ABM Treaty Ends Tomorrow; UCS: Technology Remains Key Barrier for Missile Defense; Administration to Rely on Sleight of Hand, Secrecy

6/12/2002

From: David Wright, 617-547-5552, or Eric Young, 202-223-6133, both of the Union of Concerned Scientists

WASHINGTON, June 12 -- The Union of Concerned Scientists today released the following statement by Dr. David Wright, physicist and senior scientist, Union of Concerned Scientists, and research fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on the official withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty on Thursday, June 13. The United States gave notice of its intent to withdraw last December.

"Having withdrawn from the treaty and increased the missile defense budget by more than 45 percent, the Bush administration can no longer point to the treaty and lack of money as the stumbling blocks to building a national missile defense system. Technology remains the key barrier to building missile defenses that are effective against real-world attacks.

"Unfortunately, the Bush administration plans to address the technical difficulties by sleight of hand and greater secrecy.

"First, rather than waiting until the technical issues are addressed, it plans to rush immature defense systems into the field beginning in 2004 -- well before the testing program will have subjected the technology to anything like real-world conditions. These systems will not provide 'emergency capability' against real-world threats, only the illusion of capability.

"Second, the Bush administration plans to hide its development program behind new layers of classification. As a first step, it is classifying basic information about upcoming tests, but more sweeping restrictions are expected, according to insiders familiar with the program. While the Pentagon says these restrictions are needed to keep crucial information from falling into enemy hands, the development and testing programs are at such early stages that this argument doesn't hold water. A more likely motivation seems to be to deny critics both in and out of government access to the information needed to assess the state of the technology, and thereby to keep these issues out of the public debate."