At the Pentagon, an official said on Wednesday that U.S. defense officials would outline a missile defense plan on Thursday that would propose breaking ground at a test site in Alaska next month.

Washington has told Russia that it plans to violate the 1972 Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty, according to the documents, which were sent out as guidance to U.S. embassies a week ago.

Moscow has viewed the treaty as the cornerstone of strategic arms control although Russian leaders have said recently it would consider amending the pact.

The papers said the United States had told its allies and Russia that it would seek capabilities prohibited under the pact, including sea-based and other mobile methods -- such as an airborne laser -- to shoot down long-range missiles in an action often compared to chasing a bullet with a bullet.

The documents were the most explicit public sign yet of what a senior State Department official said Washington had told Russia and its allies months ago -- that the Bush administration expected to depart from ABM sooner rather than later.

The 24-page document said that Washington had told Russia and its allies that ``while we do not know precisely when our programs will come into conflict with the ABM treaty in the future, the timing is likely to be measured in months, not years.''

``We will pursue all promising technologies and basing modes, including those prohibited under the treaty,'' the papers said.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher broadly confirmed the authenticity of the documents, saying that embassies had been sent points to use to support missile defense.

The documents said that a test system for fiscal year 2002, which begins on Oct. 1, marked a first step in reviewing the approach of the Clinton administration, whose policy was to amend rather than scrap the 29-year-old treaty.

REFLECT THE GOALS OF THE NEW ADMINISTRATION

``The test program will be modified and built upon to reflect the goals and guidance of the new administration,'' the document said. The next test is due Saturday.

Bush's proposed 2002 defense budget submitted to Congress on June 27 seeks $8.3 billion for missile defense, nearly 50 percent more than in the current budget.

Bush argues that with the end of the Cold War, U.S.-Russian relations should no longer be based on ``Mutual Assured Destruction,'' and that the key new danger is now from ``rogue states'' like North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

Some European allies have expressed concern about the risk that such a system could spur others to build more weapons, essentially fueling an arms race.

The documents said an interim ground-based system could be deployed as soon as 2004 in Alaska, which would violate the ABM treaty as it envisaged interceptor missiles shielding only two sites -- a major city and the nuclear arsenal itself.

Test assets could be adapted ``as soon as possible to provide an interim capability against near-term threats.''

In a clear reference to the threat from North Korea, which according to CIA estimates could have tested missiles capable of striking U.S. cities by 2005, the documents said an interim system offered more protection against longer-range missiles than it had now -- which was none.

The Bush administration said Tuesday it was planning to expand its test program to possible sites at Fort Greely and Kodiak Island in Alaska as part of what Rear Admiral Craig Quigley, a Defense Department spokesman, called a vast Pacific ''test bed'' to allow for more realistic intercept tests.

Now the only integrated tests of interceptors designed to shoot down long-range missiles are launched from a range in the Kwajalein Atoll of the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

In the three flight tests so far, interceptors have succeeded only once in smashing a dummy fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited

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