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American Morning

Heritage Foundation Conservative Discusses Bush Plan for National Missile Defense

Aired May 01, 2001 - 10:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JEAN MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: My guest this hour says national missile defense is an urgent necessity. He is Daniel Fisk of the Heritage Foundation.

Thanks so much for coming in.

Good morning. My pleasure.

MESERVE: There isn't a proven technology for a national missile defense. Is the president jumping the gun and churning the waters unnecessarily by giving this speech today?

DANIEL FISK, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Not at all. I think the president's doing the appropriate thing. He's going to commit the United States to deploying an effective system to end the vulnerability of the American people to ballistic missile threats. That's the appropriate thing to do. What we need to do now is make sure that we test every technology available to make this happen.

MESERVE: There were a lot of concerns overseas that, in effect, he will be scrapping the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty -- if not, in fact, saying so today, that this could unravel other arms control agreements and could lead to a renewal of the arms race. Is this a legitimate concern?

FISK: Not at all. The ABM Treaty died with the Soviet Union. It's a relic of the Cold War. It doesn't address today's threats. The arms races are under way, by some countries. China, for one, is continuing to build ballistic missiles, and we haven't even deployed a missile defense system. So how can we say missile defense is driving an arms race?

MESERVE: Are we putting too much money into this one system? Potentially, it's going to cost, some say, tens of billions of dollars, and others say hundreds of billions of dollars -- yet it's only one possible threat to the United States. Are we putting too much into it?

FISK: Not at all. We're not putting enough into it. We spend roughly $12 billion per year to fight terrorism. We spend 25 percent of that on basic technologies -- on missile defense. I think we're undefended when it comes to ballistic missile threat. We need to put more money into it. MESERVE: But is there more of a threat to the United States, let's say, from the rogue nations -- that's who the president has been talking about in regard to this? Is there more of a threat that a bomb will be brought in in a suitcase than a missile will be launched?

FISK: I think the threat is potentially equal from both. If they're going to attack us, they're going to look at what way's the most expedient and effective. If that's launching a ballistic missile, they'll do it that way; if it's bringing a suitcase bomb in, they'll do it that way. We should defend against both.

MESERVE: Some people say that today's speech is largely a political speech, that this is being made by the president to satisfy his conservative supporters who want him to prove that he's true to the Reagan legacy. Is this a political move?

FISK: I think it's a policy move. Yes, there's politics in it: The president campaigned on missile defense; he's fulfilling the campaign commitment. It should be no surprise to anyone. But I think it's more important to policy that we defend ourselves and our allies against missile threats.

MESERVE: This is antagonizing the Chinese, certainly. The Russians also have voiced serious concerns. How seriously should we take those concerns into account while designing this system? Can we make it cooperative? Should we?

FISK: I think we can make it cooperative. I think we should make it cooperative. I think you'll see the president reach out to both Moscow and Beijing today.

Let's be honest. The Russians speak out of both sides of their mouth on this issue. On the one hand, President Putin goes around Europe asking them to join his missile defense system, and at the same time he says the United States should not build one. At this point I think the Russians know that there's a threat to them as well as to us, and that we can find areas of mutual cooperation.

MESERVE: Daniel Fisk of the Heritage Foundation, thank you.

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