Posted on 12/14/2001 2:20:24 AM PST by kattracks
The Pentagon (CNSNews.com) - The signing of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the United States and the former Soviet Union in 1972 in some ways contributed to the missile buildup of the years following, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday.
President Bush's decision to withdraw from the treaty, effective in six months, will allow the Pentagon to continue to test the missile defense program Rumsfeld put in place when he returned to the department last year.
The Pentagon recently had to hold up some tests because they "bumped up" against treaty restrictions, Rumsfeld said.
Now the Pentagon can explore the best, most cost-effective and easiest way for the United States to deploy a missile defense capability that will reduce the threat from relatively small numbers of these very dangerous weapons, the defense secretary said.
More important "is the fact that [the United States and Russia] each now agreed to reduce our offensive strategic nuclear weapons from thousands down to ranges of 1,700 to 2,200," he said.
In the years following the signing of the treaty 30 years ago, "the numbers of weapons soared and here we are without an arms control agreement and they're declining by thousands. I think that's not a bad lesson."
Some experts criticized Bush's decision to withdraw from the treaty. Eventual withdrawal may be necessary, but now is not the time to make that decision, said national security experts from the Washington-based Cato Institute, which supports a limited land-based system to defend the U.S. homeland.
Adequate testing of a land-based missile defense system can continue within the constraints of the treaty, Cato defense analysts Ivan Eland and Charles Pena said in a statement. Therefore, there is no immediate compelling reason to unilaterally withdraw from the treaty, they said.
Bush's claims that the treaty hinders the U.S.'s ability to protect itself from future threats by terrorists or rogue states are bogus, they said. Ballistic missiles are the least likely means by which terrorists would attack the United States. Missiles provide an immediately known point of origin, they point out, which would result in immediate U.S. retaliation.
In addition, withdrawing from the treaty could unnecessarily antagonize the Russians and may undermine the progress in the changing U.S.-Russian relationship, especially the agreement to reduce strategic nuclear arsenals and the two nations' cooperation in the war on terrorism and safeguarding Russia's stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
High Frontier, a conservative defense policy group, praised Bush for displaying "the courage of his convictions" and scrapping the treaty.
"We must hurry to build the best defenses our engineers can devise," the group said in a statement. "Our nation is vulnerable to attack - at this moment we cannot stop a single long-range missile launched at us by accident or intent."
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