CHENEY ADVOCATES MISSILES CANDIDATE: SCRAP TREATY WITH RUSSIA.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney said Wednesday that George W. Bush is willing to end the 28-year-old anti-ballistic missile treaty with Russia in order to deploy a missile defense system.

Speaking during a standing-room-only rally in Lancaster, Cheney said he believes the United States has the technological ability to field a system for shooting down enemy nuclear missiles, and should not allow Russian opposition to stop it.

``We'll make it clear what changes we want to make in the ABM treaty. If they're not willing to make them, we'll abrogate the treaty - six months and we're out of there,'' Cheney told the crowd of GOP supporters.

President Clinton announced three weeks ago that he would leave to his successor the decision of whether to deploy a national missile defense system able to handle small-scale attacks from nations like North Korea. Clinton said the system needs more testing to make sure it works.

Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore has endorsed the postponement, saying he would pursue development of the same type of missile defense as Clinton and decide later whether to build it.

The ABM treaty, negotiated with the Soviet Union during the Nixon administration, allows each nation to have one anti-missile system protecting its capital, and one protecting missile sites.

Critics say the system - costing $60 billion or more - would be too easily fooled by decoys launched alongside real nuclear warheads, and that in any event it would merely encourage China and other nations to build up their arsenals to swamp American defenses.

Although some tests against target missiles have not worked, Cheney said he believes the United States has the technical know-how to deploy an operational missile defense that could differentiate between warheads and decoys.

``We just have to do what we have done in the past and establish it as a national objective and fund the R and D (research and development) that would establish the capability,'' Cheney said during a round-table discussion with reporters after his Lancaster speech.

Cheney said he believes the United States should examine creating anti- missile satellites or interceptor missiles carried on ships, beyond the land-based interceptor missiles the Clinton administration has been studying.

Space-based missile defenses could shoot down nuclear missiles early, during their boost phase as their rocket engines are lifting them off the earth, Cheney said.

A ship-based system would allow the United States to station its anti-missile missiles to neutralize potential conflicts between other nuclear-armed nations, such as India and Pakistan, Cheney said.

``Most people don't realize if somebody launched a ballistic missile against us, there is nothing we could do about it,'' Cheney told the Essex Convention Center crowd, which numbered more than 1,000.

Cheney made his remarks on missile defense in response to a question from the audience from Palmdale School District board President Larry Logsdon, who noted that he had heard Cheney speak in favor of missile defense in 1991, when he was secretary of defense for President Bush.

``I was impressed with him. He really defined it that day,'' Logsdon said after the rally.

Most of Cheney's Lancaster speech focused on what he said was the Clinton administration's continuation of defense cutbacks that have hurt the military's readiness, while simultaneously stepping up commitments in places like Kosovo.

The U.S. defense budget, adjusted for inflation, is about 40 percent below its level in 1985, the peak year for defense spending since the Korean War, the Pentagon says.

``They've continued to shrink the force far below anything that was justified by the end of the Cold War,'' Cheney said.

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3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color in AV edition only) Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney speaks out Wednesday on the status of America's defenses during a standing-room-only rally attended by some 1,000 people in Lancaster.

(2 -- color in AV edition only) - Dick Cheney

(3 -- ran in AV edition only) Seeking Cheney's autograph are, from left, Ryan Toker, Debbie Baird, April Hoiness, Gabby, Nick and Mike Baird, Dominic Baird.

David R. Crane/Staff Photographer