Bush Proposes Missile Defense System
LOU WATERS, CNN ANCHOR: The Bush administration says the Cold War is over, so Cold War thinking on nuclear defense strategy needs to change also. In about half an hour President Bush will outline his plans for such a new policy, including the highly-charged issue of a national missile defense system. First, a preview from CNN national security correspondent David Ensor.</s>DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The president's speech will highlight sweeping changes he plans in the way the U.S. defends itself and announce that he is sending a team to hear allied concerns before he spells out the specific details later this spring.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It should be possible to reduce the number of American nuclear weapons significantly further.</s>ENSOR: The final decisions are not yet made. But officials are preparing proposals for dramatic unilateral cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, taking it from over 7,000 weapons down to as low as 1,500, slashing the number of bombing targets in Russia in the event of war, adding a small number of new targets in China: Increasing by as much as $7 billion research and development of strategic and theater ballistic missile defense systems, adding sea-based and space-based systems to the land-based plan already in testing under the Clinton administration.</s>BUSH: At the earliest possible date my administration will deploy antiballistic missile systems.</s>ENSOR: The problem for Mr. Bush: the earliest possible date for missile defense may well be after he leaves office.</s>JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT: We have years to go just in testing and research to find out if there is anything worth deploying.</s>ENSOR: What's more, the 1972 antiballistic missile treaty clearly forbids any kind of national missile defense. So kill the treaty now? A debate is raging within the administration. Secretary of State Powell and his aides favor going slow.</s>CIRINCIONE: I think withdrawal from the ABM Treaty would cause a major international crisis at this point. It could dominate the president's first year in office, and he doesn't need that.</s>ENSOR: On the other side, administration hawks like Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and their aides, are pushing hard for Mr. Bush to abrogate the ABM Treaty this spring, and go it alone on nuclear weapons.</s>RICHARD PEARLE, FORMER ASSISTANT DEFENSE SECRETARY: We should decide what we need, keep only what we need, and no more than that. And then proceed to shape our strategic forces consistent with what we judge our requirements to be. There's no reason to ask the Russians for their approval anymore than we should be asking anyone else for their approval.</s>ENSOR (on camera): Some within the Bush Administration also argue for developing new nuclear weapons, capable of penetrating deep into the earth to chemical or biological weapons facilities or leadership bunkers. But still others argue that Mr. Bush will have quite enough to do convincing wary allies to accept missile defense without asking them to accept new nuclear weapons as well. David Ensor, CNN, the White House.