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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (329920)	12/17/2002 12:22:38 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Bush to Deploy Missile Defense in 2004 URL: foxnews.com Tuesday, December 17, 2002 WASHINGTON — President Bush will deploy a limited defense system to protect the nation against ballistic missiles by 2004, officials said Tuesday. The system will use technologies in advanced stages of development, defense officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. A more advanced system will later be put into place. The administration is calling this "an evolutionary approach." The White House on Tuesday announced that the plan includes building 10 ground-based interceptor missiles at Fort Greeley, Alaska, by 2004 and an additional 10 interceptors by 2005 or 2006. This is supposed to provide short-term emergency capability before a fully operational missile defense system could be deployed within years. The missiles could intercept missiles from countries such as North Korea. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Tuesday that this was a modest start to make good on Bush's pledge to combat 21 st century threats. Administration officials have said previously they hoped to begin deployment of a rudimentary system by September of 2004, and Bush was expected to announce Tuesday that the goal will be met. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other defense officials scheduled Tuesday afternoon briefings to explain details of the plan. The Washington Times first reported the plan in Tuesday's editions. Once U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty became official last summer, the Pentagon moved quickly to start work at Fort Greely - 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks - on six underground silos for missile interceptors. The treaty had barred such construction by either the United States or Russia. Bush gave Russia six-months notice of the withdrawal in December 2001. The initial Bush plan is more limited than the Strategic Defense Initiative envisioned by President Reagan in 1983 that came to be known as "Star Wars." Still, Bush expanded the program significantly from the ground-based one pursued by President Clinton by also ordering research and testing on sea-based and space-based systems. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said in an Oct. 24 speech that "moving forward on missile defense, particularly by taking advantage of new technological opportunities, is an essential part of a strategy to provide the range of capabilities necessary to defend against the broad spectrum of new threats and challenges that we will confront in the 21st century." The Pentagon has begun conducting tests with short-range missile-defense systems that were prohibited by the ABM Treaty and has built and tested mobile and sea-based sensors to track missiles. "Our missile-defense program since 2001 has demonstrated that missile technology, in particular hit-to-kill technology, actually works," Wolfowitz said in his October speech. "We actually can hit a bullet with a bullet." The Associated Press contributed to this report.