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US-Russia Missile Defense Accord Is Likely, Says Washington Post
The United States and Russia would allow extensive testing to develop a missile defense system and aim to cut strategic nuclear warhead levels by about two-thirds under a deal that U.S. officials said is likely to emerge from U.S.-Russian summit this month, the Washington Post (WP) reported Thursday.
The agreement would not scrap the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which U.S. officials said remains the ultimate goal of negotiations with Russia, but would allow the administration to move ahead with the vigorous testing and development program it hopes to begin early next year.
"Testing will go on, but there will be no announcement of a U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty," one official said. "That would be associated with a decision to deploy a system which will come later."
Under this interim arrangement, both countries would also set goals for slowly reducing the number of strategic warheads to between 1,750 and 2,250 each, officials said.
This would be lower not only than the 3,000 to 3,500 warhead levels set under the START II treaty, but also the proposed ceiling for a START III pact that was reached by Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin in 1997.
Implementation of START II, which was signed in 1993 by Bush's father and Yeltsin, was to have been completed by December 2007.
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