THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE ACCOUNTABILITY OF AMERICAN BASES

http://www.nytimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/21/international/21
MISS.html
Bush Issues Directive Describing Policy on
Antimissile Defenses
By DAVID E. SANGER

ASHINGTON, May 20 - President Bush issued a
directive today describing his approach to
deploying missile defenses and encouraging
America's allies to join in the effort. He said
his objective was to counter enemies around the
world who try to use long-range missiles "as tools
of extortion and aggression."

Mr. Bush's policy, and an unpublished National
Security Presidential Directive that aides say
closely parallels the public document, is clearly
intended to counter threats from nations like
North Korea, which Mr. Bush has repeatedly charged
with using its nuclear and missile programs to try
"blackmail."

During the last presidential campaign, the threat
that North Korean missiles could eventually reach
American shores became the justification for Mr.
Bush's argument for withdrawing from the 1972
Antiballistic Missile Treaty. He formally pulled
out of the treaty last year.

In drafting the new policy, Mr. Bush's aides have
eliminated the distinction between a "national"
missile defense and defenses to aid allies, which
the new policy calls an "artificial distinction."

"The defenses we will develop and deploy must be
capable of not only defending the United States
and our deployed forces, but also friends and
allies," the document says. Mr. Bush's aides,
briefing reporters today, said the timing of the
release was partly linked to the arrival on
Thursday of Japan's prime minister, Junichiro
Koizumi, who will visit Mr. Bush at his Texas
ranch.

Japan has been engaged in research on missile
defenses, and the North Korean crisis has fueled
political debate in Tokyo about joining in the
American-led program.

In Malaysia, the Russian defense minister, Sergei
B. Ivanov, repeated an earlier Russian offer to
cooperate with the United States in the
construction of a missile defense. But he listed a
number of conditions, including "the preservation
of each side's intellectual property, the
demilitarization of space and total transparency
regarding missile defense."

The missile defense policy put forth today is the
third policy directive that the White House has
issued since September, as it seeks to reorient
national security policy. The first was "The
National Security Strategy of the United States,"
best known for enshrining pre-emptive military
action as a keystone of American policy after the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The second called for specific action to intercept
and to counter nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons and their export. On the day it was
formally published, Spain stopped a North Korean
freighter filled with missiles headed to Yemen,
but after Yemeni protests it was allowed to
proceed.

There were few surprises in the new missile
defense policy, but it stated in clear language
some shifts in approach that have gradually become
clear over time.

It notes, for example, that "The United States
will not have a final, fixed missile defense
architecture," but rather an "initial set of
capabilities that will evolve to meet the changing
threat." One official likened the plan to the Air
Force, which regularly purchases new planes and
deploys them around the globe.

The policy appears to treat missile defenses as
another way of sowing doubt in the minds of a
potential enemy. "We must devalue missiles as
tools of extortion and aggression," the policy
says, "undermining the confidence of our
adversaries that threatening a missile attack
would succeed in blackmailing us. In this way,
although missile defenses are not a replacement
for an offensive response capability, they are an
added and critical dimension of contemporary
deterrence."

There is no talk in the policy of a shield, and no
standards by which to measure the effectiveness of
the missiles - the issue that dominated the debate
over missile defense before Mr. Bush took office.

The policy argues that by reducing, although not
eliminating, the chances that a country like North
Korea could threaten the United States with the
launching of one or two missiles, it serves the
purpose of "undermining their military utility."

The first deployments of the missiles were
announced in December. Under the plan, the
military would field a total of 10 ground-based
interceptors in Alaska and California by sometime
next year, with 10 more in Alaska the following
year.