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Cato Daily Dispatch for October 26, 2001

White House Halts Missile Defense Testing
Pentagon To Pick Next Generation Fighter Today
Lawmakers Abandon Cuba Travel Ban Repeal Effort

White House Halts Missile Defense Testing

The Bush administration put the brakes on its missile defense program yesterday, steering clear of a confrontation with Russia by deciding for the first time to delay testing elements of the system that could violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, according to The Washington Post.

With President Bush hoping to close a deal on strategic weapons when he meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in the United States next month, administration officials said they would put off a pair of exercises scheduled for this fall that involve using two radars to track rocket firings.

One year ago, Senior Defense Analyst Charles Peņa proposed in the Cato study "Arms Control and Missile Defense: Not Mutually Exclusive," the construction of a limited National Missile Defense system at the same time that both countries conduct bilateral arms reductions. This is the kind of agreement Bush and Putin seem to be negotiating.

In "National Missile Defense: Examining the Options," Peņa and Barbara Conry discuss a realistic view of the challenges of deploying missile defense. In the study, "Arms Control and Missile Defense: Not Mutually Exclusive," Peņa suggests that a limited NMD system could be built without endangering relations with Russia.

Pentagon To Pick Next Generation Fighter Today

The U.S. government is due today to pick either Lockheed Martin Corp. or Boeing Co. to build its next-generation fighter jet in a program that could be worth well over $200 billion, the richest contract in military history, according to Reuters.

The winner of the initial 10-year engineering and manufacturing development contract, valued at about $20 billion, will be announced at 4:30 p.m. EDT by the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer, Edward Aldridge.

In the study "Hard Choices: Fighter Procurement in the Next Century," Williamson Murray recommends that the Joint Strike Fighter be purchased. "Considering the Department of Defense's other procurement requirements over the coming three decades, it is unreasonable for the Pentagon to procure expensive high-tech fighters in the proposed numbers and at a cost that will severely limit its other weapons purchases," he says. "Thus, two of the three fighter programs--the F-18E/F and the F-22--should be canceled and efforts concentrated on the more futuristic JSF."

Lawmakers Abandon Cuba Travel Ban Repeal Effort

U.S. lawmakers abandoned efforts for this year to repeal the ban on Americans traveling to Cuba, as congressional negotiators yesterday omitted language to lift the 40-year-old restrictions from a spending bill, according to The Washington Post.

Skirting a fight with President Bush, House and Senate negotiators dropped the Cuba issue from a $33-billion bill to fund the Treasury Department and general government operations.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, "the Senate agreed not to attach anything controversial to its bill. The timing wasn't good," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who led the effort in July to pass the repeal in the House.

In "End the Travel Ban to Cuba," Philip Peters writes that not only should the travel ban to Cuba be lifted because Americans should have the right to travel freely, but that "as American travelers rent rooms in private homes, hire taxis, dine in family restaurants, and buy artists' works, they will boost these entrepreneurs' earnings -- and they in turn will fuel demand for the produce that private farmers bring to market. Cuba's emerging private sector will expand."

"An end to the travel ban," he argues, "would transmit American ideas and values as students, churches, cultural and sports groups, and individual Americans meet their Cuban counterparts. Strong links between our societies may not topple Fidel Castro any sooner than the trade embargo -- but as Cuba makes its way in a post-Soviet world, they will encourage free-market development, help individual Cubans and their communities, and build links to the generation of Cubans that will succeed Castro's generation. All of this serves our national interest."