Rumsfeld: 'No intention of breaking' ABM treaty

By Jamie Mcintyre
CNN Military Affairs Correspondent

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday that the United States will not violate the ABM treaty, even as it considers building a missile defense test facility in Alaska that would not be permitted under the 1972 agreement with the former Soviet Union.

He did say the U.S. has the option of nullifying the treaty, though he said there is no intention to do so.

Speaking to a small group of reporters in his Pentagon office late Wednesday, Rumsfeld said, "We want to sit down with the Russians in a way that's rational, and professional, and we don't intend to violate the treaty."

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The head of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Office, Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, has proposed building a missile defense test facility in Alaska, at which 10 interceptor missiles could be based.

However, Rumsfeld said the concept had not yet been submitted to Congress, and that because of weather restrictions in Alaska, no construction -- with the possible exception of clearing trees -- could begin until next summer.

Rumsfeld expressed confidence that an agreement will be worked out with Russia before then, but said if all efforts at reaching an understanding fail, the United States always has the option of opting out under the terms of the treaty, which would abrogate, but not violate the treaty.

"We have no intention of doing either one to be perfectly honest. We have every intention of working out an arrangement with the Russians and I think we will," Rumsfeld said. "The bottom line is the treaty is designed to not have ballistic missile defenses, and the president has decided he wants to have ballistic missile defenses, and we are proceeding on an R and D (research and development) effort to get us to point where we can have ballistic missile defenses."

Rumsfeld did not rule out the possibility that a test facility in Alaska could -- in the future -- be used to provide a limited missile defense capability, but he said that would not occur until well after an understanding had been reached with the Russians to "go beyond" what is allowed in the treaty.

"If there were some instance that gave rise to a period of tension and the risk of a ballistic missile from a hostile power, it would be unreasonable to think that you might not try at least to use something that had reached the deployment stage, just as has been done repeatedly throughout the history of our country," Rumsfeld said.

But for emphasis Rumsfeld repeated, "We have no intention of breaking the treaty. Trust me."