12 July 2001

Rumsfeld Says U.S. Will Not Violate 1972 ABM Treaty

Washington -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the United States will not intentionally violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty while engaging in research, development or testing of a proposed ballistic missile defense system.

"What we do know is that the Treaty prohibits ballistic missile defense, and we do know what we're trying to do is research and development and testing -- not deployment yet, but testing -- to develop the capability to deploy ballistic missile defense," Rumsfeld said July 12 during a press conference at a Frontiers of Freedom Institute conference on missile defense.

But at some point, Rumsfeld said the testing program is going to "bump up against" the 1972 Treaty between the United States and the former Soviet Union. The Treaty prohibits the development and deployment of nationwide defenses against long-range ballistic missiles, though it does provide for very limited use of anti-ballistic missile defenses.

The Bush administration has proposed developing a working system of land-based, sea-launched and airborne weapons to intercept long-range ballistic missiles launched from smaller nations antagonistic to the United States.

To achieve that, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said July 12, the Pentagon has plans to begin construction next April to prepare for new tests of a ground-based missile defense system at Fort Greely, near Fairbanks, Alaska. The proposed test bed will include a command center and five missile silos at Fort Greely, and five more silos on Kodiak Island. And, the plan calls for upgrading radar systems in Alaska and Aegis-shipboard radar systems to track long-range missiles.

Ten flight tests are planned for this year and next under an accelerated schedule that involves ground-based missile interceptors, according to the Pentagon.

Rumsfeld said the Bush administration is working to reach a new understanding with the Russian government that would preclude violating the 1972 Treaty. But he also said, "the Treaty is an impediment" to a robust research and testing program.

"If we have not figured out a way to get beyond the Treaty during the period immediately ahead when something evolves that we have to do, we will not break the Treaty," he said. The United States and Russia will have to achieve mutual agreement that will allow the United States to continue its testing program, he said.

The Treaty does contain a provision that allows one of the signatories to the Treaty to withdraw from it with six months' notification, he said. "Now, is that going to happen," Rumsfeld asked. "No. I think we're going to find a way to have a mutual understanding."

Rumsfeld also said the argument posed by some critics of the Bush administration plans -- that a ballistic missile defense system creates instability among nations with nuclear weapons -- "just falls of its own weight. They threaten no one. They bother no one, except a country that attempts -- that thinks they want [to] have ballistic missiles to impose their will on their neighbors. They're not offensive, they are defensive."