Here we go again....

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxx>]

[From the NYT]

June 19, 2001
Putin Says Russia Would Counter U.S. Shield
By PATRICK E. TYLER

MOSCOW, June 18 - President Vladimir V. Putin said today that if the
United States proceeded on its own to construct a missile defense
shield over its territory and that of its allies, Russia would
eventually upgrade its strategic nuclear arsenal with multiple
warheads - reversing an achievement of arms control in recent
decades - to ensure that it would be able to overwhelm such a shield.

Mr. Putin made his comments in a meeting with American correspondents
that lasted nearly three hours tonight and was organized last week to
give him an opportunity to explain his views after his summit meeting
with President Bush in Slovenia on Saturday.

The Russian leader emphasized that though he is buoyed by Mr. Bush's
pledge that Washington and Moscow will work cooperatively in coming
months to investigate the full ramifications of Mr. Bush's vision for
a new security framework that includes missile defenses, Russia is
also very alert to unilateral American actions.

And in response to comments made Sunday in Washington by Mr. Bush's
national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that the United States
would proceed with missile defense with or without Russia, Mr. Putin
said Russia would not threaten or try to prevent American actions, but
would "augment" its nuclear forces without regard to treaties that now
require the elimination of multiple warheads.

"When we hear statements that the programs would go with us or without
us, well, we cannot force anyone to do the things we would like them
to," he said. "We offer our cooperation. We offer to work jointly. If
there is no need that such joint work is needed, well, suit yourself."

However, Mr. Putin added, "we stand ready" to respond to any
unilateral American action, even though Russia does not see an
immediate threat from a missile shield.

"I am confident that at least for the coming 25 years" American
missile defenses "will not cause any substantial damage to the
national security of Russia," he said. But he added, "We will
reinforce our capability" by "mounting multiple warheads on our
missiles" and "that will cost us a meager sum." And so, he said, "the
nuclear arsenal of Russia will be augmented multifold."

He said both the Start I and Start II treaties would be negated by an
American decision to build missile defenses in violation of the
Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. Such a step would eliminate
verification and inspection requirements, he said, reviving an era in
which Russia would hide its abilities and intentions.

Mr. Putin said Russia was ready to move expeditiously on talks with
Mr. Bush's top aides, but he said he believed that the two sides first
needed to discuss whether serious threats actually existed or might
emerge in the future, then determine what missile defense technologies
might be brought to bear against them, and then determine what
provisions of the ABM treaty came into conflict with such a system.

Speaking in the Kremlin library at the round conference table where he
met President Clinton last year, Mr. Putin also stated for the first
time that Russia had taken an interest in ensuring that China's
strategic concerns are addressed in the debate.

China has a much smaller nuclear missile force and fears that its
national nuclear deterrent would be nullified by missile defenses.

"One must be very careful here," he said. "The transparency of our
action is very important, lest none of the nuclear powers would feel
abandoned or that two countries are making agreements behind their
backs."

Asked if he had made a commitment to China, he replied, "there is a
commitment to preserve the balance of security that we have now in the
world as a whole and in this sense, China is an important element, and
not only China." Mr. Putin said the United States should bear in mind
China's strong economic potential and its growing ability to respond
to national security threats.

He said what concerned him most was that a unilateral American
deployment of missile defenses could "result in a hectic, uncontrolled
arms race on the borders of our country and neighboring countries."

Mr. Putin said he reported to the Chinese president, Jiang Zemin, by
telephone today the results of the meeting and Mr. Bush's message
about a cooperative approach to examining threats to international
security. Mr. Jiang and Mr. Putin met last week in Shanghai with
Central Asian leaders to form a security and trade cooperation pact.

Speaking through an interpreter, Mr. Putin joked that he had tried to
speak some English with Mr. Bush, but he said he feared that Mr. Bush
had only pretended to understand him.

He also spoke with pride about his record as a career K.G.B. officer,
pointing out that former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger had
once told him that "all decent people start out in intelligence," as
Mr. Kissinger did. Then Mr. Putin added, referring to President Bush's
father, who served as director of central intelligence, "The 41st
president was not working in a laundry, he was working at the C.I.A."

