Missile Defense System

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates took the Bush administration's campaign to install a missile defense system in Eastern Europe to the highest levels Monday, meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin, the plan's fiercest opponent.

Easing the U.S. push for a European missile defense system, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told NATO allies Thursday that the Obama administration was reviewing plans for the controversial program and hoped to reopen talks with Moscow, which is bitterly opposed to the project. Gates, echoing views of other top administration officials, said the U.S. would consider whether the system was affordable and technologically feasible as plans move forward.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski said he believes that the U.S. will honor its agreement to build a missile defense base in his country, adding that scrapping the project to improve ties with Russia would be an unfriendly gesture toward Poland. President Obama has acknowledged that he sent a letter to Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev that said curtailing Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons would lessen the need for a U.S. missile defense system in East Europe, a project Moscow sharply opposes.

In a harsh indictment of current defense policies, Bob Dole blasted the Clinton administration on Tuesday for policies that he said had encouraged a "rogue's gallery of terrorists" to develop nuclear and missile technologies that could be aimed against the United States.

Inviting a veto, the Senate finished work Friday on a defense bill that spends $6.4 billion more on the military than President Clinton had requested. But in separate legislation, a bipartisan group of key lawmakers agreed to a compromise designed to develop a national missile defense system without undercutting the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The Clinton Administration has threatened to veto this measure as well.

The successful U.S. missile strike against a failing spy satellite 133 miles above the Earth on Wednesday bolstered the credibility of America's long-troubled missile defense system, according to military experts. U.S. military officials have sought to play down the strategic value of the operation, saying that it was solely intended to take out a malfunctioning satellite hurtling toward Earth with a tank of toxic rocket fuel.

With American officials working to close a deal on a missile defense system in Europe, the head of the U.S. program warned Thursday that Iran was within two or three years of producing a missile that could reach most European capitals. "They're already flying missiles that exceed what they would need in a fight with Israel. Why? Why do they continue this progression in terms of range of missiles? It's something we need to think about," Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering III, director of the U.S.

President Bush is sending his administration's two top foreign policy officials to Moscow next week for talks on security issues that have aggravated relations with Russia, particularly a controversial U.S. plan for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe. The visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will be their second to Moscow in five months.

In an effort to repair its strained relationship with the Kremlin, the Bush administration announced Tuesday that it had combined more than a dozen bilateral issues into a single document that it hopes will breathe new life into intractable negotiations between the governments. But U.S.

President Bush said he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin next week in Russia to try to break a logjam over a proposed U.S. missile defense system in Europe. Bush is accepting Putin's invitation for a meeting in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi on April 6, to come at the end of the president's trip, starting Monday, to Ukraine; the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania; and Croatia.