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The Secretary of Defense,

Washington, DC, July 28, 1995.

Hon. Sam Nunn,

Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

[Page: S11244]
Dear Senator Nunn: I write to register my strong opposition to the missile defenseprovisions of the SASC's Defense Authorization bill, which would institute Congressionalmicromanagement of the Administration's missile defense program and put us on a pathway toabrogate the ABM Treaty. The Administration is committed to respond to ballisticmissile threats to our forces, allies, and territory. We will not permit the capability of the defenseswe field to meet those threats to be compromised.

The bill's provisions would add nothing to DoD's ability to pursue our missile defense programs,and would needlessly cause us to incur excess costs and serious security risks. The bill wouldrequire the U.S. to make a decision now on developing a specific national missile defense fordeployment by 2003, with interim operational capability in 1999, despite the fact that a validstrategic missile threat has not emerged. Our NMD program is designed to give us the capabilityfor a deployment decision in three years, when we will be in a much better position to assess thethreat and deploy the most technologically advanced systems available. The bill would alsoterminate valuable elements of our TMD program, the Boost Phase Intercept and MEADS/CorpsSAM systems. MEADS is not only a valuable defense system but is an important test of futuretrans-Atlantic defense cooperation.

In addition, certain provisions related to the ABM Treaty would be very damaging toU.S. security interests. By mandating actions that would lead us to violate or disregard U.S.Treaty obligations--such as establishing a deployment date of a multiple-site NMD system--the billwould jeopardize Russian implementation of the START I and START II Treaties, which involvethe elimination of many thousands of strategic nuclear weapons. The bill's unwarrantedimposition, through funding restrictions, of a unilateral ABM /TMD demarcationinterpretation would similarly jeopardize these reductions, and would raise significantinternational legal issues as well as fundamental constitutional issues regarding the President'sauthority over the conduct of foreign affairs. These serious consequences argue for conductingthe proposed Senate review of the ABM Treaty before considering such drastic andfar-reaching measures.

Unless these provisions are eliminated or significantly modified, they threaten to underminefundamental national security interests of the United States. I will continue to do everythingpossible to work with the Senate to see that these priorities are not compromised.

Sincerely,

William J. Perry.



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