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WASHINGTON
- October 25 - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's statement today
on national missile defense tests is both encouraging and discouraging,
according to the pro-arms control group Council for a Livable World.
In a statement released today, Council president John Isaacs stated: "The
positive sign is that the administration has sent a signal to the Russians
and the rest of the world that the United States will not violate the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty."
"On the negative side," Isaacs added, "the Administration continues to
insist that the treaty is a significant obstacle to the missile defense
program and that it must get beyond the treaty, with or without the
Russians, and soon. We disagree."
The tests cited by Rumsfeld that would have "bumped up" against the treaty
involved the use of Aegis radar to track ballistic missiles in flight.
While these tests are prohibited by the treaty, they are not crucial to
development of missile defense at this stage. At a Council for a Livable
World Education Fund press briefing last August, Philip Coyle, former head
of operational testing and evaluation at the Pentagon, called the Aegis
radar tracking tests a "red herring" that "are just getting people riled
up...by picking this test, they picked a technical area that's not really a
problem for them."
In fact, the tests appeared to have been scheduled earlier this year more
to destroy the ABM Treaty, or to create an excuse to abrogate the treaty,
than to develop an effective national missile defense.
However, Rumsfeld's statements do show the administration's increasing
respect for multi-lateralism. Chris Madison, director of the Education
Fund's national missile defense project, commented: "We applaud the
administration's recognition that a unilateral move to violate the treaty
now could jeopardize the international coalition against terrorism.
"We hope the administration takes the time needed to negotiate an agreement
with Russia while avoiding unilateral withdrawal from the Treaty," Madison
continued.
"However," he noted, "there were strong signals from last weekend's
Bush-Putin meeting that the Administration was prepared to announce in
January that it was giving six month notice of withdrawal from the treaty.
Such a move would be a serious setback for arms control and U.S. security."
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