Rice pushing for Hyde package by Thursday

WASHINGTON: Facing a tight timeline, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is "pushing" to get the Hyde package to the Congress by tomorrow in a bid to quickly secure the legislative nod for the Indo-US nuclear deal.

"... the Secretary is pushing to get that up by the end of today - up to the Hill by the end of today. Right now it looks like they might be able to make that deadline. It's still going through the internal and inter-agency clearance process", State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said at his briefing here today.

He said that besides the inter-agency process the package is also going through some last minute pending pieces like the India-IAEA Additional Protocol. The Bush Administration is hoping to get the Congressional nod by the end of the session on September 26 and by waiving the 30-day requirement before a legislation can be taken up by the Congress for ratification.

The Spokesman also announced that Rice is scheduled to meet the Senate Majority Leader, Senator Harry Reid following up her meetings with the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Howard Berman and the Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.

" We have meetings yesterday. She saw Chairman Berman and Speaker Pelosi when she was up on the Hill....Today she will see the Senate majority leader, Senator Reid, up on the Hill. They have about a half hour scheduled. And that meeting was set up to talk about the India civ nuke deal and how to move it forward," McCormack said.

The senior State Department official was also asked if India has done its part in facilitating the determinations of the Bush administration to Congress.