Missile defense - Republicans resort to political ploys
Press release - -Thursday, July 30, 1998
Washington, D.C...The Republican Party is resorting to a series of political
ploys in a vain effort to make ballistic missile defense a key political
issue in the 1998 election campaign.
These gimmicks include forcing highly-political votes on the Senate floor,
"cooking" opinion polling results and threatening media barrages in key
states where Senators are not buying their snake oil medicine.
However, advocates of an immediate missile deployment have one overwhelming
handicap: there is no there there. After more than 40 years of work and
spending more than $108 billion -- including more than $59 billion since
1983 (source: Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear
Weapons since 1940 (Brookings Institution Press) -- the Pentagon has not be
able to produce a missile defense that works consistently and effectively
against medium- and long-range missiles. For example, the Army's
high-priority THAAD theater missile defense system has failed five out of
five tests, most recently in May.
These flops have not stopped Republican National Committee Chairman Jim
Nicholson from writing in the June 21, Washington Times that if Democrats
are not prepared to join Republicans in supporting NMD, "The Republican
Party is prepared to have this become a political issue."
Two years ago, Republicans, including Bob Dole, similarly tried to make
ballistic missile defense an issue, and failed miserably. The public was
simply not interested.
Nor have these flops stopped Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran from offering
a blatantly political motion on May 13 to bring up his measure requiring
deployment of a National Missile Defense "as soon as technologically
possible" when the U.S. is years -- if not decades -- away from such a
point. Although Cochran's motion to begin a debate failed by one vote (59 -
41), he may bring up his motion a second time.
Desperate to show support for missile defenses, the Republican National
Committee released a "cooked poll" with a question designed to produce the
answer they wanted. On July 16, the RNC put out results showing over 75% of
voters favor missile defense. To produce the desired answer, the RNC
stacked the deck by including introductory scare material about 13 Chinese
missiles targeted at the west coast of the U.S. and assumed that there
exists an "effective" missile defense system to deploy. Specifically, the
poll asked:
"Recent reports say the Chinese have 13 long range missiles targeted at the
west coast of America. Knowing this, would you favor or oppose an effective
National Missile Defense system capable of defending US territory against
limited ballistic attack?"
More credible polling, conducted in five states by Democratic pollster Mark
Mellman and Republican pollster Richard Wirthlin, found the public in each
of the states overwhelmingly reject spending more on missile defense as a
result of the South Asian nuclear tests. The question asked on June 26 was
whether residents of Kansas, Nebraska, Tennessee, Oregon and Utah would
favor or oppose a proposal to "increase the amount of money we are spending
to develop and deploy nuclear missile defenses for the United States." The
lowest level of opposition was 55% against in Tennessee and the largest 73%
against in Oregon.
Kansas: 31% support, 61% oppose
Nebraska: 32% support, 62% oppose
Oregon: 23% support, 73% oppose
Tennessee: 39% support, 55% oppose
Utah: 30% support, 64% oppose
Many Republicans such as Majority Leader Trent Lott have argued for missile
defense rather than the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as a response to South
Asian nuclear tests. Specifically, Trent Lott put out a press release on
May 29 which stated: "Only effective missile defenses, not unenforceable
arms control treaties, will break the offensive arms race in Asia and
provide incentives to address security concerns without a nuclear response."
A September 1997 national poll also conducted by The Mellman Group confirmed
the public split on whether or not to build a national missile defense: 42%
favor such a defense, 39% oppose, with 19% undecided. The question:
"Supporters of building a U.S. ballistic missile defense system say that
right now the U.S. has no defense against ballistic nuclear missiles fired
from other countries and that this law [a Republican bill to mandate
deployment by 2003] will require the Defense Department to develop cost
effective means of shooting down incoming nuclear missiles. Opponents of
building a U.S. ballistic missile defense system say that we have been
unable to create such a national missile defense even after having already
spent 99 billion dollars to do so. It makes no sense to spend more money
for this purpose when the real threat comes from terrorists, not from
ballistic nuclear missiles fired at the U.S. from other countries. Do you
favor or oppose building a national ballistic missile defense system?"
Lastly, The Wall Street Journal reported that Empower America is planning to
run pro-missile defense radio ads in Nevada to pressure the two Democratic
Senators there to support a National Missile Defense.
John Isaacs, Council for a Livable World President, concluded: "Let the
Republican games on missile defense continue. If they try once more to make
a National Missile Defense an issue in the fall campaign, they will fail
miserably once again."
# # #
___________________________________________________
John Isaacs
President
Council for a Livable World
110 Maryland Avenue, NE Suite 409
Washington, DC 20002
V: (202) 543-4100 x. 131
F: (202) 543-6297
___________________________________________________
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