Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Thursday, Nov. 8, 2001

Bush is scheduled to meet in a few days at his Texas ranch with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Word is circulating that the U.S. chief executive is about to soften his previously expressed rejection of the ABM treaty as "outdated” and "dangerous.”

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a top member of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Readiness Subcommittee, has been urging the president not to dilute his stand. Other security-minded senators are doing likewise and calling on Americans who want this country to be protected to phone the White House and express their concern. A huge segment of the U.S. public is unaware of the fact that if an enemy, be it a nation or a terrorist group, fired a missile at the U.S., we would have absolutely no defense whatever.

This is the issue that confronted President Ronald Reagan when he sat down in Reykjavik, Iceland with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in late October 1986. Frank Gaffney, who was the top administration adviser on arms control in that era, told NewsMax.com Wednesday that he feared Bush is about to buy a "pig in the poke.”

It was 15 years ago that Reagan stood tall and folded his cards, rejecting Gorbachev’s offer of a "whole new relationship” if ONLY he would back down on America’s right to defend itself through the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which peaceniks of that time, in and out of Congress, derisively labeled "Star Wars.”

Similar enticements are being dangled before Bush, Gaffney told us.

Under the terms of the deal Putin would like to foist on the United States, Gaffney explained, "Mr. Bush would presumably have to dispense, for the time being at least, with any further talk about the ABM Treaty being outdated, antiquated and useless, let alone dangerous.”

In return, the Russians would agree "somehow” to modify or ignore the provisions of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that also prohibit development and testing of promising U.S. defensive technologies.

The State Department is urging Bush to make such a deal, according to Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy.

As the defense expert sums it up, "Bush is being told he would have the green light to go ahead with research on testing, but don’t deploy anything.”

Some at the White House are telling concerned senators and others not to worry, citing recent anti-ABM statements by the commander-in-chief. "The president will do the right thing,” activists have been told.

Gaffney is adamant in his belief that the State Department is steering the president in the wrong direction.

Sen. Inhofe’s concern is shared by Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation. Weyrich has been a strong advocate of a closer relationship with post-Soviet Russia, "but not at the expense of our missile defense,” he told NewsMax.

In addition, there is widespread concern that the president is also contemplating reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal by two-thirds. Last year, as a candidate, he made noises to that effect during the campaign. Most conservatives overlooked it. But the few who did take notice are saying if this comes out of the Texas meeting as part of the Bush-Putin deal, "the word is appeasement.”

"If Bill Clinton went on television and said, ‘I’m not only not going to allow us a nuclear defense, but by the way, I plan to toss two-thirds of a nuclear stockpile into the ash can,’ we’d be screaming ‘Treason,’” said Dallas radio talk show host Rick Wiles Wednesday in an interview with this writer on American Freedom Network.

The conference at the Texas ranch could be Bush’s "Reykjavik moment,” said Gaffney, who accompanied Reagan to Iceland when he stared down Gorbachev’s enticements and stood up for America, much to the dismay of the powerful "peace at any price” chattering class.

This week, the phones are ringing off the wall at the White House. Ordinary citizens and officials who consider themselves confidants of the president want to know: Will this be Bush’s "Reykjavik moment”? Will his steadfast courage in the face of terrorist threat continue at the international negotiating table? Or will this conference bolster the blame-America-first crowd, which would rejoice at a presidential cave-in as "statesmanship” and "growing in office”?

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Bush Administration

George W. Bush

Missile Defense

Russia

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