U.S. May Buy Russian Missiles
By Ron Fournier
AP White House Correspondent
Monday, May 28, 2001; 11:14 a.m. EDT
WASHINGTON –– The Bush administration intends to offer Russia a broad range of arms purchases, military aid and joint anti-missile exercises in a bid to ease Moscow's objections to White House missile defense goals.
The package is being prepared for Bush's meetings in June and July with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and similar incentives will be extended to other allies skeptical of the administration's push to dispense with the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, said a senior administration official.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the proposals are likely to include an offer to buy Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missiles that could be used to defend Russia and Europe.
Many of the proposals have been sketched out to allies and mentioned publicly in broad terms by Bush and his aides, but the New York Times was the first to report Monday that S-300 missiles may be part of the package.
"We want to convince the Russians that it is in their best interest to move beyond the ABM treaty and to develop a new relationship with us," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told the newspaper.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov quickly dismissed the talk of a U.S. package in exchange for scrapping the ABM.
"If such proposals come – we have not yet received them – I am sure that they will not solve the ABM issue," Ivanov told a news conference.
Bush is traveling June 11-17 to Madrid, Spain; Brussels Belgium for a NATO summit; Gothenburg, Sweden for an US-European Union summit; Warsaw, Poland, to outline his hopes for Europe and NATO; and Slovenia, where he will be face-to-face with Putin for the first time.
Advisers have cast the first meeting a get-acquainted session and predict that Bush won't delve deeply into his proposals for Russia until he meets Putin again in July as part of summit of industrialized nations.
The senior administration official stressed that Bush is making similar overtures to other allies, hoping to douse fears that building a missile defense system would trigger a new arms race.
Bush does not appear ready to share technologies with China, though officials said that could change over time.
Some of the proposals build on ideas considered during the Bush presidency and pushed unsuccessfully by President Clinton. Those proposals, outlined by administration officials in conjunction with a Bush speech on the topic in April, include offers to hold joint exercises to identify and shoot down attacking warheads, to provide money for Russia's decaying radar system and share early warning date.
Bush's sales job was complicated by the defection of Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont from the Republican Party. Democrats taking over key chairmanships are wary of the Bush administration plans for the ABM treaty, and question the feasibility of building anti-missile systems.
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