On July 25, sixty-one members of the House of Representatives wrote a letter to President Clinton urging him to “defer the decision to deploy” any NMD system. Citing the Administration’s four criteria for deployment – threat, cost, technological maturity, and arms control – the Members argued that to opt to deploy a system that has not been “demonstrated to work” and “undermines our security by provoking arms races around the globe...would be a dangerous liability.”

The next day thirty-one Senators sent a similar letter to the President. They noted that the July 7 test failure “demonstrates that it is too early to know whether deploying a cost-effective NMD system will be possible in the near future and whether it will provide real protection” against identified and potential threats. As with their House counterparts, the Senators said that they feared that “a decision to deploy would imperil, not improve” national security.

 

For more details and analysis, visit CDI's National Missile Defense page.
 

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