Excerpt from Pentagon Spokesman's Regular Briefing Transcript

Pentagon Spokesman Ken Bacon briefed following the briefing on the Joint Strike Fighter by Dr. Jacques Gansler, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.

Following is an excerpt from the Pentagon transcript:

DoD News Briefing
Thursday, June 22, 2000 1:30 p.m. EST
Presenter: Mr. Kenneth H. Bacon, ASD PA
(Also participating: Dr. Jacques Gansler, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics)

Bacon: All right. Questions? Yes?

Q: Ken, I'm sorry I didn't get this question to Dr. Gansler. The question basically is, is the National Missile Defense system as it would be initially established on Shemya island, would that system have any kind of utility, any kind of workability to protect Japan from missiles from North Korea, or is that stuff just going to be too low and too far away, or do you know? And then there's a second part to this.

Bacon: The Shemya radar -- and all that would be on that island at the end of the Aleutian chain is a radar, an X-band radar.

It is designed to be part of a national missile defense system that protects the 50 states in the United States from attack.

We are working with Japan an on entirely separate theater missile defense system that would meet Japanese needs. They don't need to be covered by a national defense system that would cover the United States. It's more effective for them to work on a theater missile defense system, and they are doing that.

Q: Is the deadline -- thank you. You anticipated my second question. Is the deadline going to be '05, as it is anticipated that the deadline for that first national ballistic missile defense in Alaska would be? In other words, this anticipation of '05 for our national missile defense, is that going to be the same for the Japanese?

Bacon: The Japanese will have to make their own determination on that, and they will -- it's up to them to meet their own national security needs. We have volunteered to work with them on theater missile defense. But the Japanese government and the Japanese people will have to decide what the threat is, and if and when they need a theater missile defense system deployed.

Q: Oh, so they will call their shots and we will help them?

Bacon: It is a system to protect Japan being built by Japan to meet its own security needs. And, yes, they, as a sovereign nation, will make those decisions.

Q: Thank you.

Q: The Secretary Cohen meeting with Lord Robertson today, have they already met?

Bacon: They are meeting sometime this week --

Staff: Two-thirty is the honor cordon.

Bacon: Yeah, they're meeting momentarily. I think Lord Robertson is arriving at 2:30, in five minutes.

Q: Do you know anything about their agenda? Do their discussions include missile defense or any --

Bacon: Well, I'm sure it will come up. I saw a wire service report today saying that Lord Robertson said that we ought to consider some of the suggestions made by the Russians. This happens to be our view as well. When Secretary Cohen was in Moscow, he said that we were anxious to sit down with the Russians and talk to them both about their boost phase intercept ideas as well as their theater missile defense ideas for protecting Europe. So we agree. We would like to sit down and talk with the Russians. And as I said last week, we've actually made proposals to them as to a specific date, and I don't have any new information on whether these topics actually will be discussed on June 25th and June 26th with the Russians.

Q: Are they going to be discussed with the Russians?

Bacon: I said I don't have any information as to whether they've accepted or not.

(end Pentagon transcript excerpt)

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