U.K. defence chief sceptical of NMD

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, JULY 28. In comments which are not likely to amuse the Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, Britain's Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Sir Michael Boyce has expressed serious reservations about the controversial U.S. plans for a nuclear defence shield which it wants Europe to support. He has come out against the project on two grounds: lack of information about its technological efficacy, and its cost to Britain if it were to buy into the system.

Sir Michael's remarks in an interview to The Guardian today came less than a week after the U.S. President, Mr. George W. Bush's came here to seek Britain's backing for a programme which has aroused hostility in much of Europe, besides Russia and China. Mr. Blair has endorsed it in principle but the official line is: we'll cross the bridge when we come to it. There is however considerable opposition to the project within the Labour party and the Government, and public opinion in Britain is clearly against it. Analysts said the defence chief's remarks would add to the pressure on Mr. Blair to hasten slowly.

Sir Michael said that the country's existing defence budget would not be able to absorb the programme's cost without compromising the army's own plans for improvement and expansion. Spending billions of pounds on the U.S. project would ``impoverish'' the British defence forces at a time when they were already stretched for resources. ``There's no point completely impoverishing ourselves in order to provide ourselves with a defence against one particular system and not being able to do anything else'', he argued.

Sir Michael, whom The Guardian described as someone who chooses his words carefully, underlined the debilitating cost of the U.S. project saying:``As far as I'm concerned there is no way I'm in the position to suggest we can pay for any missile defence technology from within the existing defence budget and carry on doing what we are doing at the moment.''

He was also not sure if the project was technologically viable. ``So far we have no hard evidence from the Americans as to what they think is in the art of the technology...I have seen nothing yet to give me a technical description of what has been proposed.'' Sir Michael also seemed to question the rationale behind the ``Son of Star Wars'' programme-the threat from the so- called ``rogue'' states. He advocated the ``art of the possible'' in dealing with such States rather than resorting to a military solution. ``It would be irresponsible for us not to explore what is the art of the possible in dealing with them'', he said while acknowledging the ``probability of countries being able to achieve a ballistic missile system that could be fired at us.''

The interviewer, paraphrasing Sir Michael's remarks, said he wanted Britain to engage in talks with the ``rogue'' States which allegedly posed a threat. He was quoted as sayihg that the West must try to engage even with Iraq. He also wanted Russia and China to be included in negotiations on any new international strategic framework. ``We must make sure we don't leave out the Russians or indeed the Chinese'', he said. The U.S. has said it would press ahead with the programme irrespective of whether there is an agreement with Russia on amending the Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty.

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Section  : International
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