Bush envoys to hold talks in Canada on NMD

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

OTTAWA, MAY 11. Senior officials of the Bush administration are coming here to hold talks with their counterparts in the Foreign and Defence Ministries on the proposed National Missile Defence (NMD) system. The U.S. delegation will have a day of formal consultations on May 15 to discuss the system that Washington says is designed to counter threats from the so-called rogue regimes.

Faced with intense scepticism and even criticism of the system from allies and friends, the Bush administration has dispatched senior officials to Europe and Asia; and is emphasising that the effort is at consulting and not one of ``telling'' or informing other nations of the intentions of the Republican administration. As is the case in other capitals, Ottawa is concerned about the implications of pursuing the NMD, the main apprehension being that it would lead to the disbandment of the 1972 Anti- Ballistic Missile treaty between Russia and the United States and in the process, trigger a nuclear arms race by Moscow and Beijing.

The Government of the Prime Minister, Mr. Jean Chretien, is also in a spot in the sense that if the NMD were to come to reality, it would perhaps be run from the Joint U.S.- Canadian NORAD air defence command from Colorado. While many in Canada's Foreign Ministry are opposed to the NMD and are highly sceptical of the idea, the military establishment here is said to be worried that opposition to the idea could lead to a fresh thinking of the NORAD itself or in the beginning of the end of this command system. The Canadian Foreign Minister, Mr. John Manley, has argued that Ottawa will oppose anything that leads to the unilateral scrapping of the ABM treaty. Mr. Manley has also argued that the final outcome on the NMD will have to be placed in the context of an ``improvement to global security, not a deterioration of global security''.

Mr. Jean Chretien said last week that Canada was prepared to consult the public before deciding whether to go on board with the NMD. The point being made is that Washington has not yet asked Ottawa to make up its mind and that members of Parliament were welcome to poll Canadians.

``We still have questions to ask today and that is why President Bush assured us that an envoy would come to discuss this plan and we will express our observations because we believe this is a very serious situation'', Mr. Chretien remarked. The bottomline for Mr. Chretien is that past treaties are still ``valid'' and ``if there is something better then perhaps we'll have a look at what they have to offer''.

But analysts and writers in the media have made the point that Ottawa is slowly warming up to the NMD and that the initial arguments about a nuclear arms race in the aftermath of walking away from the ABM treaty by the U.S. is being watered down. For instance, Canada's Ambassador to the United Nations for Disarmament, Mr. Chris Westdal, told a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee that the ABM treaty was the product of a different era.

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