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Bush Announces U.S. Withdrawal from ABM Treaty
WASHINGTON, Dec 13 (News Agencies) - President George W. Bush announced Thursday that the United States is pulling out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, over Russia's objections, in order to deploy a missile defense system.
"I have concluded the ABM treaty hinders our government's ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks," Bush declared under gray skies in the White House Rose Garden.
Despite concerns from Russia, China, and key U.S. allies over abandoning the cornerstone of Cold War arms control efforts, Bush said he had given Russia the six-months formal notice the accord requires for withdrawal.
But he insisted that the move would not threaten the "new, much more hopeful and constructive relationship" that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been crafting since Bush took office January 20.
"President Putin and I have also agreed that my decision to withdraw from the treaty will not, in any way, undermine our new relationship or Russian security," Bush said, flanked by his top foreign policy aides.
"We are on the path to a fundamentally different relationship. The Cold War is long gone. Today, we leave behind one of its last vestiges," said the U.S. leader, who is expected to meet with Putin in Russia next summer.
Putin said the move was expected but Russia "nevertheless considers it to be a mistake." That relatively mild rebuke came as senior Russian lawmakers speculated gloomily about nuclear showdowns with China, India and Pakistan.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue, meanwhile, said, "We've taken note of the relevant reports and express our concern," and called for "strategic dialogue" on the issue.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush had notified Putin of the move by telephone last Friday and consulted Chinese President Jiang Zemin on Thursday.
Fleischer said Bush earlier this week also discussed the issue with leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Japan.
The spokesman also said that Bush had decided against agreeing to Russia's push for amending the pact because Washington feared doing so would lead to "incessant wrangling" over which missile defense tests violated the accord.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at Bush's side for the announcement, later said he would meet his Russian counterpart in Brussels next week to work on "a framework that can replace the treaty."
During the 2000 U.S. presidential campaign, Bush made deploying a missile defense system against attack from so-called "rogue states" like Iraq and North Korea a cornerstone of his foreign policy platform.
But since the September 11 terror strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, he has sharply emphasized the risk of terrorists acquiring chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and missiles able to reach the United States.
"We know that the terrorists and some of those who support them seek the ability to deliver death and destruction to our doorstep via missile. And we must have the freedom and the flexibility to develop effective defenses against those attacks," said Bush.
"Defending the American people is my highest priority as commander-in-chief, and I cannot, and will not, allow the United States to remain in a treaty that prevents us from developing effective defenses," the president stressed.
Putin has been openly skeptical of that scenario and Russian officials have countered that U.S. withdrawal from the treaty, though perfectly legal, threatens global strategic stability.
The ABM Treaty was premised on the idea that denying both signatories missile defenses would curb the race to develop ever more deadly offensive weapons, as well as make them less likely to launch a first strike because that would lead to massive nuclear retaliation.
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