Democrats Plan Attack on Missile Defense

Congressional Democrats plan to launch an assault on the Bush administration’s defense and foreign policies today, attacking missile defense as a waste of money that will make the world more dangerous over the next 15 years.

Sensing a political vulnerability on foreign policy, Democrats are also set to challenge the Bush administration’s vision of threats to the United States in the post-Cold War world. They plan hearings in the Senate on the imminent dangers they say are being ignored or overlooked by President Bush’s policies. And they are predicting that unilateralism, reflected in an array of rejected global treaties, will jeopardize America’s leadership role.

The policy offensive will be kicked off by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a speech to the National Press Club today. It will follow earlier broadsides by congressional leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who attacked Bush on foreign policy in July just as he was heading for meetings in Europe.

Biden’s assault, though unlikely to change the president’s foreign policy, could make it more difficult for the White House to win funding for programs such as missile defense and give ammunition to countries that are prepared to resist Bush administration pressure.

In an interview Sunday, Biden charged that the administration is sacrificing every aspect of foreign policy to missile defense.

“Everything--including relations with Russia and China, even NATO--is viewed through the prism of missile defense, which is dangerous and potentially disastrous. It weakens us. It weakens NATO. And it weakens our ability to deal with the real threats,” he said.

What Biden called “weaponizing” space--going ahead with missile defense and abrogating the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty--would create greater insecurity than at any time since the nuclear buildup in the early 1960s, he said.

“This is one of those historic moments. If they move forward, a new genie will be out of the bottle. We’ll have rejected 50 years of strategy that says, ‘Reduce weapons and all sides will feel more security,’ ” said Biden, who assumed chairmanship of the key committee this summer after Democrats won control of the Senate. “It’s a headlong rush into failure.”

In his speech, Biden will charge that the Bush administration, obsessed with what he says is a “theological commitment” to missile defense, is not paying enough attention to the more probable threats from biological terrorism and chemical weapons attacks.

The money allocated for missile defense would be better spent on making the American military stealthier, more mobile and more self-sufficient, Biden says.

The administration argues that developing a weapon that can shield the country from incoming nuclear missiles not only makes strategic sense, but has public support.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday that he would recommend President Bush veto a military spending bill after the Senate Armed Services Committee last week voted to reduce by almost half the White House request for an additional $3 billion for missile defense.

The bill also restricts White House flexibility in carrying out missile defense tests if they violate the ABM Treaty. Last month, the House Armed Services Committee cut back missile defense by $135 million.

“There is a hard core of people who, for whatever reason, are determined to kill missile defense. And I just don’t believe that vulnerability of the American people to ballistic missiles is a rational policy,” Rumsfeld said on “Fox News Sunday.”

The Defense secretary cautioned that Bush’s hands would be tied in talks with Russia unless the budget restraints are overturned. “It says to the Russians that there are those in the Senate who are not willing to give the president the freedom to go forward with a test program that he intends to go forward with,” Rumsfeld said.

But Biden intends to warn that the United States cannot disregard its responsibilities abroad.

“Our national interests can’t be furthered--let alone achieved--in splendid indifference to the rest of the world,” Biden says in a draft of his speech.

Deploying missile defense will also “raise the starting-gun” on a new global arms race, he predicts. And allowing China to continue its missile buildup in exchange for allowing the United States to build missile defense amounts to pulling back the gun’s hammer, warns Biden, who met last month with Chinese President Jiang Zemin in Beijing.

Biden says that Chinese leaders feel forced to upgrade their nuclear deterrent if missile defense becomes a reality. The Delaware Democrat charges it is “lunacy” to basically “invite” China to expand its arsenal and resume nuclear testing.

The CIA’s National Intelligence Council, which provides estimates on dangers for all U.S. departments, predicts China could deploy up to 200 warheads, potentially including multiple warheads, in response to missile defense--up from 20 intercontinental missiles today, Biden notes.

“Let’s stop this nonsense before we end up pulling the trigger,” he warns.

On Sunday, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said the administration hoped to convince Beijing not to expand or modernize its nuclear capability because missile defense is not aimed at China.

“Unless a country plans to blackmail the United States somehow, this limited missile defense system is not aimed at them. And we don’t believe that’s the case with China,” she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

By outlining a broader strategic framework for the 21st century, the United States hopes to provide China, Russia and others “an offer they can’t refuse,” Rice added. She also said that the president understands his responsibilities in global politics and the need “to be sensitive to the concerns of others.”

However, Biden warns that the real threats will enter the United States in the hold of a ship, the belly of a plane or be smuggled into a city in a tiny vial in a backpack. To press home the point, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has begun a series of hearings, scheduled to run well into next month, on these threats.

With the money allocated for missile defense, the United States could buy a whole new generation of fighter aircraft and other warplanes, including 339 F-22 warplanes to replace an aging fleet of F-15s for $62 billion, replace aging F-16s, A-10s and F-14s for another $233 billion and replace Cobra and Kiowa attack helicopter gunships for $39 billion, he added.

“We could provide our Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines virtually everything they need in the immediate future for about $385 billion--less than what a missile defense system would cost,” Biden says.