("Axis of evil" missile shield scrubbed. Republican critics called President Barack Obama's decision to scrap a Bush Administration plan to base a missile defense system in Eastern Europe "misguided," but the Pentagon and NATO supported his push for "a smaller, smarter, swifter" system. NBC White House Correspondent Savannah Guthrie reports.)
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(Defense Secretary Robert Gates discusses the rationale for a new shield system.)
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White House to Scrap Bush’s Approach to Missile Shield
President Obama announced on Thursday that he would scrap former President George W. Bush’s planned missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic and instead deploy a reconfigured system aimed more at intercepting short- and medium-range Iranian missiles.
Pres. Obama decided not to deploy a sophisticated radar system in the Czech Republic or 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland, as Mr. Bush had planned. Instead, the new system his administration is developing would deploy smaller SM-3 missiles, at first aboard ships and later on land somewhere in Europe, possibly even in Poland or the Czech Republic.
“President Bush was right that Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat,” Pres. Obama told reporters at the White House. But he said new assessments of the nature of the Iranian threat required a different system that would use existing technology and different locations. “This new approach will provide capabilities sooner, build on proven systems and offer greater defenses against the threat of missile attack than the 2007 European missile defense program.”
The decision amounts to one of the biggest national security reversals by the new administration, one that has caused consternation in Poland and the Czech Republic and pleased at least some officials in Russia, which had adamantly objected to the Bush plan. But Obama administration officials stressed that they are not abandoning missile defense, only redesigning it to meet the more immediate Iranian threat.
Pres. Obama called the leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic, both NATO member countries, before his announcement and said he “reaffirmed our deep and close ties.” He also reiterated America’s commitment under Article 5 of the NATO treaty that states that an attack on one member is an attack on the entire alliance. Aides later said that Pres. Obama would keep Mr. Bush’s commitment to provide Patriot anti-missile batteries to Poland.
The decision drew immediate Republican criticism. “Scrapping the U.S. missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic does little more then empower Russia and Iran at the expense of our allies in Europe,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House minority leader. “It shows a willful determination to continue ignoring the threat posed by some of the most dangerous regimes in the world.”
Anticipating the criticism, Pres. Obama said the decision was based on the unanimous recommendation of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then sent Mr. Gates, a Republican first appointed by Mr. Bush, to discuss the decision with reporters. Mr. Gates said the new system would actually put defenses in place seven years earlier than the Bush plan. He noted that land-based SM-3 missiles would eventually be located in Europe and said “we would prefer to put the SM-3’s in Poland.”
“Those who say we are scrapping missile defense in Europe are either misinformed or misrepresenting the reality of what we are doing,” Mr. Gates said. He added that the new configuration “provides a better missile defense capability” for Europe and American forces there “than the program I recommended almost three years ago.”
The Bush missile defense architecture was better designed to counter potential intercontinental ballistic missiles by Iran. But officials said American intelligence agencies have concluded that Tehran’s development of such long-range missiles has slowed, while its progress toward short- and medium-range missiles has accelerated. The new system, they said, is adapting to that change. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the administration would jettison the Bush architecture.
The administration officials also made clear that one reason for the shift would be to get better defenses in place sooner and closer to Israel to mitigate Israel’s desire to take military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities as it comes closer to building a nuclear warhead and mounting it on a missile. “We hope that it will reassure them that perhaps there’s a little more time here,” Mr. Gates said.
But the decision is sensitive in Europe and Russia. As details began to leak, the White House arranged for a post-midnight call from Pres. Obama to the Czech prime minister and a call in the morning to Poland’s prime minister. It also dispatched top officials to Prague and Warsaw to explain the decision and calm any anxieties.
But it made for unfortunate timing, as Thursday was the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland at the start of World War II, a date fraught with sensitivity for Poles who viewed the Bush missile defense system as a political security blanket against Russia. Poland and many other countries in the former Soviet sphere worry that Pres. Obama is less willing than Mr. Bush was to stand up to Russia.
While the Americans always described missile defense as a hedge against Iran, the Polish and Czech governments saw the presence of American military personnel based permanently in their countries as protection against Russia. Moscow strongly opposed the shield and claimed it was aimed against Russia and undermined its national security. The United States repeatedly denied such claims.
The announcement comes just days before Pres. Obama is scheduled to meet privately with Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, in New York on the sidelines of next week’s United Nations General Assembly session.
Mr. Medvedev, in an address on national television on Thursday, said that he looked forward to the meeting with President Obama. “We will have a good opportunity to exchange opinions on all issues of strategic stability, including missile defense,” he said. “I hope that we will be able to give assignments to different bodies — Russian, American bodies — to begin cooperation, including the involvement of interested European states.
“We will together work out efficient measures for dealing with the risks of missile proliferation -- measures that take into account the interests and concerns of all sides and guarantee equal security for all states in the European space. We appreciate the responsible approach of the U.S. President toward implementing our agreements. I am prepared to continue this dialogue.”
Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of Russia’s Parliament, said in an interview that the decision would give a major boost to relations between the two countries. “For Russia, it is a victory for common sense,” he said. “It another positive signal that we have received from Washington that makes the general climate very positive.”
The Obama administration’s four-phase plan would deploy existing SM-3 interceptors using the sea-based Aegis system in 2011, then after more testing deploy in 2015 an improved version of the interceptors both on ships and on land along with advanced sensors. A still more advanced version of the interceptors would be deployed in 2018 and yet another generation in 2020, the latter with more capacity to counter possible future intercontinental missiles.
By doing so, officials said, they would be getting the first defenses in place far earlier than the Bush plan, which envisioned deploying in 2018 the bigger ground-based interceptors that are still being developed. The SM-3 missiles have had eight successful tests so far. And with more short- and medium-range missiles to counter, the administration said it may deploy hundreds of the SM-3s, compared to just 10 of the ground-based interceptors Mr. Bush planned.
Officials said they no longer need the large advanced radar installation that Mr. Bush wanted to build in the Czech Republic and would instead install a more limited version probably in the Caucasus. The system will also rely more on satellites in space and will develop new airborne sensors.
The Obama review of missile defense was influenced in large part by evidence that Iran has made significant progress toward developing medium-range missiles that could threaten Europe, even as the prospects of an Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States remain distant.
In May, Iran launched the Sejil-2, the first successful test of a two-stage, solid-fuel missile. With an estimated range of around 1,200 miles, it could strike Israel or many parts of Europe. Unlike Iran’s liquid-fuel missiles, a solid-fuel missile can be stored, moved around and fired on shorter notice, and thus is considered by military experts to be a greater threat.
The Obama team relied heavily on the work of a Stanford University physicist, Dean Wilkening, who presented the government with research this year arguing that Poland and the Czech Republic were not the most effective places to station a missile defense system against the most likely Iranian threat. Instead, he said, more optimal places to station missiles and radar systems would be in Turkey or the Balkans.
“If you move the system down closer to the Middle East,” it would “make more sense for the defense of Europe, Mr. Wilkening said in an interview.
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Sources: NY Times, MSNBC, CNN, TIME, NATO.int, US Dept of Defense, Wikipedia, Google Maps
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