Weare delighted with the twosuperpowers' treaty limitingthenumberofanti-ballisticmissilesystems that theymay retain andtheir agreement on limitations on strategicoffensiveweapons.
In 2001 the White House wisely abrogated the crippling Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty--an agreement made with the former Soviet Union that severely restricted the development, testing and deployment of effective missile defense systems.
To assure the Russians that this initiative would only modify, not imperil, the U.S.-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty signed in 1972, however, the Administration intends to reaffirm in a new agreement the earlier accord's bans on sea-, air-, mobile ground- and space-based missile defenses of the territory of the United States.