[PEN-L:556] re-no comment, II (investing in defense)

["Frank Durgin" <fdurgin1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

      I watched the Leher report last night. Lots of discussion about a lot
of things I can't remember now, but nothing about this.
My only prior awareness of it came from reading  Tom Kruse's Pen-l554
message. The following report is from the English Electronic Telegraph
www://telegraph.co.uk

   Frank

US boosts defence spending by
                                 £165bn
                                 By Hugo Gurdon in Washington


                                       Other nations will come under
pressure to
                                     follow Pentagon

                                 AMERICA began its biggest peacetime
military
                                 build-up since 1985 yesterday after
President Clinton
                                 and Congress agreed to increase its
defence budget
                                 by 10 per cent to $280 billion (£165bn).

                                 The turn-round after years of cuts will
include a
                                 doubling of spending on missile defence.
It was
                                 welcomed by critics who believe that
Washington has
                                 for too long spent "the peace dividend" on
civilian
                                 programmes while turning a blind eye to
national
                                 security threats left behind by the
collapse of
                                 communism. The Joint Chiefs of Staff
recently
                                 complained that the country was $15
billion short of
                                 appropriate defence spending.

                                 The switch from cuts to extra spending,
comes amid
                                 mounting concern that American
capabilities have
                                 dwindled dangerously, leaving the country
                                 ill-prepared to meet dangers posed by
rogue states,
                                 weapons proliferation and rising
instability in the
                                 post-Cold War era.

                                 In the $1.7 trillion (£1 trillion) overall
1999 budget
                                 settled on Thursday, Republican
negotiators secured
                                 an extra $9 billion of military spending
on top of the
                                 $270.5 billion agreed in negotiations with
the White
                                 House a month ago, which would have
increased
                                 defence spending by less that six per
cent.


                                 Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House of
                                 Representatives, who once complained that
military
                                 cuts meant that the Pentagon, the Defence
                                 Department's five-sided building in
Virginia, should
                                 become the Triangle, welcomed the
agreement to
                                 reverse the armed forces' recent decline.
He said:
                                 "This is the first time since 1985 that in
peacetime we
                                 have increased defence spending, because
our young
                                 men and women in uniform deserve the
support of
                                 the United States of America." Defence
spending rose
                                 in 1991 to finance the Gulf war.

                                 Republicans want annual military spending
boosted
                                 quickly above $300 billion. President
Reagan's build
                                 up, which is now credited by many with
winning the
                                 Cold War, reached its peak in 1985, when
he spent
                                 $287 billion, which after adjusting for
inflation is
                                 equivalent to $485 billion today.

                                 Of the extra money agreed on Thursday, $1
billion
                                 will be used to more than double research
on a
                                 missile defence shield, a scaled down
version of
                                 Ronald Reagan's Star Wars project. North
Korea,
                                 Iran, Pakistan and India are acquiring
sophisticated
                                 ballistic systems, and Iraq is not thought
to have
                                 abandoned its hopes either. India's Agni
missiles are
                                 extending their range beyond 1,250 miles,
and Iran's
                                 Shahab-3 will have a range of 1,000 miles
or more.

                                 North Korea's Taepo Dong-2 missile, with a
range of
                                 over 3,700 miles, will allow the unstable
Stalinist
                                 tyranny in Pyongyang to hit Hawaii or
Alaska. It is
                                 thought the Koreans are also working on a
missile
                                 which could hit Los Angeles and a vast
stretch of
                                 America west of the Rocky Mountains. US
                                 intelligence services tracked debris from
North
                                 Korea's failed satellite launch last month
for 4,000
                                 miles into the Pacific.

                                 "It underscored a major intelligence
failure in terms
                                 of what is going on in the world about
growing
                                 missile threats," Curt Weldon, a
Republican
                                 congressman, said of Korea's weapons
programme.
                                 North Korea's new range impressed on
Washington
                                 the need for missile defence because it
underlined the
                                 ability of rogue states to acquire
sophisticated
                                 ballistic systems despite international
agreements
                                 designed to prevent them from doing so.

                                 A $2 billion slice of the extra defence
spending will go
                                 to the Central Intelligence Agency,
National Security
                                 Agency and other intelligence departments
to repair
                                 their threadbare espionage networks.
Washington
                                 was caught completely off guard when India
                                 conducted nuclear tests in May.