US Ambassador to India David Mulford's unfortunate comment, say Administration officials, have had the unfortunate effect of distracting attention from the real issue.

Mulford, the other day, set a firestorm in motion when he said the US-India civilian nuclear death would die a natural death in the US Congress if India failed to vote with the United States and the European Union on the question of referring Iran to the United Nations Security Council.

The consequent diplomatic brouhaha, Administration sources told rediff-India Abroad,  has obscured the fact that India has till date failed to provide a credible, transparent plan for the separation of its civil and military nuclear installations � a pre-requisite before the Administration can go before Congress to seek approval for the changes in US law that must be made before the deal can be consummated.

Given this, officials said, there was nothing the Administration could take to Congress in order to gain some traction ahead of President George W Bush's [Images] planned trip to India in March.

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Officials now say there are fears that the deal may unravel even before it gets to Congress, because of India's failure to produce a 'credible, transparent and defensible' plan. In this connection, they point to the pessimism expressed by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, after his recent meeting with Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran.

Burns said some progress had been made, but for the first time, struck a downbeat note when he added, 'Much further progress has to be made. And there are some difficulties ahead of us.'

He said for any agreement to be credible in the eyes of the US Congress and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, 'it will have to be a detailed agreement and a substantial agreement', and added that there was a long way to go before such an agreement would materialize.

"You know Nick,"one official told rediff-India Abroad. "For him that's pretty pessimistic."

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The official said that when Burns visited New Delhi last month, he was hoping to come back with an iron-clad plan from India that could be submitted to Congress. What India offered, reportedly, does not even meet 'the minimum standards required' to convince Congress to change the laws on the books.

Administration officials acknowledged that Mulford was right enough in suggesting that the Iran issue was critical, and India's vote would have a bearing on the deal. However, they said, the key really remains the submission of a plan Congress could consider � and India supporters both within Congress and without could use to push the case.

In this context, they said, too much attention was being paid to Mulford's remarks in re India's Iran vote, and not enough to the more significant remarks he made following Burns' recent visit to New Delhi.

Michael Krepon, president emeritus of the Henry Stimson Center, told rediff-India Abroad, "It is the government of India that is lagging here. It is the government of India that has not been moving quickly to present a plan. It is the government of India that has offered so many exceptions to a separation to render the separation meaningless from a nonproliferation standpoint.

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"So you cannot blame the ayatollahs of the nonproliferation movement for this. The Indian Atomic Energy Commission has to get its house in order. They have to decide whether it wants to help India grow economically or build up its nuclear arsenal, and so far it appears that the Atomic Energy Commission doesn't want to make this choice."

Krepon felt that New Delhi had not yet chosen between power and bombs. "I think a good part of the reason why this negotiation is going so slowly is because of the difficulty (by India) of choosing between electricity and nuclear weapons."

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Reacting publicly to Mulford's remarks about India's Iran vote, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack merely said 'He was giving his personal assessment of how the Congress might react to such an action by India.'

But both publicly and privately, McCormack and State Department officials said Mulford's sentiments expressed a reality that could not be denied.

McCormack recalled that India on September 24 'voted to find Iran in noncompliance the last time around, and we certainly would encourage and hope that they vote for referral this time around.

'But I think what the Ambassador was doing was talking about and reflecting the view that on Capitol Hill there are very strongly held feelings about Iran and the need for the international community to act decisively and firmly with a single voice concerning Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon.'

Administration sources told rediff-India Abroad that Mulford was "analyzing" what Congress would likely do based on what a lot of Congressmen have said. "You remember what Gary Ackerman (New York Democrat and co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans) and Tom Lantos (California Democrat and ranking minority member on the House International Relations Committee) were saying in September.

"So he (Mulford) was trying to educate the Indian government and the public about a reality," the sources said.

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Asked point blank if there is any correlation between how India votes at the IAEA and how the civilian nuclear agreement with the US proceeds in Congress, McCormack said "We deal with the Indian government on these two issues as separate issues. Certainly, they come up in the same conversations, I'll tell you that.

"We continue to encourage the Indian government to vote for referral. Ultimately, that is going to be their decision. And we also have been talking to them about the importance of making progress on their implementation plan for separating the civilian and military nuclear programs."