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US budget targets NMD
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US President George W Bush on Wednesday proposed a modest increase in the fiscal 2002 budget for international aid and diplomacy, well below the amount sought by Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The increase to US$23.1 billion from US$21.9 billion in fiscal year 2001 was above average for increases in spending in departments proposed by the Bush Administration.
Powell had promised State Department workers he would fight to reverse a trend of lower budgets for diplomacy, which he sees as the United States' first line of defence.
Sources said that the operating assumption on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee was that Powell's request would be in the realm of 10 to 20 per cent.
Meanwhile, Bush on Tuesday made a speech at the Senate, trumpeting the deployment of the National Missile Defence system (NMD), despite resistance from many countries, including China, Russia and several European nations.
On Wednesday, a senior Russian military official warned if the US unilaterally withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, Russia may consider the revision of other international treaties on armament limitation and reduction.
In response to the US deployment of the NMD, Russia may consider changes to the START-1 and START-2 treaties as well as the Treaty on the Limitation of Medium- and short-range strategic Missiles, Vyacheslav Romanov, chief of Russia's National Nuclear Risk Reduction Centre, told a press conference in Moscow.
These changes may result in the spread of heavy missiles and installation of multiple independently targeted warheads in them, the Lieutenant General warned.
Russia "is technically and operationally capable of rebuilding its nuclear shield", he added.
Terming the ABM Treaty as the cornerstone for all treaties on arms limitation and reduction, Romanov stressed that "the stand of the Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation has been, is, and will remain unambiguous -- the ABM treaty should not be violated".(SD-Agencies)
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