#9
Excerpt
US State Department
08 November 2001
Effective Missile Defense for U.S. High Priority, Rice Says
(Holds news conference Nov. 8 in advance of Bush-Putin meetings) (5830)

Acquiring an effective missile defense system for the United States and its allies is one of President Bush's highest priorities, and he believes the only way to get there is a robust testing and evaluation system, and eventual deployment, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice told reporters at a White House briefing November 8.

Bush is not prepared to permit the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty "to get in the way of doing that robust testing," she said, in response to questions.

The President "has made clear there are a couple of problems" with the ABM Treaty that was signed with the Soviet Union in 1972, she said.

"One is that it limits our ability to explore fully the technologies that we need. And, secondly, that we need to move beyond it because it is not representative of the kind of relationship that we now have with Russia; it comes from another era," said Rice.

She spoke in advance of meetings next week in Washington and at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It will be the fourth in a series of meetings between the two leaders.

"The relationship is building steadily. I think everyone can see that the relationship has gotten better and better. September 11th gave a kind of new impetus to the relationship," Rice told reporters.

"The two Presidents will have, I'm sure, an extensive discussion of counterterrorism. They have continued to discuss this since September 11th in several conversations, as have their defense ministers and their foreign ministers. They will, of course, continue to discuss issues about the new strategic framework and how to move to a relationship that is more in accordance with their new relationship, not something based on the 1972 ABM Treaty, but these are discussions that are progressive.

"I wouldn't expect any particular arrangements to come out of any particular meeting," she said.

"This is a process that we're involved in, not a single point in time. And so, we will continue to discuss with the Russians how to move forward on a new strategic framework, we will assess what pieces of it are in place and what pieces of it still need to be developed, and we'll see what comes out of the meetings."

Rice also discussed President Bush's upcoming speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. He is scheduled to address the gathering on Saturday, November 10.

"He will take this opportunity to thank the United Nations and its member states for the quick action and strong stand against terrorism that was taken. He will reaffirm the U.S. and Allied commitment to fighting terrorism and the regimes that harbor it.

"He will urge every U.N. member to live up to both the letter and the spirit of U.N. resolutions against terror, and he will pledge U.S. support for helping developing nations build capacity to fight terror and address humanitarian cases. The President considers this an opportunity to once again state the call to all civilized countries to responsibly deal with terrorism within their own borders," she said.

The war against terror, Rice said, "is a broad coalition in which people are contributing on very different and very many fronts. The key to the broad coalition is to remember that while everybody, understandably, wants to focus on military contributions, this is not the Gulf War. An equally important part of this war on terrorism is a disruption of these terrorist cells abroad."

In the press conference Rice also responded to questions about Iraq, the military action in Afghanistan, the U.S. public information campaign, a future government in Afghanistan, President Bush's November 8 speech in Atlanta to the nation, Argentina's economy, the Middle East and the World Trade Organization.

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