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Next President Will Make Decision on Deploying National Missile Defense

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BERNARD SHAW, CNN ANCHOR: Whether it's George W. Bush or Al Gore, it appears the next United States president will make the final decision on a national missile defense system.

Our CNN military affairs correspondent, Jamie McIntyre, joins us from the Pentagon.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bernie, Defense Secretary William Cohen told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee today that it won't be President Clinton that -- who decides whether to build a national missile defense system but rather his successor. Cohen said all President Clinton will decide this fall is whether the U.S. should begin preliminary work at a remote Alaskan island called Shemya where an X-band radar will be based. That move would preserve the option of possibly deploying the missile shield by 2005.

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WILLIAM COHEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: It's not actually a deployment decision, but it is to prepare the site should we go forward to give the next president the option of whether there will actually be a deployment of a radar, and that doesn't come until next year. So even if the president were to decide -- and I'm not saying that he will or will not -- to go forward with the letting of contracts for site preparation, the actual deployment decision itself would not come until next year made by the next president.

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MCINTYRE: Pentagon sources indicate Cohen is likely to recommend going forward with site preparation when he sends his report to the president next month, since administration lawyers have already concluded that that would not violate the ABM treaty. Cohen believes that beginning the preliminary work, including pouring the concrete foundation for the radar, would give Russia an added incentive to agree to amend the ABM Treaty -- Bernie.

SHAW: Jamie, how would European allies react to that small step?

MCINTYRE: Well, the United States is in a box at the moment. Its allies in Europe don't support the missile shield because it's upsetting arms control agreements with Russia. But in order to get Russia to agree to accept a limited missile defense, the U.S. needs to show it has the support of its allies in Europe. So this approach would buy another year to try to win the allies over, and the U.S. needs those allies because it needs to be able to put radars in both Great Britain and Greenland if this system is really going to work.

SHAW: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, thank you.

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