Sinking AIG Lobbied for U.S-India Nuclear Deal

From the “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” file, comes this story from ProPublica:

As AIG was on the brink of bankruptcy and facing a government takeover, the insurance giant made sure Congress knew where it stood—on U.S.-India nuclear relations, that is.

AIG deployed its lobbyists to Washington last month to influence a bill that allows U.S. companies to sell nuclear technology to India. Signed by President Bush earlier this month, the bill overturns a 30-year-old ban on such sales imposed after India first developed a nuclear bomb. (Critics complain that the U.S.-India deal undermines non-proliferation efforts.)

Why would AIG care about a U.S.-India nuclear pact at a time when its own existence was uncertain?

“We were looking at this to see if there’s a potential business aspect” for AIG, company spokesman Nick Ashooh said. “We do a lot of business in India.” Ashooh said he was “not sure” if that business included insuring contracts between U.S. military technology companies and their Indian counterparts.

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