While Mr. Putin directed his most pointed remarks at the comments of
Ms. Rice, he praised a statement by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
that the United States was not seeking the "destruction" of the ABM
treaty. He said he had "taken due note" of Mr. Powell's assertion that
Washington was seeking "effective but limited" defenses against
potential ballistic missile threats from so- called rogue nations.

In identifying with Mr. Powell's formulation, Mr. Putin appeared to be
signaling a hope that the Bush administration could be persuaded to
work within the ABM treaty to develop the kind of limited defense
system that Russia itself proposed.

Mr. Putin acknowledged that he and Mr. Bush had talked in detail about
Iran, and Russia's growing arms relationship with its leaders. He said
Russia had a "complex relationship" with Iran, but he praised
President Mohammad Khatami as a "very moderate and very worthy
partner" who was trying to bring Iran out of isolation.

He said Russia was committed not to supply nuclear or ballistic
missile technologies to Iran, but would continue to sell defensive
arms to Tehran, and he complained that the United States was guilty of
"unfair competition in the arms market" by insisting that these sales
should cease. He revealed that he had provided Mr. Bush with the names
of American companies who have recently been in Iran offering "large
scale" cooperation, which he did not specify.

Still, the Russian leader said he took seriously the concerns of both
Israel and the United States about the sale of dangerous technologies.
If Russian individuals or companies continue secretly to provide Iran
with illicit arms and technologies "to make money - we will try to
terminate these activities." He then proposed that Russian and
American intelligence agencies step up their cooperation to counter
the trafficking in dangerous technologies, "irrespective of the
country of origin."

Mr. Putin called on the United States to take a more precise position
on how Moscow and Washington might cooperate to fight Islamic
extremism emanating from the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.

He pointed out that terrorist camps in Afghanistan, known to both
United States and Russian intelligence services, had trained
terrorists responsible for the deaths of both Russian and American
citizens.

"We have to define a position on the Taliban," he said. "We need to
know what to do about them."

Mr. Putin said he had spent some time in his discussions with Mr. Bush
responding to American criticism of Russia's military campaign in the
rebellious republic of Chechnya, the Kremlin's campaign against the
country's only independent television network, NTV, and Moscow's
pressure on neighboring Georgia.

On Chechnya, Mr. Putin, without mentioning the name of his
predecessor, laid responsibility for the catastrophe in Chechnya on
Boris N. Yeltsin's 1995 decision to "de facto" recognize Chechnya's
independence, paving the way for the Islamic extremism there and the
rise of warlords who, he said, divided the republic into criminal
fiefs.

He did not address allegations that the military campaign against the
Chechen rebels that precipitated his own political career in 1999 had
led to widespread assaults on civilians and left hundreds of thousands
homeless.

But he said he asked Mr. Bush what the American leader would have done
if terrorist bands "from down south" had seized "half the state of
Texas" and used it as a base of terrorism.

Mr. Putin said it was "not a fundamental question to us whether
Chechnya becomes independent or stays within Russia," but rather that
Russia's goal was to ensure that it never again serve as a "launching
pad for terrorist acts." His complaint about Georgia was couched in
similar terms. He asserted that when Mr. Yeltsin was still in office,
he won the agreement of President Eduard A. Shevardnadze of Georgia to
allow Russia military forces to attack Chechen rebels taking sanctuary
on Georgian territory and that Mr. Shevardnadze reneged.

"This is the only problem we have with Georgia," Mr. Putin said,
defending his decision to impose a strict visa regime on Georgian
citizens as necessary to stanch the flow of Chechen rebels across the
Georgian frontier.

On the sensitive issue of freedom of the press in Russia, Mr. Putin
provided no details about his own role in fostering the Kremlin-backed
takeover of the country's largest independent television network. But
he accused Vladimir Gusinsky, the media baron and NTV founder, of
"garnering about $1 billion" of state funds in building the network,
which Mr. Putin said he thought would never be paid back.

And he said it might take a number of years for the Russian economy to
sustain a full spectrum of economically independent media
organizations, and he added, "I am very confident that without a free
media, we cannot have a normal democratic society."