Reagan warns against cutting arms cash

Press, 28 February 1986, Page 6

Reagan warns against cutting arms cash

NZPAAP Washington The President of the United States, Mr Ronald Reagan, said yesterday that it would be "reckless, dangerous and wrong” for Congress to reduce his SUS32O billion ($6OB billion)- military budget request

“Congress already has undercut our negotiators at the Geneva arms talks by banning tests of antisatellite weapons and unilaterally giving the Soviets a concession they could not win at the bargainingtable,” he said. In a bluntly worded address from the Oval Office Mr Reagan said that to cut defence now “is not cheap (and) it’s not safe.” It would be "backsliding of the most irresponsible kind.”

“Just as we are

down at the bargainingtable with the Soviet Union, let’s not throw America’s trump card away,” Mr Reagan said. Defending his Administration against accusations of wasteful and sometimes fraudulent defence spending, Mr Reagan said his Defence Secretary, Mr Caspar Weinberger, should be “praised, not pilloried, for cleaning the skeletons out of the closet.”

“Those few who have cheated taxpayers or have swindled our Armed Forces with faulty equipment are thieves stealing from the arsenal of democracy,” he said. He promised to prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. Senior Administration officials acknowledge

privately there has been serious erosion in public and Congressional support for Mr Reagan’s defence build-up, which he launched in 1981 as an ambitious programme to build new ships, missiles, and planes while increasing the readiness of the Armed Forces.

“There’s a feeling of being warm and woolly now, compared to a national sense of weakness and insecurity when Reagan took office five years ago,” said one official familiar with the private polling data and White House assessments of growing Congressional opposition to defence spending. “We have in many ways paid the price of our own success," the source said. AS public had seen

the improved climate of United. States-Soviet relations — in the resumption of arms control talks in Geneva and at the summit meeting between Mr Reagan and the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev — there had been an inverse correlation between that and the level of support for defence. He said Mr Reagan’s objective is "to turn that around, not try to divorce the two but to point out if we are to continue to succeed, it will be as a result' of maintaining a position of strength.”

The President’s speech, therefore, contained no new proposals but made an impassioned plea for the nation to continue on course, developing new weapons while working to root out waste in defence

contracting. “By rebuilding America’s defences and working to develop a system to defend against Soviet nuclear attack, our message has gotten through.

“The Soviets used to contend that real reductions in nuclear missiles were out of the question. Now, they say they accept the idea.

■ “If Moscow genuinely wants to reduce nuclear forces, the United States stands ready to do so,” he said.

Without mentioning the 11.9 per cent increase he has requested in new spending authority for the financial year beginning on October 1, Mr Reagan said, “The biggest increases in defence spending are behind us,” al*

though “we still have a way to go.” .

Even after he had agreed to a spending freeze last year, Congress had cut more than 5 per cent from his budget and “some are now saying that we need to chop another SUS2O billion ($3B billion), SUS3O billion ($57 billion), even SUSSO billion ($95 billion) out of national defence, he said. “This is reckless, dangerous and wrong. It’s backsliding of the most irresponsible kind.” • The House of Representatives passed a resolution yesterday urging Mr Reagan to resume negotiations with the Soviet Union for a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty and to seek ratification of two treaties limiting such tests.

“At the earliest possible date, the President of the United States should propose to the Soviet Union the immediate resumption of negotiations toward conclusion of a verifiable test ban treaty,” it said. The non-binding resolution, which passed 268 to ll 8 ’ urged Mr Reagan to request ratification by the Senate of two treaties already signed by Washington and the Thresh °l d J^ t *? a ” Treat y> of 1974 > Pea ceful Nuclear Treaty, of

~ ™ose treaties, which limit but do not <ban nuclear explosions for weapons testing, have languished in the Senate because no Administration «^L p “? he<i their rati- > ■ 1