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U.S. stalls plans for missile base

Congresswoman questions accuracy of Polish interceptors

By Ondřej Bouda
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
December 17th, 2008 issue

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s administration may slow down the construction of the planned missile-defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. While Obama has not yet presented his official stance on the issue, members of his party argue that the system must be tested and proved effective before it is deployed.
Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, chairwoman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, visited the two countries Dec 16–17. “I am unwilling to dig holes in Poland and fill them up with untested rockets,” she told journalists before her trip, adding that she would prefer to concentrate more on defense against short- and middle-range missiles.
Recent defense budget cuts made by the U.S. Congress point to the possibility that construction of the Polish missile interceptor base could be postponed.
Jiří Schneider, director of the Prague Security Studies Institute, calls this plan a temporary delay caused by the financial crisis. While the missile interceptor system has not been tested sufficiently, the radar has proved itself by many years of service, he said.
Due to the radar’s compatibility with other missile systems, such as the NATO naval-based Aegis system against short- and middle-range rockets, the radar could fulfill its role without the Polish missile interceptors. “The two systems can be separated and built in stages,” said Schneider.
Czech diplomats are not expecting any radical change in U.S. policy concerning the radar, he added.
For the new U.S. administration, Russian opposition to the project remains a key issue. Russia cannot be allowed to think that they have a veto right in U.S. defense plans and that the missile shield is being delayed because of it, Tauscher said.
Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra has said that the Czech Republic is willing to provide Russia with “reasonable” guarantees in order to promote understanding and cooperation between the two superpowers.
The two Czech-U.S. radar treaties still await ratification by the lower house, where the opposition Social Democrats want to postpone the vote by sending the treaties to the Constitutional Court, whose justices say the complaint has almost no chance of success. If the radar is to serve within NATO systems as Tauscher proposed, it can find the support it currently lacks in Parliament, Schneider said.

Ondřej Bouda can be reached at obouda@praguepost.com


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[18:54 19/12/2008] : I doubt that the Czech house will vote to perpetuate the error of the Bush Administration into 2009.
The missile defense pact is as lame a duck as the administration that originated it. Every sensible member of the Czech house should agree with the Czech public and vote not to approve locating another foreign military base on their soil. Why would the Czechs who have had experience with an unwanted earlier super power on their soil actually invite by vote to permit the another super power to have a base on their sovereign territory? If the US Gauntanamo Bay naval base in Cuba could accommodate detainees for illegal interrogations so might the Brdy base be misused.
If the Czech Parliament approves the missile defense pact it will be subject to heavy scrutiny in the incoming US Congress as Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher recognizes.
The newly elected US Senate will undoubtedly invoke the "advise and consent" of the US Constitution which the outgoing administration sought to evade. January 20, 2009 the end of an error.
Stasny Novy Rok.
Paulette C. Will
Minneapolis
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