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| US concerned by delays to Polish base accord |
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Friday, October 31, 2008
WARSAW: A top US defence official on Thursday said he was worried that delays in Poland’s ratification could upset a tight timetable for deploying American missiles here to ward off attacks from so-called rogue states.
“I’m very concerned. That’s probably the biggest concern I have at this point,” US Missile Defence Agency head General Henry Obering said during a stock-taking visit to Poland.
Polish lawmakers have yet to ratify a deal struck in August between Warsaw and Washington after more than a year of painstaking negotiations, which foresees the creation of a US base in northern Poland for 10 interceptor missiles.
The aim of the base, which would go hand in hand with a radar facility in the Czech Republic, is to complete an anti-missile shield already in place in the United States, Greenland and Britain.
Washington insists the goal of the system, endorsed by the Nato this year, is to fend off potential missile attacks by what it calls “rogue states,” specifically Iran.
The United States warns that Iran could have long-range missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons by 2015 to 2017.
“If we get ratification by the end of this year, we will still not be able to put an interceptor in the ground in Poland until 2012,” said Obering, explaining that construction of the base could only begin in late 2009 or early 2010.
“And it will probably take us a year and a half or so to get all the interceptors in the ground. So in 2013 or 2014 it will be operation. The radar will be ready in about 2013, right in the middle of that,” he said. “So the more we delay that, the longer it takes us to have the defence, and the more opportunity there would be for Iran to emerge,” he warned.
The missile shield plan has sparked deep anger in Russia, the Cold War-era master of Poland and the Czech Republic, which joined Nato in 1999.
The Kremlin regards it as a grave security threat — coming amid rising East-West tensions over Russia’s conflict with US-backed Georgia — and has threatened to aim its own missiles at the planned US shield sites in Europe.
Washington, however, has repeatedly insisted the anti-missile system has never been meant as a move against Russia and in any case would not dent the Kremlin’s vast nuclear arsenal. “Technically speaking and militarily speaking, this is not a threat to Russia,” Obering said.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
