INHERENCY: OPPOSITION MAKES DECISION FOR NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE DIFFICULT

NMD IS BLOCKED NOT BY TECHNOLOGICAL BUT ADMINISTRATIVE BARRIERS

An effective missile defense system will protect the United States, U.S. troops deployed overseas, and America's friends and allies from the terror of a ballistic missile attack. The most formidable barriers to deployment of missile defense are not technological. Although the press pays excessive attention to flight tests and reports on the state of that technology, the most formidable barriers to deployment are policy decisions of the past eight years. A lack of political will, a failure of leadership, a destructive arms control policy, an overly bureaucratic acquisitions and management process, and a failure to pay attention to the seriousness of the missile threat have seriously obstructed progress.

CONSIDERABLE OPPOSITION TO DEPLOYMENT OF NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE EXISTS IN CONGRESS

Joseph Perkins The San Diego Union-Tribune March 12, 1999, SECTION: OPINION Pg. B-11: HEADLINE: Why we need full speed ahead on a national missile defense system; As unfriendly nations develop weapons, the possibility increases that one will launch a missile // lnu-acs

Yet despite the growing potential threat of a ballistic missile strike against the United States -- either accidental, which presumably would be the case with India, or intentional, possibly in the cases of Iran or North Korea -- there remains considerable opposition in Congress to deployment of a national missile defense system.

DEMOCRATS WANT ARMS CONTROL, REPUBLICANS WANT NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE

ERIC SCHMITT, The New York Times August 30, 1999, SECTION: Section A; Page 1;  HEADLINE: DEMOCRATS READY FOR FIGHT TO SAVE TEST BAN TREATY // lnu-acs

At the core of the dispute between the Senate and the Administration is a fundamental difference in arms control priorities. Democrats are seeking to maintain and build on three decades of deals that limit and reduce nuclear arsenals and countries' ability to develop more powerful atomic weapons.

Republicans argue that the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and the means to deliver them, has rendered traditional arms control useless, and that building a national defense against long-range attackshould be the country's top goal.