TOURISTS stumbling into the visitors鈥� gallery of the US Senate last week could have been forgiven for thinking they had been transported by time machine back to the dark days of the Cold War. On the floor of the Senate, some of the country鈥檚 most senior politicians were seriously debating whether to install a nationwide network of antiballistic missiles to defend the US against a missile attack. And at the end of the day they agreed that the nation needed such protection.
Under the plan, the government would have to install ground-based antimissile missiles at an unspecified number of sites around the country before 2003.
The system would be less ambitious than the exotic 鈥淪tar Wars鈥� system proposed by Ronald Reagan. Although it would rely on satellites to spot incoming enemy missiles, there would be no weapons based in space. Instead, the ground-based missiles would intercept enemy rockets.
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Supporters of the idea claimed it would protect the US against accidental missile launches by other nations and attacks by terrorists or emerging nuclear nations, either of which would probably have only a few missiles at their disposal.
鈥淢any people do not realise that we currently have no defence whatsoever against any missile launched against the US. Such missiles are capable of carrying nuclear, biological and chemical payloads to any point in our country,鈥� said Senator Strom Thurmond, the Republican from South Carolina who chairs the Senate鈥檚 Armed Services Committee.
But critics dusted down the old arguments they used against Reagan鈥檚 Star Wars system, claiming that the proposed network would provide little protection at great cost. Byron Dorgan, a Democratic senator from North Dakota, quoted a letter from six eminent physicists, including Nobel laureate Hans Bethe. They called the proposal 鈥渕isguided and irresponsible鈥�.
The physicists say it would be more effective to focus on controlling the spread of fissile materials than to develop defences against long-range missiles. Long-range missiles are so expensive that would-be nuclear nations were more likely to deliver a nuclear weapon by some other means, they wrote.
The missile defence plan is part of a bill that alIocates funds to the Pentagon. The House of Representatives adopted a similar plan in June, and last week鈥檚 Senate vote means some sort of missile-defence plan is likely to be included in the final version of the bill. President Clinton has threatened to veto the bill if it does.