Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
National Security: Bush to Present Defense Strategy Today
Aired May 01, 2001 - 10:01 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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to start, though, with a look at tomorrow and how it is taking shape today. This afternoon, President Bush presents his strategy on national security and promotes a controversial plan to build a nuclear shield. Among the strategy's first tests, deflecting verbal attacks from Russia and China.
Our military affairs correspondent Jamie McIntyre is at the Pentagon with the latest -- Jamie, good morning.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.
Well, what we're expecting to hear from President Bush today is an articulation of his over arching strategy, one to field a national missile defense as soon as possible, perhaps one that's more sophisticated or more involved than the one proposed by the Clinton administration, and at the same time advocating perhaps deeper cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, perhaps cuts done unilaterally.
The president is not expected to have any specifics in this speech, but he is expected to, there are proposals that are being presented to him to bring those number of nuclear weapons, which is now at 7,000, down to as low as 1,500.
In addition, some of the military thinkers are talking about reducing the number of targets that are identified in Russia and then perhaps adding some in China. And at the same time they want to add more money, perhaps as much as $7 billion, for ballistic missile defense systems. Those are some of the missile defense systems that are under development now. And in addition, they want to take a look at adding options for sea-based missile defense and space-based.
Now, these are all ideals that the Bush administration has talked about. The big question on a lot of these is how soon they'll be able to bring any of these to fruition, and again, there's been a debate about just how specific President Bush can be in his speech today. We were led to believe that we won't hear those specifics today, but instead President Bush will announce that he's going to begin some major consultations with European allies who have questions about the missile defense shield and also about U.S. nuclear plans.
And one interesting aspect of all this is that Pentagon sources say that for the most part the uniformed military leadership here at the Pentagon have not been included in many of the discussions about key questions such as how soon a missile defense can be fielded or how deep the U.S. should cut its nuclear arsenals.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been conducting some of those reviews, relying a lot on outside experts or people that he, advising him, and not so much on the senior military leadership. So it'll be interesting to see how all that shakes out.
But again, we'll be watching President Bush's address today to see if he gives any idea of the specifics either in the number of nuclear arms he's willing to cut or in perhaps how he would accelerate the deployment of a national missile defense system, which so far there's no technology that works at this point -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Jamie, on that note in terms of this missile defense system, isn't this the same system that eight months ago President Clinton came out and said there isn't enough evidence to work and to develop it now? Is there new information or is this just President Bush interpreting that same information in a different way?
MCINTYRE: Well, the Pentagon has consistently said that they're convinced they can make a missile defense work eventually. It's a question of time. And what President Clinton decided last year was that the time had not yet come. But the Bush administration is committed to fielding that defense and they're also talking about trying to add other technologies that would improve its capabilities, such as a sea-based component or even a space-based component.
But all of these are expensive programs and people at the Pentagon worry whether or not the money for these other missile defense systems would take money away from other conventional weapons that the Pentagon insists it needs.
You know, the U.S. military is still running a little bit behind in this year in terms of how much money they need to conduct training and a senior navy official told me just this week that if they don't get an infusion of cash in the next more or so, the navy is going to have to start cutting back its flying hours. So they're still looking for the Bush administration to come through with that promise to help rebuild the U.S. military.
KAGAN: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
