Nuke Deal Is Key To Bush India Trip

President Bush opened a three-day visit to India on Wednesday to warm relations with the world's largest democracy, but says he doesn't know if he'll be able to seal his elusive nuclear deal with New Delhi.

Mr. Bush wants to share U.S. nuclear know-how and fuel with India to help power its fast-growing economy, even though India won't sign the international nonproliferation treaty.

Despite telephone diplomacy from Air Force One as it flew to South Asia, disagreements remain. If reached, the landmark accord would represent a major shift in policy for the United States, which imposed temporary sanctions on India in 1998 after it conducted nuclear tests.

"We'll continue to dialogue and work, and hopefully we can reach an agreement," Mr. Bush said. "If not, we'll continue to work on it until we do."

CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports that India — with the second-largest Muslim population in the world and a booming economy — is a must-have for a strategic partner in the war on terror.

In a surprise detour to Afghanistan on his way to India, Mr. Bush downplayed the significance of getting the deal completed during his visit. The success of his trip, however, will be judged on whether the two sides can agree on how to split India's nuclear weapons work from its peaceful nuclear program, and place the later under international inspection.

"The one thing that is absolutely necessary is that any agreement would assure that once India has decided to put a reactor under safeguard that it remain permanently under safeguard," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters on the plane.

Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran has stressed the need for clarity, saying "We need to make sure there are no ambiguities which may create difficulties for us in the future."

Mr. Bush spoke in Kabul, standing alongside Afghan President Hamid Karzai whose fragile government is facing a resurgence of violence from al Qaeda and repressive Taliban militants. Axelrod reports the violence in Afghanistan is at the highest level it's been since U.S. and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001.

Mr. Bush said he thinks Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, will one day be captured.

"I am confident he will be brought to justice," Mr. Bush said.

Bin Laden is thought to be hiding on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which Mr. Bush is also visiting on this trip.

Meanwhile, Pakistani security forces backed by helicopter gunships struck a militant hideout Wednesday in a tribal region near the Afghan border, killing more than 45 fighters including a Chechen commander linked to al Qaeda, officials said.

One civilian and a soldier were also reported dead.

The assault "knocked out a den of foreign militants" and killed more than 45, an army statement said.

The stop wasn't a complete surprise, reports CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante. There are still 18,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and a U.S.-backed government. But it was kept secret for security reasons until the president was en route.

During his five-hour visit, Mr. Bush held a working lunch with Karzai and other Afghan leaders, attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the U.S. embassy in Kabul and spoke to U.S. troops at Bagram Air Base.

"People all over the world are watching the experience here in Afghanistan," Mr. Bush said, praising Karzai as "a friend and an ally."

Karzai greeted the U.S. president as "our great friend, our great supporter, a man who helped us liberate."

Mr. Bush and first lady Laura Bush arrived in India after sundown at an air force station in Palam, outside New Delhi. He is the fifth U.S. president to visit India, which is home to more than 1 billion people and has the world's second-largest Muslim population.

Though he stopped in Afghanistan, CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller reports Mr. Bush arrived in India exactly on schedule — 20 hours and 7,500 miles after he left Washington.

Setting aside protocol, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh welcomed Mr. Bush at the airport. The president's motorcade rolled effortlessly through streets that earlier were clogged with noisy trucks, bicycles and other vehicles, including green-and-yellow motorized rickshaws weaving from lane to lane.

The mood in New Delhi was much changed from 1959, when President Eisenhower became the first U.S. president to visit the nation. Back then, an estimated 1 million joyous Indians threw rose petals at Eisenhower as he rode in an open limousine along a route where a sign heralded him as "Prince of Peace."

The headline Wednesday in the English-language Times of India, which depicted Mr. Bush wearing a cowboy hat and wielding a lasso, read: "India-US Ties Set To Soar As Eagle Lands."

But not all Indians were happy to see him.

At Wednesday's protest in central New Delhi, tens of thousands of people, many of them Muslim, chanted "Death to Bush!" and waved placards reading, "Bully Bush, Go Home." Muslims in India's part of Kashmir also protested the Bush visit.

"The people of India have a categoric message for George Bush: Go home!" V.P. Singh, a former prime minister of India, said to roars of approval from the crowd.

The last-minute efforts to craft the nuclear pact coupled with Wednesday's protests reflected India's mixed feelings toward Mr. Bush and the United States — a country seen both as a loyal friend and a global bully.

Some lawmakers in Washington argue that the Bush administration is making a side deal to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Critics in India are wary that the United States is meddling in Indian affairs, and is using India as a counterweight to China's growing economic and political influence.

Mr. Bush plans to spend Thursday and Friday in India before leaving Saturday morning for Pakistan.