Unveiling a new plan to strengthen the military\'s space programs, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld stopped short today of advocating putting weapons in outer space, an idea that has come under sharp criticism from Congressional Democrats.

The United States military has succeeded for the second time in shooting
down an intercontinental ballistic missile, but Pentagon officials warned
today that much more development would be needed before the technology
could reliably destroy real weapons.

A classified Pentagon review of nuclear policy calls for sharply reducing United States dependence on nuclear weapons by expanding the use of conventional, precision arms and building a missile defense system, according to officials familiar with the document.

Buoyed by four successful missile defense tests in a row, senior Pentagon officials say they are on schedule to open a rudimentary missile shield site in Alaska by the fall of 2004. Just last summer, the Pentagon was expressing at best a guarded optimism about its antimissile program, which had had a string of failures. Since then, prototype interceptors have scored four consecutive direct hits on targets, three of them long-range ballistic missiles.

A senior U.S. warned that North Korea, if allowed to reprocess spent nuclear fuel rods, could sell some of that fissile material to terrorists and other enemies of the United States who are seeking to build nuclear weapons.