Alaskan missile test site given immediate go-ahead, Senate told

Signalling determination to press ahead with its controversial missile defence plans, the US administration yesterday set out to Congress its plans to start work immediately on an Alaskan test launch site.

The Deputy Defence Secretary, Mr Paul Wolfowitz, told senators that the White House intends to put in place by 2005 a basic missile defence system, despite objections from allies and Russia that such a system would violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.

The work on the Alaska site, at Fort Greely near Fairbanks, will not initially violate the treaty, which allows signatories to develop one land-based defence site. The Russians have one protecting Moscow.

The Defence Secretary, Mr Don Rumsfeld, told journalists on Wednesday that he expects to "work out an arrangement with the Russians".

But US embassies abroad have been told to notify allies that the US intends in the nottoo-distant future to test "other technologies and basing modes, such as air and sea-based capabilities" against long-range missiles. Mr Rumsfeld says a multi-layered approach will include sea-based missiles as well as laser weapons on aircraft. Such developments will involve renegotiating or repudiating ABM.

The announcement of the strong commitment to such a testing programme comes only two days before (and irrespective of the results of) another attempt this weekend to shoot down a missile in flight, the first in a year. In the last test, last summer, the "kill-vehicle" failed to hit the incoming missile, leading to a decision by President Clinton to delay plans to start work in Alaska pending further tests.

The administration has until now been coy about specifics of its missile defence plans and its emphasis on testing has muted criticism from Europe where most concerns focus on a system based on interception of missiles approaching the US at the end of their flight rather than early interception. If the US wishes to develop missile defence, the argument goes, it should be specifically targeted at and close to "rogue" states rather than jeopardising classical deterrence structures by providing a shield against Chinese or Russian missiles.

Yesterday's announcement that all options still remain open will do little to reassure.

A senior Kremlin aide said yesterday that Moscow saw "no reason to panic" following the US announcement that it would accelerate its missile defence programme. "One way or another, we see no reason to panic and you will not see us begging the United States to stick to the ABM treaty," the Novosti news agency quoted Mr Igor Sergeyev as saying.

The US Secret Service allowed staff to return to the White House after a partial evacuation yesterday following a bomb scare, White House officials said. Part of the White House was shut down on the orders of the Secret Service after a sniffer dog trained in bomb detection raised an alert concerning a car in the driveway.

--(AFP)