LETTERS: OTHERS NEED SDI MORE THAN U.S.

To the editor:

The Strategic Defense Initiative is an expensive program that will afford little protection from those who are most likely to attack our cities with weapons of mass destruction. The countries that now control the missiles of the old Soviet Union are no longer hostile to us, and their military forces and remaining missiles are in no condition to mount a credible attack against us. They are not enough of a threat that we should embark on a trillion-dollar program to attempt to protect ourselves from them. Nor should we really worry about missiles that other countries may wish to fire in our direction. We already have enough satellite information to pinpoint missile-firing sites from anywhere in the world. Every hostile leader must know that very shortly after, if not before, the few missiles he launches strike the United States, we can retaliate with such force that his country could be wiped out. It would be much safer and cheaper for such a leader to deliver weapons in ships that can sail into any of our seaports. Biological and chemical weapons and small nuclear weapons can be smuggled across our borders on the ground or delivered by small planes from neighboring airfields. If we were to be attacked in this fashion, it would take a fair amount of time to determine the target that we should retaliate against, if the perpetrator does not warn us ahead of time or admit his guilt after firing his weapons.

I believe the countries which are developing missile capabilities do no more than dream of using missiles against the United States. They are really targeting their neighbors, with Israel being the prime target of the Arab countries. India, Pakistan, China, Iraq, Iran and Israel are more likely to have each other as prime targets than us. Most of our national politicians favor funding SDI. Its difficult to argue against a system that could save our densely populated areas from mass destruction if it could be 98 percent effective against single warhead missiles. I am sure none of our advanced weapon systems are anywhere near that reliable, nor are any of them nearly as complex as an SDI defense system would be. The driving force behind funding SDI is the huge amount of money that members of Congress from nearly every state can promise to their districts and the huge amounts of money these candidates need to finance their campaigns. The military- industrial complex will eagerly use their right of free speech to buy all the votes they need to get both parties behind this project.

At much less cost we could more effectively protect ourselves from weapons of mass destruction and other high-tech weapons now being developed by beefing up the CIA, FBI, Coast Guard, Immigration Service and Border Patrol. There are no lobbying groups with deep-pockets to support these agencies, nor can increased congressional funding for them reach into many districts, so this more realistic approach to the defense of our population centers probably cannot receive any more than incremental increases in funding. Our conventional military forces need better pay and better maintenance of their equipment. A huge SDI program would probably drain away some money that would normally go to themOur allies in the Middle East are much more in need of an SDI system than we are. Once developed and built we could possibly give them the technology and the hardware, as we did with the Patriot missile defense system. It would be much less costly for us to help them build their own defense systems than to build our own, than to give what we can to them when they need it. It appears that our so-called budget surplus is burning a hole in congressional pockets. I hope Congresswoman Emerson will not only stick by her guns to move Social Security off budget, but will also fight against an SDI boondoggle that will surely drive us much further into debt.

B. GATES GOODIER

Jackson