Us Expected to Shelve Euro Missile Defense Tactic
The prime minister of the Czech Republic, one of two countries where the system was to be built, said Thursday that President Barack Obama had told him the United States would abandon the plan.
Jan Fischer said Obama telephoned him to say that Washington no longer intends to put 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic.
Obamas top military adviser, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the administration was “very close” to the end of a seven-month review of a missile defense shield proposal, an idea that was promoted by the George W. Bush administration. Mullen would not divulge its results.
Obama faced the dilemma of either setting back the gradual progress toward repairing relations with Russia or disappointing two key NATO allies, the Czech Republic and Poland, that agreed to host components of the planned system.
Czech government spokesman Roman Prorok said Ellen Tauscher, a U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, was briefing Czech officials in Prague and Polish officials in Warsaw on Thursday about Obamas decision.
“It is most probable that the U.S. administration will unfortunately scrap the plan altogether,” said Jaroslaw Gowin, lawmaker for Polands ruling Civic Platform party. “This would confirm that Central Europe is not in the center of the Obama administrations interest. But maybe the U.S. will offer us an alternative.”
Piotr Paszkowski, spokesman for Polands Foreign Ministry, told The Associated Press he would wait for the U.S. announcement before commenting.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates scheduled a news conference Thursday with a top military leader, Marine Gen. James Cartwright, who has been a point man on the technical challenge of arraying missiles and interceptors to defend against long-range missiles that an aggressor such as Iran might lob at the U.S. or its allies. Two military officials said the news conference would concern the missile defense plans.
Obama took office undecided about whether to continue to press for the European system and said he would study it. His administration never sounded enthusiastic about the plan, and European allies have been preparing for an announcement that the White House would not complete the shield as designed.
The decision comes as the Obama administration has been seeking closer ties with Moscow and as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is preparing to visit the United States next week for the U.N. General Assembly and the Group of 20 nations economic summit.
The plan for a European shield was a darling of the Bush administration, which reached deals to install 10 interceptors in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic – eastern European nations at Russias doorstep and once under Soviet sway.
Moscow has argued that the system would undermine the nuclear deterrent of its vast arsenal.
Alexei Arbatov, head of the Russian Academy of Sciences Center for International Security, told a Moscow radio station Thursday that “the United States is reckoning that by rejecting the missile-defense system or putting it off to the far future, Russia will be inclined together with the United States to take a harder line on sanctions against Iran.”
The administration has given few clues on how it intends to handle European missile defense. Officials have said the review would consider alternative plans to those involving Poland and the Czech Republic.
At an Army missile defense conference last month, Cartwright, who is vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested that the U.S. may have underestimated how long it would take Iran to develop long-range missiles. That was seen as a clue that the administration might be backing away from the European plan as devised.
Military officials at the conference discussed possible alternatives for European missile defense, including using shorter-range interceptors from other locations closer to Iran.
Cartwright also has discussed ways the United States might join forces with other nations to watch and protect against Iranian missiles. Using multiple sensors, including some in the Persian Gulf region, theoretically could provide at least a partial shield for Eastern Europe without basing a full radar and interceptor system so close to Russia.