President Bush said today he has decided to begin deploying a limited system to defend the nation against ballistic missiles with its first stages to be in operation by 2004.
Earlier this year, Bush pulled out of an anti-ballistic missile treaty to advance the plan.
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"When I came to office, I made a commitment to transform America's national security strategy and defense capabilites to meet the threats of the 21st century," Bush said. "Today I am pleased to announce we will take another important step in countering these threats by beginning to field missile defense capabilities to protect the United States as well as our friends and allies."
While characterizing the initial stage as "modest," he called the move a "starting point for improved and expanded capabilities later as further progress is made in researching and developing missile defense technologies and in light of changes in the threat." The plan calls for 10 ground-based interceptor missiles at Fort Greely, Alaska, by 2004 and an additional 10 interceptors by 2005 or 2006, defense officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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Three of eight tests of the ground-based system since 1999 have been judged successes by the military.
Work on the system continues at Fort Greely – 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks.
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The initial Bush plan is more limited than the Strategic Defense Initiative envisioned by President Reagan in 1983 that came to be known derisively as "Star Wars." Bush expanded the program significantly from the ground-based plan pursued by President Clinton by also ordering research and testing on sea-based and space-based systems.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the missile defense timing had nothing to do with North Korea's recent admission that it had a secret program to enrich uranium to make nuclear weapons. But, he noted, Bush cited North Korea as a threat when he promised during his campaign to build an anti-missile safety net.
"Throughout my administration, I have made clear that the United States will take every necessary measure to protect our citizens against what is perhaps the greatest danger of all – the catastrophic harm that may result from hostile states or terrorist groups armed with weapons of mass destruction, and the means to deliver them," Bush said in his statement.
The United States has asked to use a radar complex in northern England as part of a global missile defense shield, the British government said today. Prime Minister Tony Blair's Downing Street office said the government had made no decision on the written request to use the Royal Air Force base at Fylingdales in North Yorkshire.
The United States has also formally asked Denmark to allow a U.S. radar station on Danish-controlled Greenland to be used in plans to develop a controversial missile defense shield, the government said Tuesday.
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"It is a request that we are going to study very carefully with Greenland's politicians," Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen told journalists, refusing to say when he would give a response to Washington.
The U.S. request, the Danish leader said, concerned the technical upgrading of the Cold War-era Thule base, in the northwest of the Arctic island, thought to be one of the major listening posts required for the shield to be operational. President Bush has made the so-called "son of star wars" system a cornerstone of his national security policy, despite criticism at home and abroad amid fears the project will destabilize arms control efforts.
Rasmussen and his liberal-conservative coalition are known to be favorable to the U.S. plan, seeing it as a "peace project" but insisting that Russia be involved in the shield, which would use "friendly" missiles to intercept incoming missiles.
"The fear that some have, that this project could lead to a new arms race, should be rejected," Rasmussen said, backing up Bush's line that the shield is an insurance policy against attacks by so called "rogue states."
