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Untitled Document White House Press Briefing (excerpted) Ari Fleischer December 18, 2002
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Q: Yesterday when you were talking about missile defense and the decision to deploy it, you noted that there had been predictions that doing that would cause relations with Russia to go very sour, and in fact quite the opposite had happened. I think your words were something to the effect that relations with Russia had never been better.
Today, the Russian Foreign Ministry put out a fairly lengthy statement responding to the decision to deploy missile defense, expressing deep regret and saying that it would trigger a new arms race and basically saying that they strongly disagreed with the decision.
Does that cause you to reassess your assessment of the U.S.-Russian relations?
MR. FLEISCHER: I think there is no question that in a relationship that is probably the best in modern times between the United States and Russia, there are areas where there are disagreements and those disagreements have been handled through very patient and quiet diplomacy that has been effective.
But the fact of the matter is that there is a remarkable and historic lowering of the level of offensive weapons that President Bush and President Putin have agreed to. And the President will hope that the Congress and the Senate will make one of its priorities in the next Congress ratification of the Treaty of Moscow, which will prove to the world that at a time when the United States is moving forward with missile defense, we are actually lowering the number of offensive weapons around the world to historic lows.
Q: So you don't see this rather negative reaction out of Moscow as problematic for the relationship?
MR. FLEISCHER: No. As I acknowledge, there are going to be differences in the relationship between nations that are becoming increasingly friendlier, but the facts about whether or not this has led to a buildup of weapons, but just the opposite, as is well known. There actually is an historic reduction of weapons.
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