By PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press Writer
Dec. 29, 2000

WASHINGTON (AP) -- George W. Bush's selection of Donald Rumsfeld as his secretary of defense is being characterized as a strong addition to the president-elect's team who probably will provide an impetus to construction of a national missile defense program.

"We are in a new national security environment. We do need to be arranged to deal with the new threats, not the old ones... with information warfare, missile defense, terrorism, defense of our space assets and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world."

But one defense analyst wondered how much weight Rumsfeld will carry on a Cabinet heavy with experts on the military. Rumsfeld, named Thursday, is a veteran of four Republican administrations, dating from President Nixon's. he served as secretary of defense under President Ford for 14 months, from late 1975 to early 1977. "In Don Rumsfeld, the president-elect has nominated a man of vast experience and ability who has served his nation with distinction for many years," said former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats, who was an early favorite for the job.

Rumsfeld's appointment "confirms what you'll see on the foreign policy side -- tried and trusted people with good experience who are going to be safe and reliable," said Jonathan Clarke of Washington's Cato Institute. "What you're getting is this assembling of team players who are going to be collegiate, work together in a constructive way without any particularly new ideas."

On missile defense, Clarke said, "He's going to be a reliable person -- carry out the Cabinet direction." Rumsfeld headed a bipartisan commission that concluded two years ago that the Clinton administration has not been vigilant enough and that potential missile threats, either from an accidental firing or from a hostile nation, were a lot closer than U.S. intelligence agencies thought. The report was among arguments for pushing ahead with a missile defense program.

After July's second failure in three preliminary tests of the defense system, however, President Clinton deferred to his successor a decision whether to set in motion activities that would have allowed deployment to begin in 2005. Bush has espoused a much more ambitious program than the Clinton administration's, which it began developing under heavy pressure from congressional Republicans.

"The question is how fast we're going to move now and what shape the architecture would take," said retired Army Col. Daniel Smith of the Center for Defense Information, a Washington think tank. "Will they stay with the land-based, or will they accelerate the sea-based option that so far has not gotten very far down the road?"

Smith said another question is how Rumsfeld will fare on a Cabinet that includes Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as secretary of state, and former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney as vice president. "How much of a role in shaping Pentagon policy is going to be accorded to Mr. Rumsfeld?" Smith said. "I think the president is lucky to get him because he's had the experience," said Helmut Sonnenfeldt of the Brookings Institution. "And he should work well with Cheney, something of a protege of his from back in the 1970s."

But, noting the 68-year-old Rumsfeld's age, Sonnenfeldt added: "I'm sure he's in fine condition and health, but it's a very big job," which involves a lot of work at home and a lot of travel abroad.

Rumsfeld's official Pentagon biography says that although he made some organizational changes in his last tenure at the Defense Department, Rumsfeld "concentrated more on the political aspects of his job. More than any of his predecessors, he served as a roving ambassador" for the department, the biography says, traveling widely at home and abroad to talk about defense issues.

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