But a top Republican lawmaker suggested that despite the lack of a formal agreement on modifying or replacing the treaty at last week's US-Russian summit, US President George W. Bush and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, may have reached a tacit understanding on how to tackle the thorny issue.

During their talks in Washington and Crawford, Texas, Bush and Putin failed to agree on a way for the United States to avoid treaty constraints and proceed with a rigorous testing program of its missile defense system.

The accord, based on the concept of mutual assured destruction, bars the United States and Russia from having nationwide defenses against ballistic missiles.

Underscoring the president's determination to forge ahead with the system's testing program, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Sunday "the time is coming where our testing programs will start to bump up against the constraints of the treaty."

"We're not going to violate the treaty, and that means that, one way or another, we're going to have to move beyond the ABM Treaty," she said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

Secretary of State Colin Powell had a similar message to the Russians.

"They know that sooner or later that testing that we have to do will run into the constraints of the ABM Treaty and when that happens we have got to get out of the constraints of the ABM Treaty," Powell said on "Fox News Sunday."

He declined to say when the testing program would conflict with the treaty, saying the schedule would be worked out by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Last month, in a bid to avoid controversy ahead of the Bush-Putin summit, the Pentagon called off two missile defense tests that US officials said could have been seen as a violation of the accord.

White House and Pentagon officials declined to say Sunday whether the comments by Powell and Rice meant that the delayed tests had now been rescheduled.

The September 11 attacks on the United States had the unintended consequence of bolstering the missile defense program, as many lawmakers concluded that the threat of a missile strike against the United States might be more realistic than they had previously thought.

After previously stripping more than one billion dollars from Bush's budget request for missile defense, the Democratic-controlled US Senate made an about-face and gave the Pentagon all of the 8.3 billion dollars asked for the program.

Powell said the United States intended to continue having discussions with the Russians on the treaty and missile defense.

But Republican Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, who was among the congressional leaders who met with Putin during his visit in Washington, indicated the US and Russian presidents might already have an understanding on missile defense.

"I do think that they have more of an understanding and more of a commitment to each other than they can make publicly right now," Lott told Fox News.

The Mississippi Republican said that although he did not have any insider information, "just from watching them and listening to what they say, I have a feeling that's how it's developed."

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