BBC News Online: World: Americas

US seeks rewriting of ABM treaty

The US and Russia remain divided over missile defence

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has issued his clearest warning yet that the United States is close to withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

He pointed to the forthcoming visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the United States - implying that some new agreement might be close between Washington and Moscow to resolve this problematic issue.

Mr Rumsfeld has long warned that US testing for a missile defence system would eventually "bump up against" the constraints of the ABM Treaty.

It appears that this point has now been reached.

Strict limits

Mr Rumsfeld said that a number of recent tests had been modified or abandoned because a potential legal argument could be made that they were in breach of the treaty.

The ABM agreement, signed by the then Soviet Union and the United States, placed strict limits on the sorts of anti-missile defences that each side could deploy.

But the Bush administration has long argued that the treaty is simply no longer relevant and it wants to develop and deploy defences against a limited missile attack upon both the US or the territory of any of its allies who wish to sign up.

In the wake of last month's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington the domestic battle lines on missile defence have hardened.

Critics say that it is simply irrelevant given the wide range of possible options open to an attacker.

Feeling vulnerable

But the administration's almost evangelical belief in missile defence stems from a perceived sense of vulnerability as missile technology spreads to more and more countries.

And the events of 11 September have only confirmed this sense of vulnerability.

Mr Rumsfeld said that Washington now needed to press ahead with its testing programme.

But America is not walking away from the treaty just yet - Mr Rumsfeld hinted strongly that some sort of deal between Washington and Moscow could be possible when the Russian president visits the United States early next month.