INHERENCY: BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS COMMITTED TO NMD

BUSH ADMINISTRATION CANNOT BE STOPPED ON NMD

David Warren February 22, 2001 The Ottawa Citizen SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A18 HEADLINE: Up with your missile shield //VT2002acsln

The NMD, or "son of Star Wars" in the media smartass jargon, is obviously going to proceed. The new Bush administration in the States is not peopled with aging flower children. Characters like the defence secretary, that old cold warrior Donald Rumsfeld, are not the sort to crack under diplomatic pressure. (If Brezhnev didn't put them off their breakfast, why would Mr. Putin?) The NMD is a fait accompli, if my reader can endure such a rhyming slogan.

ABM TREATY WILL NOT STOP THE BUSH NMD PLANS

Editorial The Jerusalem Post January 30, 2001, SECTION: OPINION; Pg. 8 HEADLINE: Ending the era of vulnerability //VT2002acsln

If this was not clear enough, Rumsfeld explained that the ABM treaty ought "not to inhibit a country, a president, an administration, a nation, from fashioning offensive and defensive capabilities that will provide for our security." Speaking for President George W. Bush, Rumsfeld added, "The president has not been ambiguous about this. He says he intends to deploy a missile defense He has concluded that it is not in our country's interest to perpetuate vulnerability."

BUSH WANTS TO TEAR UP THE ABM TREATY

Martin Kettle, The Guardian (London), October 15, 1999 SECTION: Guardian Foreign Pages; Pg. 18 HEADLINE: Clinton defiant as senate hawks target missile pact; America Republicans celebrate congress vote // ln-10-29-99-acs

Missile defence systems are ardently promoted by the leading Republican presidential hopeful, George W Bush, who has said that he would be willing to tear up the 1972 treaty to deploy them.

BUSH WANTS TO ABROGATE THE ABM TREATY, WHICH WOULD FREAK THE RUSSIANS OUT

Martin Woollacott, The Guardian (London), October 15, 1999 SECTION: Guardian Leader Pages; Pg. 22 HEADLINE: America: selfish, foolish and endangering the world; Xenophobes in the US senate have sent out a dangerous message // ln-10-29-99-acs

The broadest effect of the Senate decision lies in what it tells the world about the American mood. Two weeks ago George Bush Jnr, in his first major statement on defence and foreign policy, suggested that the ABM treaty with Russia needed changes because it belonged to the past era of the cold war. Perhaps he is being deliberately wrong-headed, because it is precisely because the ABM treaty is important to the Russians now, as a token of American good faith, that it must be treated with especial respect.

BUSH WILL DEPLOY NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE AND SCRAP THE ABM TREATY

Aviation Week and Space Technology September 27, 1999; Pg. 23

HEADLINE: SKIP A GENERATION // ln-10/99-acs

Toeing the Republican Party line, Bush said he would deploy theater and national missile defenses as soon as possible, and would pull out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty unless Russia agrees to modify it to allow deployment of a national missile defense system.