WASHINGTON: Veteran Hollywood actor Michael Douglas on Thursday defended the US State Department against budget-cutting efforts in Congress as he said diplomacy is cheaper than war.
During a visit to the State Department, Douglas, a board member of the Ploughshares Fund, which fights the spread of nuclear weapons, said diplomacy is good value for money in tough economic times.
"People don't take the time to understand just how important diplomacy is. It takes a long time, it's quiet but it's certainly a lot cheaper than a war," the two-time Oscar winner told reporters.
"I think Congress is a way out of line in terms of the amount of budget (cuts) that they are talking about," Douglas said amid fears that billions of dollars could be cut.
"I hope that sound minds and logical minds will prevail," he said as he pointed out that State Department spending and all foreign aid account for only one percent of the total US federal budget.
Douglas praised the diplomacy that led to the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between Russia and the United States that entered force in February.
The treaty slashes existing warhead ceilings by 30 percent over the next 10 years and limits each side to 700 deployed long-range missiles and heavy bombers.
The actor meanwhile expressed concern about Iran's uranium enrichment program as well as about the risk that Pakistan's nuclear weapons could fall into the wrong hands.
The State Department said Douglas was visiting State Department officials to discuss the Ploughshares Fund's nonproliferation and arms control efforts and its relation to President Barack Obama's Prague Agenda.
During a speech in Prague in April 2009, Obama pledged to lead a quest for a world purged of nuclear weapons and denounced "fatalism" over proliferation.
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