The weapon that will not wither

By Jim Anderson

WASHINGTON (DPA): In Washington, if you want to put out a message with the widest possible circulation, there is a foolproof way to do it.

First, you have it classified as top secret. Then, you leak it to the newspapers and television networks. Works like a charm every time.

This is the process by which the leading newspapers all featured stories about a report -- called a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) -- that assessed the impact of the U.S. government proceeding with a national missile defense system.

The report said the limited system would only protect the U.S. mainland against a relatively weak missile attack from countries the United States formerly called "rogue", such as North Korea.

The problem -- as becomes evident in the NIE, put together by all the American intelligence agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency -- is that the rest of the world doesn't believe the American assurances about the system remaining limited.

The intelligence report said a high probability exists that China would respond to an American missile defense network by beefing up its offensive missile systems -- increasing its number of intercontinental missiles and large warheads -- and placing some on mobile launching platforms, where they couldn't easily be targeted or destroyed by the American missiles.

In other words, back to the Cold War, with the Chinese (and probably the Russians, as well) responding to an American missile defense system by preparing to build enough new weapons to overwhelm an American nuclear shield.

Despite this expected arms build-up, all the major political figures in the American presidential race favor going ahead with some form of a national missile defense, which is why the Chinese and Russians don't believe the Clinton administration's assurances about keeping the missile shield limited.

None of the American political figures sees any electoral advantage in suggesting that the missile defense either be scrapped or postponed indefinitely.

Meanwhile, the North Koreans, who seem to be learning a thing or two about how to operate in the international political arena, have told the Russians that they would be willing to freeze their ballistic missile program if the Americans -- or somebody else -- would do the heavy lifting in putting a North Korean satellite into orbit.

The Americans are, in theory, interested but only if the launch of the missile is in someplace other than North Korea. So far, the North Koreans have been noncommittal about the details of their offer and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright left a meeting with the North Korean foreign minister no wiser about Pyongyang's exact conditions.

The irony is that there is no evidence that the American system, as currently designed, can work. Successive tests have either failed or have been so patently rigged to ensure success that they are unreliable.

President Bill Clinton was scheduled to have made a decision about whether to go ahead with the system by now, but his Pentagon chief, William Cohen, said not enough valid information is available to make a recommendation about whether to go ahead.

And meanwhile, the presidential campaign continues with the major candidates seeking to outbid each other on being tough on defense issues. Those get-tough stances will not get better; in fact, they will only worsen as the two major candidates prepare to debate each other.

It is not realistic to expect either George W. Bush or Al Gore to take the high road by announcing in such a politically loaded arena as a nationally televised debate that it just isn't wise to move ahead on an enormously expensive, dangerous and unproven anti-ballistic missile system.

And so, despite almost universal international opposition, the United States appears to be locked into a decision that could start a new arms race.