ONCORD, N.H. - Senator John McCain of Arizona, a highly decorated veteran of the Vietnam war, asserted yesterday that US military preparedness is dangerously inadequate, and said that the country is increasingly vulnerable to attack from rogue states such as Iraq and North Korea.
In a speech to the Concord Rotary Club, McCain, a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, said the new, post-Cold War threats make necessary construction of a national missile defense system, even if that means US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty concluded with the Soviet Union in 1972.
McCain also said the United States should become more active in supporting resistance movements against rogue regimes, and named specific weapons systems he considered unnecessary, elimination of which would provide some of the funds needed to modernize the military and increase preparedness.
''We should sit down with Russia and see whether the ABM treaty could be altered to permit both of our countries to respond to ballistic missile threats,'' he told a crowd of about 170 Rotarians and guests at a local restaurant. But ''if these talks fail. ... I will withdraw from a treaty that has become a relic of the Cold War...''
Like many arms limitation agreements, the ABM treaty contains a provision allowing countries to withdraw from the pact in cases of threats to supreme national interest. The ABM treaty requires six months' notice of intention to withdraw.
McCain advocated what he called a policy of ''rogue state rollback, in which our goal is not simply to contain rogue regimes, but to drive them from power.'' He said he would provide money, materials, training, and equipment to resistance forces in and around rogue states.
During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to leave themselves open to missile attacks which, it was thought at the time, could only come from one another. Now, US-Russian conflict is improbable, but North Korea, Iraq, and Iran all are working on long-range missiles.
In an expanded version of the Concord speech scheduled for delivery in New York last night, McCain said US vulnerability to missiles has become a major incentive for rogue states to develop the weapons.
Among other presidential contenders, former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley says he would not build a missile defense system. Texas Governor George W. Bush says he would. Vice President Al Gore supports development of a missile defense system but would not commit to deploying it until costs and chances of preserving the current treaty were evaluated.
McCain laid blame for the poor level of US military preparedness on Republican and Democratic political leaders rather than on the uniformed leadership of the military services.
He said that the C-130 military transport aircraft, the B-2 stealth bomber, and the Seawolf submarine all should be taken out of production and that numerous unneeded military bases, which have been kept open by congressmen eager to avoid unemployment and dislocation in their districts, should be closed. These and related steps would save up to $20 billion a year that could be used for modernization of forces to face current threats, he said.
McCain took pains near the beginning of his remarks to absolve military leaders of blame for the lack of preparedness, faulting instead what he called gross neglect of real military needs by Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and by the administrations of Presidents Clinton and Bush.
He noted that for years Congress has forced the Air Force to buy more C-130s than its leaders wanted, while military salaries were kept so low that 12,000 enlisted personnel are ''left with no choice but to accept food stamps.''
However, in the New York text he added that ''our military planning focuses on maintaining the force structure that proved effective in winning the last war, while too little attention has been given to ... future conflicts.
''We cannot afford to allow embedded biases in the Pentagon or political influences to resist innovative and forward-thinking approaches to force planning,'' he said.
McCain invoked memories of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the 58th anniversary of which was observed yesterday, saying the primary legacy of the event which precipitated US entry into World War II was that ''it had taught America the perils of military unpreparedness.''
''Today we spend barely 3 percent of our gross domestic progress on defense. The last time we spent so little on defense was 1940 - the year before Pearl Harbor.''
