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Any Cut in U.S. Missile Defense Budget `Harmful,` Rumsfeld Says By Tony Capaccio Washington, Sept. 6 (Bloomberg) -- A Senate committee`s projected cut of $1.3 billion in the Bush administration`s budget for missile defense could set back both the program and U.S. efforts to win Russia`s acceptance of the system, said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The Senate Armed Services Committee is set to make the cut tomorrow because the full $8.3 billion request isn`t justified, particularly since the administration hasn`t said whether it would fund activities that violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the committee chairman, Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, told the Washington Post. The request is about $3 billion more than the Clinton administration earmarked for fiscal 2002. Most of the extra money would pay for expanded testing of air, sea and ground-based components of a ``layered`` missile defense system. The cut would be ``very harmful,`` Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon. ``It`s big as a percentage; it`s enormous. It delays things. It causes a change in the program that has been put together.`` The cut also would complicate U.S. efforts to reach an accord with Russia that replaces the ABM Treaty and accommodates missile defense, Rumsfeld said. ``What kind of a signal does it tell the Russians?`` he said. ``It tells them that at least that those individuals who proposed those things think differently than the president, and I suppose then that they make their calibrations based on that. No one could in any way characterize it as helpful.`` The committee`s cut would have to survive the full Senate and be reconciled with the Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee`s approval of the full $8.3 billion over Democrats` efforts to shift about $1 billion to other military programs. In addition, a cut could be restored by the House and Senate panels that approve spending for the fiscal year. Those panels have not yet started work on the defense budget. Levin`s Concern Levin says the administration hasn`t clarified conflicting accounts as to whether missile defense testing planned for next year would violate the ABM Treaty. The program has no firm price tag or definite deployment dates, but it includes testing and construction activities in fiscal 2002 that ``bump up against`` the treaty, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the Senate committee July 12. ``We are on a collision course,`` he said. ``No one is pretending that what we`re doing is consistent with that treaty. We`ve either got to withdraw from it or replace it.`` Wolfowitz`s remarks were counter to testimony June 13 from the Pentagon`s top missile defense official, Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, who told the committee no test activities in fiscal 2002 would violate the treaty. A Running Discussion` Rumsfeld said Levin and other missile defense skeptics are asking for unambiguous answers on ABM treaty violations where none exist. ``There`s been a running discussion on this very subject,`` he said. Rumsfeld repeated the administration`s statement that -- rather than violate the treaty -- it would give the six-month notice the treaty allows of intent to withdraw. ``It seems to me the answer is pretty clear: If we get to the point as the president has said it looks he can`t make a cooperative agreement with the Russians, he`ll have to make a decision as to what he does about it,`` Rumsfeld said. ``He doesn`t know when that will be.`` Boeing Co. is the top contractor on the ground-based system of interceptors, sensors and communications equipment that is the most technologically advanced of any U.S. antimissile system. |
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| aus der Diskussion: | aerospace & defense |
| Autor (Datum des Eintrages): | southbound (06.09.01 23:46:51) |
| Beitrag: | 9 von 28 (ID:4373420) |
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