president could
resubmit it for consideration by Congress, which would have 90 legislative days
to block it.
Rice also made clear the decision
was not final.
"We make this decision with
regret. Unfortunately given the current environment the time is not right for
this agreement. We will reevaluate the situation at a later date as we follow
developments closely," her statement said.
In
"We have recently received a
letter from the White House where they mentioned that this was the only way to
save this agreement for the new administration," the official said.
"Otherwise the agreement would
be definitely blocked in the current political conditions which would have
meant practically starting the entire work from the beginning again," the
source said.
Several
"This was a wise
decision," said California Rep. Howard Berman, Democratic chair of the
House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. "Congress has little
appetite at the moment for new and sweeping measures that would assist
Michigan Rep. John Dingell,
Democratic chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, agreed.
"Even without
The deal was aimed at lifting Cold
War limits on trade and opening the
The collapse of the deal is the
first tangible penalty
The Bush administration is looking
at other ways to show its displeasure with
However,
"All of our efforts with
Russia, we are carefully tailoring to ensure that they are reversible if Russia
... takes actions to show that this is not the beginning of a major turn in
Russian global affairs," said the senior U.S. official.
Despite agreeing to a
French-brokered cease-fire,