3 Missile Shield Tests Postponed

The Pentagon announced Thursday that it has put off three missile defense tests to avoid accusations that it violated the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an apparent sign of the importance the Bush administration attaches to its anti-terrorism partnership with Russia.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the administration still intends to cast off the cornerstone arms control pact, which prohibits national missile defense systems, whether or not the Russians agree to a new arrangement.

But he added, “We will not violate the treaty while it remains in force.”

The announcement marked a shift for the administration, which has said it wouldn’t permit the 1972 treaty to stand in the way of its effort to develop a protective shield against long-range missiles.

President Bush will discuss the missile defense issue with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin at Bush’s home in Crawford, Texas, in mid-November in what aides say is likely to be a pivotal meeting.

Analysts said that although senior administration officials appear to be debating how hard a line to take with the Russians on the treaty issue, Thursday’s move signifies that Washington’s interest in good relations with Moscow may make the U.S. more accommodating.

The Russians are providing diplomatic support, intelligence and law enforcement assistance to the United States in its effort to battle Afghanistan’s Taliban regime and Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network.

Joseph Cirincione, an official at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank in Washington who has been critical of the administration’s push for a missile defense system, said the move was intended as “a signal of good faith” to the Russians. It shows, he added, that “there may be a much greater chance of a compromise here than anyone has thought.”

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, hailed the cancellation of the tests and predicted that the administration will work out a deal with the Russians that would permit broader testing yet prevent unilateral deployment of an anti-missile system.

He said the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the ABM pact would hurt relations “with a country whose support we surely want in combating terrorism.”

Missile defense advocates, who had hoped that the White House would soon announce plans to withdraw from the ABM treaty, were displeased by Rumsfeld’s announcement.

“It shows we are, in fact, constraining our [testing] program out of concern for the treaty,” said Henry Cooper, who headed the Pentagon missile defense program under Bush’s father.

ABM Treaty Designed to Avoid Arms Race

The Nixon-era ABM treaty sought to avert a spiraling arms race by prohibiting the United States and the Soviet Union from developing anti-missile systems aimed at protecting their entire nations.

To prevent the development of such capabilities, the pact bars the United States and Russia from testing sea-based, space-based and mobile radars to track ballistic missiles.

Two of the three canceled tests would have involved the use of Aegis Spy-1 radars on U.S. Navy surface ships during a missile defense flight test that was to have taken place Wednesday of this week.

In one of the tests, the radar was to have tracked a target missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc, Calif. In the second, the radar was to have tracked the interceptor missile used in the same flight test; it was to have been fired from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific.

In a third test, the radar was also to have been used to track a Titan II rocket scheduled to launch a satellite into space Nov. 14.

Rumsfeld didn’t acknowledge that the tests would have been treaty violations.

But he added, “As we all know, treaties and most legal documents have vagueness to them.” And because the U.S. has previously promised that it would not violate the treaty, “we do not want to be in a position of having a small minority of people suggesting that we, in fact, are violating it.”

Other tests related to the development of a missile defense system are still scheduled. And the postponed tests are not seen as significantly delaying the system, which could be fielded no sooner than 2004 or 2005.

Some Say Attacks Show Need for Shield

Development of the missile defense shield was the Bush administration’s highest national security priority until the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. And officials have since insisted that the attacks, by demonstrating America’s vulnerability, have made construction of a missile defense even more urgent.

U.S. officials have been pressuring Russia to accept a new arms control deal that would permit development of national antimissile systems but also would call for sharp reductions in arsenals of offensive nuclear missiles.

U.S. officials have been warning Russian negotiators that they intend to give notice of withdrawal from the ABM treaty in January if the Russians don’t agree to a compromise by the end of the year. But even before Rumsfeld’s announcement Thursday, doubts had developed about how firm those deadlines might be.

The Russians, who worry that an antimissile shield could one day grow into a system large enough to neutralize their nuclear deterrent, recently have been making more positive noises about a possible compromise.

After a meeting between Bush and Putin in Shanghai last weekend, Putin declared that the two “made some progress; at least, I believe that we can reach agreements” on the issue.