President George W. Bush reaffirmed on Friday his intention to deploy a national missile defense shield and cut US nuclear arsenals as his defense secretary made clear that the 1972 ABM treaty would not stand in the president's way.
The US leader restated his key election campaign promises just hours after his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin warned that the deployment of the anti-missile shield would do "irreparable damage" to international security.
Bush reminded reporters that he had pledged to deploy missile defenses and to reduce US nuclear arsenals and said: "I'm going to fulfill that campaign promise."
"My point is, is that I want America to lead the nation -- lead the world -- toward a more safe world when it comes to nuclear weaponry. On the offensive side, we can do so, and we can do so on the defensive side as well," he said.
Russia vehemently opposes NMD and so far has refused any changes to the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, which would bar deployment of even the limited anti-missile shield being developed by the US. Many US allies also are worried that fielding the system could ignite a new arms race.
However, Bush's overture on nuclear arms reductions may appeal to Moscow, which has proposed that the US and Russia cut their arsenals to 1,500 strategic nuclear warheads each, below the levels previously proposed for a START III agreement.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said a nuclear exchange with is Moscow no longer the main threat faced by the US and that circumstances had changed since the ABM treaty was signed with the former Soviet Union.
The ABM treaty "ought not to inhibit a country, a president, an administration, a nation, from fashioning offensive and defensive capabilities that will provide for our security in a notably different national security environment," Rumsfeld said.
"The president has not been ambiguous about this. He says he intends to deploy a missile defense capability for the country. He has concluded that it is not in our country's interests to perpetuate vulnerability," he said.
Speaking at his first news conference since being sworn in to a second term as defense secretary, Rumsfeld would not say whether Washington was prepared to withdraw from the treaty.
"I think it's something that's manageable," he said. "I don't know quite how it will be managed."
Rumsfeld will make his first overseas trip as defense secretary to Munich next week to attend an annual security conference.
The gathering usually draws European defense ministers and would offer the new administration a forum for its views on NMD, relations with Russia and European security.
Rumsfeld, 68, took the oath of office earlier in the day at a formal Oval Office ceremony.
Bush set three goals for him: to strengthen the "bonds of trust" between the military and civilians; defend against missiles, cyberwarfare and weapons of mass destruction; and begin to create the military of the future with revolutionary new technologies.
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