Bush prepares ground for boost in defense spending

By Simon Tisdall

LONDON: The United States has invoked the specter of a devastating chemical weapons attack by the international terrorist Osama bin Laden to help justify a massive expansion of America's military forces, including the deployment of a "star wars" national missile defense (NMD) system.

The threat posed by the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction to "rogue" states and terrorists is identified by a Pentagon report as the biggest challenge to American and global security since the end of the cold war.

This assessment, strongly supported by president-elect George W Bush's nominee as defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, vice president-elect Dick Cheney, and by Republican hawks in Congress, now looks certain to be the springboard for a big defence build- up under the Bush administration that takes office a week from today.

"At least 25 countries now possess -- or are in the process of acquiring and developing -- capabilities to inflict mass casualties and destruction," said William Cohen, the current U.S. defence secretary and former Republican senator, in a foreword to the Pentagon report.

"Our unrivaled supremacy in the conventional military arena is prompting adversaries to seek unconventional, asymmetric means to strike what they perceive as our achilles heel," Cohen said.

He singled out North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Libya as countries whose missile-building programs and attempts to acquire nuclear, chemical or biological weapons posed the most pressing threats to U.S. and international security.

"Also looming on the horizon is the prospect that terror weapons will increasingly find their way into the hands of individuals and groups of fanatical terrorists or self-proclaimed apocalyptic prophets. The followers of Osama bin Laden have already trained with toxic chemicals," Cohen claimed.

Bush pledged during last year's election campaign to boost Pentagon spending by US$45 billion over the next 10 years and spend up to $70 billion on space and submarine-based defensive missiles.

But Cohen's comments, this week's Pentagon report and assessments made by a commission on space weapons convened by President Bill Clinton and by a panel chaired by the former senator Howard Baker all make clear that a big push in now under way in Republican-controlled Washington to gain much bigger spending increases.

The money is intended to fund anti-proliferation efforts, missile defenses and new generations of "big ticket" delivery platforms such as "stealth" destroyers and submarines.

Rumsfeld warned Congress last week that after a decade of static or declining post-Soviet military spending, a big effort was required to counter what he characterized as growing threats to the U.S. and its allies, and in particular to space satellites, from "rogue" states and terrorist groups.

"Forces in world politics have created a more diverse and less predictable set of potential adversaries," Rumsfeld told the Senate armed services committee. "I look forward ... to bringing the American military successfully into the 21st century. We must work together if we're to be able to address the problems of inadequate funding ... We're going to have to find new dollars in non-trivial amounts."

Rumsfeld said his first action as defence secretary would be to launch a comprehensive review of defence policy to assess budgetary needs and priorities. The United States currently spends approximately $300 billion a year on defence (compared for example with China's estimated $60 billion).

The new administration's fast-evolving defence plans will pose political problems for Bush who, while pledging to increase military spending, has also promised to deliver large-scale tax cuts. Democrats in Congress such as Senator Joe Lieberman are already publicly asking where the money will be found at a time of economic slowdown.

But given the mounting pressure from Republican hawks and from within his own cabinet, Bush is considered unlikely to back away from his vow to deploy an expanded version of NMD as soon as technical problems have been resolved. The repeated failure of NMD test firings last year persuaded Clinton to leave a decision to his successor.

The NMD element of America's counter-proliferation offensive is also certain to cause problems with U.S. allies and potential adversaries alike.

Russia and China, as well as some of America's European NATO allies, are opposed to NMD which they say will breach existing treaties, bring to a halt 25 years of largely successful offensive arms control negotiations and provoke a new global arms race. The separate inquiry led by Howard Baker has meanwhile warned that Russia's large nuclear, chemical and biological weapons stockpiles are dangerously insecure and vulnerable to theft and smuggling by terrorist groups and Russian mafia syndicates.

The Pentagon report, entitled Proliferation: Threat and Response, focuses on several key areas of concern.

Transnational: "The increased availability of dual-use technologies, coupled with the relative ease of producing some chemical and biological agents, has increased concern that use of chemical or biological weapons may become attractive to terrorist groups intent on causing panic or inflicting large numbers of casualties." It singles out the terrorist network led by the Afghanistan-based Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden as a particular threat, linking it to terrorist activity in Bosnia, Chechnya, Sudan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Pakistan and the Philippines.

States of concern: The report provides a detailed breakdown of attempts by Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and others, including Pakistan, Sudan and Syria, to enhance either their missile capability or acquire or augment weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It predicts, for example, that should sanctions be lifted against Iraq, Saddam Hussein could have an operational offensive nuclear weapon within five years. The report says that nuclear- armed India and Pakistan are engaged in a regional arms race that could have catastrophic consequences reaching far beyond the subcontinent. It accuses Iran of being dedicated to obtaining nuclear weapons and pursuing "offensive biological warfare capabilities".

Proliferators: The report says that while Russia and China have taken steps to curb the export of WMD-related technology, the activities of "entities" within both countries remain problematic. It links Russia and North Korea to Iran's nuclear and missile programs and China to that of Pakistan. It expresses particular concern about the safety of Russia's WMD stockpiles and the defection of unemployed Russian scientists to states of concern or terrorist groups.

Response: The report outlines an escalating American response to WMD proliferation ranging from improved training and protective equipment for U.S. forces based abroad and the arming of allies like Israel and Taiwan to ballistic missile defence (BMD).

BMD involves a bewildering array of weapons systems, either already deployed, in production, or on the Pentagon's wish- list,including airborne lasers and NMD.

"The NMD program is tasked to develop, demonstrate and if ordered to do so, deploy an NMD system to defend all 50 states against limited strategic ballistic missile attacks from a country of proliferation concern," the report states. "Should a decision be made to deploy the NMD system, the department of defense expects to achieve initial operating capability (IOC) shortly after 2005."

-- Guardian News Service