#7
Bush, Putin Differ on Missile Defense
November 15, 2001
By SANDRA SOBIERAJ
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - After a festive barbecue, intimate breakfast and one-on-one talks in between, President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin were wrapping up their three-day summit with differences over missile defense an ``enduring issue.''
The two presidents and their wives were visiting the high school in this one-stoplight hamlet Thursday before Putin and wife Lyudmila head on to New York City.
At Crawford High, students were given the rare opportunity to question the leaders whose talks at Bush's ranch and earlier in Washington left unanswered questions about the fate of Bush's missile defense plans.
Despite the snag over how those plans will proceed, White House officials said U.S.-Russia talks overall remained firmly on track, helped along by the wealth of personal time that the presidents shared on Bush's secluded, 1,600-acre spread.
With Putin riding shotgun, Bush took the wheel of a pickup truck and chauffeured his guests around the ranch for 45 minutes as soon as the Putins arrived Wednesday.
Thunderstorms chased their picnic dinner into one of the protected breezeways of the Bush ranch home, where a country-western swing band accompanied cowboys serving guacamole, mesquite-smoked beef and pecan pie.
Bush toasted Putin, saying, ``Usually you only invite a good friend to your home and that is clearly the case here. I knew that President Putin was a man with whom I could work to transform the relationship between our two countries.''
Putin returned the compliment when he raised his own glass and noted that this was the first time he had been invited into a foreign leader's home.
``It is hugely symbolic to me and my country that it's the home of the president of the United States,'' Putin said.
The party was small for such a summit between nations, just 29 people total, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, pianist Van Cliburn and pro-golfer Ben Crenshaw.
Thursday's breakfast was to be even more intimate: the two presidents, Laura Bush and Lyudmila Putin.
``It is that type of environment that leads to just stronger relations down the road that enable President Putin and President Bush to deal constructively with any other issues that come up,'' White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said. ``One of those enduring issues will be a new strategic framework between the United States and Russia.''
Bush and Putin are under pressure to reach accord on missile defense. The Pentagon is anxious to conduct tests, even though they would violate the current interpretation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and Bush has told Putin he will seek to scrap the pact early next year if they can't reach agreement.
On the other hand, aides said Bush is considering visiting Russia in the first few months of 2002 - a sign, perhaps, that the president may be willing to wait that long to strike a deal.
``This is one stop along the road. We'll make other stops after Crawford, but each stop is built on the positive results of the earlier meetings,'' Fleischer said.
The unusual ranch visit took place one day after Bush and Putin agreed at the White House to shrink their nations' strategic nuclear arsenals by two-thirds.
``If we act together, we will make the world a much safer place than today,'' Putin said during a stop in Houston en route to Crawford.
Bush had hoped that the cuts, promised during the presidential campaign, would entice Putin to accept the U.S. proposal on missile defense. Under Bush's plan, the United States would remain in the 1972 ABM treaty a while longer if Russia agreed to allow the Pentagon to conduct tests and research barred by current readings of the pact.
That proposal was a concession of sorts for Bush. He repeatedly has denounced the accord as a Cold War relic, and his conservative allies want him to scrap it.
Putin's public statements before coming to America suggested an openness to finding flexibility on the ABM issue.
Bush promised Putin on Tuesday that Russia would be informed of the tests, but Putin asked for more. U.S. officials said he suggested at one time that Russia approve the tests beforehand, a concession Bush refused to make.
Some Bush advisers played down the exchange, saying it was mentioned only briefly in the talks and was not a major factor. Indeed, one senior administration official said Bush and Putin seemed to reach an understanding - if not a formal agreement - that the United States would conduct anti-missile tests under the ABM, perhaps not long after Putin returns to Russia.
Other aides, generally more pessimistic of the talks, said they knew of no such accommodation. And yet, even these aides said it was more likely than not that Putin and Bush would come to terms - but not necessarily here.
Next Article