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DATE=09/19/01

TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP

TITLE=NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE?

NUMBER=6-12465

BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS

TELEPHONE=619-3335

CONTENT=

INTRO: One of the many sub-themes of editorials in the United States press about last week's terrorist attack is that it was carried out with low-technology. As some have pointed out, the hijackers who took over four U-S commercial airliners and used three of them as guided missiles, used about 30-dollars worth of small knives and box-cutters.

Now, some newspapers are questioning whether in light of the attack, this country should spend billions of dollars developing a high-technology National Missile Defense System [N-M-D] as President Bush has proposed.

We get a sampling now from ______________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.

TEXT: Although it is true that several Muslim men from Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations spent thousands of dollars learning how to fly commercial jets in U-S flight schools, the actual hi-jacking was low tech.

Groups of several men, armed only with small knives and box cutters, tiny knives used in grocery stores to cut the tops off food cartons, killed some passengers and forced pilots to open cockpit doors. Then, they flew the planes, loaded with fuel, into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A fourth attack was apparently foiled, when some passengers stormed the hijackers and crashed the plane.

Now, one of the vigorously debated sub topics is whether the billions proposed by President George W. Bush for a national missile defense system [N-M-D] to guard against rogue missiles from unfriendly nations makes sense. We begin our sampling in Georgia, where the big Atlanta Constitution says the "missile defense debate must take a back seat."

VOICE: The context of the defense spending debate, like everything else in Washington, has changed dramatically since last week. Preparing America to lead and wage a global war against terrorism, as the president has called for, has profound implications for defense priorities. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle say the unprecedented attack calls for a total reexamination of how best to use American defense resources - - one that may end the standoff, at least for now, over the administration's number one priority, building an untested 343-billion dollar missile defense [system]...

Senator Diane Feinstein [Democrat of California] put it best, In supporting the president's goals, she said, there is no need at this moment to argue over missile defense. "eventually, there will come a realization that these planes were missiles a defense shield could not defend against."

TEXT: Not so, says the Oklahoman from Oklahoma City which suggests that last week's attack is a strong argument for just such a missile shield. It says criticism of the shield, such as from Senator Feinstein, and others, misses the point.

VOICE: The logic goes like this: Since the United States can't defend against a hijacked airliner or the release of deadly bacteria in a subway, it shouldn't invest billions in an anti-missile shield. The counter-argument comes from former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who knows plenty about terrorism and terrorists. In interviews following last week's attacks, [Mr.] Netanyahu rhetorically asked whether anyone doubted that the terrorists who leveled the World Trade Center and rocked the Pentagon would have used a ballistic [missile] if they'd had access [to] them.

In other words, if terrorists could kill millions instead of thousands, would they...? Of course they would... September eleventh was a wake-up call for America. This new war will feature new threats from an enemy who will not hesitate to use any means to kill Americans...More than ever before, America needs a missile defense.

TEXT: In Colorado's Rocky Mountains, however, The Denver Post now says in a current editorial, the missile defense [is] passe.

VOICE: The nation correctly unified behind President Bush after the ...tragedies. Yet as the United States decides how to respond to the attacks, reality and logic should compel the Bush administration to revamp its foreign and military policies. [Mr.] Bush should discard his knee-jerk unilateralism and ditch [Editors: slang for "do away with"] his obsession with a missile defense shield.

... Times have changed. [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld hasn't. [President] Bush ...relies on advisers from a past generation who want to use generation-old fixes. As a result, his foreign policy has been sadly out of tune with the times. ... Nothing better symbolizes how out-of-date [Mr.] Bush's advisers have been than the push for a missile defense shield. The shield was put on the drawing boards during the height of the Cold War -- but that menace faded more than a decade ago.

Despite long-standing pursuit of the science-fiction scheme, the technology has never worked. [President] Bush has been pursuing a future technology to fight a past war. Meantime, he failed to make preventing terrorism a visible priority - - although for years, defense experts ... have warned that terrorism, not interncontinental ballistic missiles, most immediately threatens the U-S coasts and mainland.

[Mr.] Bush's multi-billion-dollar missile fantasy could not have stopped a well-financed and well-organized enemy from mounting last week's relatively low-tech attack.

TEXT: Both the Denver Post and The Atlanta Constitution have got it all wrong according to The Washington Times, which explains:

TEXT: Granted, Tuesday's terrorist assault on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon could not have been prevented by a robust national missile defense system. Most assuredly, however, it does not follow that the nation's obvious vulnerability to conventional terrorist attacks precluded the need for defense against a ballistic-missile attack. Infact, the opposite is true. Thus, it was particularly disappointing that Senate Democrats recently sought to emasculate President Bush's plan to develop and deploy an effective national missile defense system.

No doubt, Russian President Vladimir Putin was delighted with the Senate Democrats' actions. After all, the Democrats have placed Mr. Putin in a win-win position. On the one hand, as long as Mr. Putin refuses to come to terms with Mr. Bush, the Democrats will support him. On the other hand, if Mr. Bush seeks to exercise the sovereign right of the United States to withdraw from the [anti-ballistic missile] treaty after giving the requisite six months' notice, Democrats would attempt to block Mr. Bush from conducting any tests that would have violated a treaty that would no longer be in effect. ...

If there is any real meaning to the spirit of the foreign policy bipartisanship that has ostensibly arrived in Washington in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks, then Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and his Democratic colleagues will swiftly reverse their irresponsible committee votes.

TEXT: On that note, we conclude this sampling of editorial debate over the efficacy of the National Missile Defense system, in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks.

NEB/ANG/RH