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Pentagon chief dismisses Russian objections to missile defense

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February 4, 2001 

MUNICH, FEB 3 (AP) - Russian leaders have nothing to fear from a U.S. national missile defense and are "off the mark" in calling it a threat to arms control, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Saturday.

In his first interview since taking office two weeks ago, Rumsfeld told reporters traveling with him from Washington that the anti-missile system envisioned by the Bush administration will be too limited in scope to threaten the deterrent value of Russia's large arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons.

"They know and we know and you know that the systems that are being discussed are not in any way relevant to the Russians"' nuclear force, which totals about 6,000 warheads and is shrinking, Rumsfeld said.

The secretary flew to Munich to attend an annual gathering of European defense officials and specialists where consternation about U.S. missile defenses - not only in Moscow but also in European capitals - was expected to be a major topic of discussion.

Rumsfeld also scheduled private meetings with several of his NATO counterparts, including the defense ministers of Britain, Germany and Italy.

It was the first trip abroad for Rumsfeld in his second stint as defense secretary. He served in the position for the final 14 months of the administration of former President Gerald Ford a quarter-century ago and he also is a former ambassador to NATO.

Rumsfeld said he has just begun assessing the state of the current U.S. national missile defense program and did not plan to discuss in his Munich meetings any specifics on how President George W. Bush will proceed. President Bill Clinton determined late last summer that the technology of missile defense was not sufficiently mature, and the diplomatic obstacles too serious, to commit to an early deployment.

Russia has steadfastly maintained that the U.S. project is a threat to international stability because it violates the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which prohibits anti-missile systems that defend an entire nation. Russia also has said that if the United States were to withdraw from the ABM treaty, Moscow would feel compelled to abandon agreements that limit numbers of long-range nuclear weapons.

In Geneva on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told the 66-nation Conference on Disarmament that it was "illusory" for the United States to think it could, by itself, create "isolated islets of well-being and stability in today's world" by erecting a missile shield over its own territory.

Rumsfeld stressed to reporters his view that Russia cannot make a serious case that a U.S. national missile defense will threaten it or any other nuclear power.

Prefacing his comments by saying he was trying to "be diplomatic, now that I'm back in government," Rumsfeld said "it's off the mark to suggest" that missile defenses threaten Russia.

"That is to say, the idea that a missile defense system that is capable of dealing with handfuls of (missiles) is going to change in any way the interaction between the United States and Russia with respect to ballistic missiles is just not correct. Anybody who looks at the situation knows that."

China, which has about two dozen nuclear missiles that could reach American territory, also strongly opposes the U.S. plan.

Asked whether the Bush administration intends to withdraw from the 1972 ABM treaty rather than negotiate with Russia to amend it, Rumsfeld said, "That's an open question." He said it was too early to answer it because the administration has not yet settled on its approach to deploying defenses.

Rumsfeld indicated that he believes continued adherence to the ABM treaty would prevent the United States from building the most cost-effective and technologically effective system at the earliest possible date.

"You would very likely come up with something other than (that) if you sat down and tried to design something that would fit within a treaty that was written 25 years ago when technology was notably different, when we were in a Cold War, when the threats in the world were vastly different.

"That is Cold War thinking ..." he added. "That period is over in our life. Why don't we get over it?"