London Guardian
Clinton wants $60bn missile defence system to fail test
Julian Borger in Washington
Friday July 7, 2000
Senior officials in the state department, the Pentagon and the
White House itself are opposed to a planned $60bn missile defence
system and are privately hoping that a crucial test planned for
late tonight will end in failure.
The test involves launching a rocket from a Pacific island and
hitting an incoming mock warhead in space. If it succeeds,
President Bill Clinton will come under heavy political pressure
to give the national missile defence (NMD) scheme a green light
before the November election - despite the concerns of some of
his top advisers that the system is unworkable and destabilising.
"I think you have to say this is a dilemma, to say the very
least," a political aide in the White House said. "And certainly
it is possible to argue that a failure, or a mixed outcome, would
be politically easier to handle at this time."
President Clinton, a reluctant convert to the NMD project after
coming under heavy Republican attack for being soft on defence,
had been hoping to pass on a decision on the scheme to his
successor.
"He doesn't want to go down in history as the president who
violated the ABM [anti-ballistic missile] treaty," said Chris
Hellman, an analyst at the Centre for Defence Information
thinktank in Washington.
But according to new Pentagon estimates, a decision has to be
taken before the election on whether to go ahead with a key radar
installation on Alaska's Aleutian islands, for it to be ready by
the administration's self-imposed goal of having a basic network
with 20 interceptors up and running by 2005.
By that time, NMD proponents argue, North Korea could be ready to
launch a long-range missile at the US, armed with a nuclear,
chemical or biological warhead. Other "rogue states" could catch
up technologically soon afterwards.
But White House, Pentagon and state department officials have
dissented from an intelligence report laying out the North Korean
threat. They argue that it focuses purely on the communist
nation's technological potential, and not enough on political,
economic or social factors.
They also believe that the US faces a far greater threat from
terrorists carrying a nuclear, chemical or biological bomb into
the country in a suitcase. And there are considerable doubts
among defence experts and scientists over whether the scheme will
work.
Critics of the scheme say its Pentagon backers and contractors
have rigged test results to hide the fact that the
rocket-launched interceptors have serious problems distinguishing
warheads from decoys.
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Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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