"There is an absolute commitment to the development of a ballistic missile defense to protect against rogue nations armed with weapons of mass destruction," Douglas Bereuter, a member of the House International Relations Committee, told a NATO Parliamentary Assembly (PA).

"There were always some doubts abroad, and in the US, about the Clinton administraiton's resolve to pursue the technically feasible ballistic missile defense," Bereuter, a Republican from the state of Nebraska, told the MPs.

"There should be no doubts now," he said. "And I sense among my colleagues here...a recognition of the resolve of the United States to proceed."

The NATO PA was founded in 1955 as a chat group among parliament members from the alliance nations, a forum to exchange views but with no real voice in NATO business.

Bereuter acknowledged the NMD technology is still distant, but added, "I have not doubt we will find it, and that we will spend the necessary funds to find it."

"Indeed there is the intent to share that capacity when it is developed with our allies," he said.

"And we certainly intend to listen to the concerns and ideas of our allies, here and in Asia, and we expect that they will listen to our ideas...about the collective defense responsibilites of NATO."

NATO PA president Rafael Estrella of Spain said some members had expressed concern that the development of an NMD would lead to a new arms race.

"Any time you introduce a new element into the strategic environment there is a potential risk that what you're altering will evolve in that direction, and some of us are expressing concern that such a system might lead to a new increase in the armaments race," he said

"What we have agreed on among us is to create a framework in which we can raise those concerns with out American colleagues in Congress."

Bereuter said one of the questions the US would be addressing as it develops the NMD was "whether our allies would want to make the financial commitment for deployment once developed."

"In some cases we may find it advantageous," he said, to provide the hardware and financial assistance to do with the technology, "to share it for our own protection, because in many cases we share the same concerns."

He said system the US was developing was aimed at defending against "a very limited number of missiles from a rogue state, or unauthorized or unintended launch."

Russia, he said, should have no cause for concern because, with its "huge number of intercontinental ballistic missiles we would have no defense. We will be relying on the strategic deterrence that we have relied on in the past."

All rights reserved. � 2001 Agence France-Presse. All information displayed on this section (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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