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5 October 2001 |
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rushing ahead with U.S. missile-defense-testing plans is no longer top priority as the United States and Russia step up cooperation in a global war on terror, the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s chief financial officer said on Friday. At the same time, the Pentagon said it was delaying the next scheduled flight test of a ground-based missile interceptor but said the delay had nothing to do with coalition -building after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Washington and Moscow had been on a collision course over stated Pentagon plans to conduct tests that would ``bump up'' against the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty within months. ``As you can imagine this is not the No. 1 subject of debate inside the department,'' said Undersecretary Dov Zakheim, the Defense Department comptroller. ``Obviously the relationship with the Russians is going to change with respect to missile defense.'' Zakheim said the Bush administration remained committed to the construction of a shield to defend against long-range missiles, possibly tipped with nuclear, chemical or biological warheads, that could be purchased by militants or ``states that are working with them.'' Before the attacks, a senior Bush administration official had given Moscow an unofficial deadline of next month to agree to changes in the ABM treaty or face a unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the pact. Signed by the United States and the former Soviet Union, the treaty bans national missile defense as well as certain types of testing that the administration wants to add possible ship-, space- and aircraft-based legs to a multi-layered shield. Withdrawal from the pact would clear the way for the start of construction of a missile defense test site in Alaska next year. Under the treaty, the United States must give six months' notice before pulling out. President Bush (news - web sites) has been trying to strike a deal with President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) to replace the pact with an arrangement that allows for national missile defense. Zakheim, speaking to a defense writers' breakfast, said the Bush administration was more confident than ever that it could avoid a fall-out with Moscow over the treaty. ``We always felt that we could reach an understanding with the Russians, and many people poo-pooed that. And I would argue that the poo-pooers'' were wrong, he said. NEXT TEST DELAYED The next flight test of a prototype U.S. missile defense had been due to take place this month, Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, the head of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, told reporters on August 15. But the test has been postponed until an as-yet unspecified date between the end of November and mid December, a Pentagon spokesman, Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, told Reuters on Friday. He attributed the delay to a desire to do more ground testing of the so-called kill vehicle's hardware and software. The postponement had nothing to do with avoiding antagonizing members of the coalition Bush is building for his ``war on terrorism,'' Lehner said. On Tuesday, Putin voiced strong support for U.S.-led military action against terrorism, saying Moscow needed no further proof of who was behind the Sept. 11 attacks for its intelligence agencies to join the battle. In addition, Russia has acquiesced to the deployment of U.S. troops in at least one former Soviet central Asian republic -- Uzbekistan -- as part of a looming campaign against Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), the prime suspect in the attacks, and his Taliban hosts in bordering Afghanistan (news - web sites). In another sign of Russia's rising strategic importance, the United States has stepped away from condemnations of Russian actions in Chechnya (news - web sites). Bush recently joined Putin in linking Chechen fighters to global ``terrorist'' groups. But Zakheim said nothing about the Sept. 11 attacks had changed the Bush administration view of the importance of building a missile shield. ``My guess is these guys will try whatever they can try,'' he said of those behind the hijacking of airliners that levelled the World Trade Center towers, damaged the Pentagon and crashed into Pennsylvania. ``I don't see leaving a big wide open gap by not having a missile defense.'' Boeing is the lead system integrator for the proposed national missile defense. TRW builds the system's battle command, control and communications system. Raytheon builds NMD's Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicle. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor on the current booster system. |
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