Bush sets defense as space priority: report

U.S. President George W. Bush has signed a new National Space Policy that rejects future arms-control agreements that might limit U.S. flexibility in space and asserts a right to deny access to space to anyone "hostile to U.S. interests," The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The document, the first full revision of overall space policy in 10 years, emphasizes security issues, encourages private enterprise in space, and characterizes the role of U.S. space diplomacy largely in terms of persuading other nations to support U.S. policy, the report said.

The policy was signed by Bush on Aug. 31 this year, but an unclassified version of the document was not made public until Oct. 6.

"Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power," the policy said in its introduction.

National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said in written comments that an update was needed to "reflect the fact that space has become an even more important component of U.S. economic, national and homeland security."

Although the administration said the policy revisions are not a prelude to introducing weapons systems into Earth orbit, Michael Krepon, cofounder of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank that follows the space-weaponry issue, said the policy changes will reinforce international suspicions that the United States may seek to develop, test and deploy space weapons, the report said.

The concerns are amplified, he said, by the administration's refusal to enter negotiations or even less formal discussions on the subject.

In 2004, the Air Force published a Counterspace Operations Doctrine that called for a more active military posture in space and said that protecting U.S. satellites and spacecraft may require "deception, disruption, denial, degradation and destruction." Four years earlier, a congressionally chartered panel led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld recommended developing space weapons to protect military and civilian satellites.

Because of the political sensitivities, several analysts said, the Pentagon probably will not move forward quickly with space weapons but rather will work on dual-use technology that can serve military and civilian interests, the newspaper reported.

A number of nations have pushed for talks to ban space weapons, and the United States has long been one of a handful of nations opposed to the idea, the report said.

Source: Xinhua