DOLE PROPOSES BILL FOR ANTIMISSILE SYSTEM.

Byline: Associated Press 

Moving national defense into the presidential campaign, Sen. Bob Dole proposed legislation for an antimissile system Thursday and charged that President Clinton's policies would leave Americans exposed to attack from rogue governments.

As to the project's cost, Dole said, "I'll leave that up to the experts."

Dole, the Senate majority leader who has clinched the Republican nomination for November's presidential election, also sparred with the White House over the B-2 stealth bomber. On the eve of today's visit by Dole to a B-2 plant in Pico Rivera, the Clinton administration announced plans to add an additional B-2 to the arsenal.

Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich proposed the "Defend America Act of 1996" at a Capitol Hill news conference. It would require the United States to deploy a national missile defense system by 2003 capable of defending against a limited or accidental nuclear missile attack.

Whether a rogue missile attack is likely, or even possible, is a matter of debate in defense circles. Sen. Bennett Johnston, D-La., called Dole's missile defense proposal "outrageously wasteful" and said terrorist nations were more likely to smuggle a nuclear weapon into the United States in a suitcase than fire one on the tip of a missile.

The latest intelligence estimate puts the threat of any attack on the United States from nations such as North Korea and Iraq at least 15 years away.

Dole accused the Clinton administration of wishful thinking.

"We have seen no leadership from the White House on this issue," Dole said. "Indeed, we have witnessed a complete denial from the highest levels of the administration that there is even a threat."

The White House said the accusation has no basis. An official said the United States has a targeting agreement with Russia making accidental launch unlikely; U.S. intelligence considers the chance of accidental or unauthorized launch by China to be remote; and no other possible adversary is capable of hitting the United States with a nuclear missile.

The administration opposes the Dole bill because it would abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and increase the missile threat to the United States by removing limits on other nations, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said rushing to deployment would waste money and result in lower technology and a poorer-performing system if a threat did emerge.

Last year Clinton vetoed a defense budget bill containing language similar to the Dole bill and said it could force the United States to abrogate the 1972 ABM treaty.

In a pre-emptive strike days before Tuesday's California's presidential primary, the president ordered that an early test model of the B-2 be converted to a fully operational bomber, increasing the B-2 fleet to 21 planes. Converting the test plane - the first B-2 ever built - will cost $493 million, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said.

The plane, designated AV-1 and currently in storage at a Northrop Grumman Corp. plant in Palmdale, should be ready to join the operational fleet by 2000.

The shift in the administration's longstanding position that the planned fleet of 20 B-2s was sufficient, drew Dole's ire.

"After recently halting further production of the B-2, President Clinton's decision today to activate one bomber looks like nothing more than a halfhearted election-year conversion," Dole said.

"With this token gesture, perhaps President Clinton is acknowledging how the crucial California aerospace industry has suffered under the weight of his defense cuts," Dole said.

Gov. Pete Wilson said in a statement that Clinton's decision "is an obvious attempt by the president to use America's armed forces as tools of his political ambition."