Washington Post - 11.13.2001

 

The Washington Post

Putin, Starting U.S. Trip, Predicts Missile Accord

By DAVID E. SANGER

ASHINGTON, Nov. 12 — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia arrived on his first official visit to the United States tonight hours after predicting that a deal was within reach that would allow President Bush to speed ahead with tests of an antiballistic missile system.

That deal would be the centerpiece of a meeting that begins Tuesday morning here, and moves on Wednesday and Thursday to the Bush ranch in Crawford, Tex.

When Mr. Putin arrives at the White House on Tuesday morning, he and Mr. Bush are widely expected to exchange their bottom-line figures for the mutual reduction of their nuclear arsenals. Mr. Bush has said he has reached a decision — the guesswork is a cut to between 1,750 and 2,300 — but has declined to release it before he tells Mr. Putin.

Tonight, meeting Russian reporters at the White House, Mr. Bush said that he would give Mr. Putin tomorrow a number "substantially lower than today's weaponry, and I presume he'll have a number he'll share with me. The point is, what we don't need is the endless hours of arms control discussions."

With a least five or six statements expected during the course of the summit meeting, any arms control deal is not expected to be the first, or indeed only, tangible result of Mr. Putin's visit.

On Tuesday, Mr. Putin and Mr. Bush will release some of the five or six joint statements and letters that administration officials said their staffs have drafted in recent days.

The statements cover everything from nuclear reductions to economic initiatives to a vague statement by Mr. Putin that the White House hopes will temper any crackdown on Russia's independent media, which Mr. Putin critics say he has attempted to intimidate through a series of legal and financial pressures.

One omission from the statements appears to be Chechnya, where Russian soldiers have employed often brutal tactics in their fight against Muslim rebels cast by Mr. Putin as Islamic extremists akin to Osama bin Laden.

During the presidential campaign, Mr. Bush said he doubted he could reach any agreement with Russia while Moscow was involved in human rights violations in Chechnya.

Now, with Mr. Putin a needed and valuable ally in the fight against terrorism, Washington has muted its criticism of Russia's behavior.

Saved for the Crawford meeting, where Mr. Bush has planned a Texas barbecue and country music for the Russian president, is an accord reinterpreting the 1972 ABM treaty to allow just the kind of missile defense testing it was meant to ban.

Mr. Bush, speaking wtih the Russian reporters, called the "a vestige of the past," adding, "We're having a lot of discussions about how to move beyond it."

Mr. Bush, officials say, will not repeat his threat to withdraw from the treaty, though his aides say that option will be held open. In return, Mr. Putin has strongly hinted that he would allow testing of the antimissile system — a project in which Russia would become a parts supplier and participant. If an accord is reached, Mr. Putin would be able to return to Moscow claiming he has staved off American efforts to kill the treaty outright and immediately.

But several administration officials insist that Mr. Putin has come to the conclusion that the treaty will die a slow death, or be replaced by other agreements in future meetings. "We think that Putin has come to accept the ABM's ultimate demise," one administration official said today. "The question now is funeral arrangements."

Both men have traveled a considerable distance. Mr. Bush said during and after the campaign that he was determined to kill the treaty, which he has often said is "antiquated" and "dangerous." Mr. Putin traveled the world in the spring whipping up opposition to the American missile defense project. Now, he has apparently decided that the wiser course for Russia is to participate in its creation.

A few months ago, Mr. Bush might not have had the political latitude to reach any accord that keeps the ABM treaty in place, even temporarily.

But Russia's decision to side with Washington in the counterterrorism campaign, and Mr. Putin's move toward the West in general and Mr. Bush in particular, have silenced many conservatives who long desired to kill the ABM treaty.

Over the weekend, American and Russian officials met in New York to hammer out the wording of the joint statements and letters, and that process was still under way tonight.

Officially, Mr. Bush's aides are still playing down expectations for the visit. Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser, has called this meeting — the fourth between the two leaders, but the first on American soil — "another step in a process." It has been clear for months, however, that if a broad accord is to be reached to begin building what Ms. Rice calls "a new strategic relationship," it should happen in Crawford.

At a joint press conference on Tuesday at the White House, Mr. Bush is expected to announce that Russia will be permanently removed from the list of countries subject to cold war-era sanctions under the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which concerned freedom of emigration. Those sanctions have not been imposed in a decade, but Russia wanted the threat of reimposing the penalties eliminated.

The administration will also vow to press for Russia's relatively swift inclusion in the World Trade Organization — a feat China completed last weekend after 14 years — and begin discussions on using Russian equipment as a central part of the antimissile system.