White House to Scrap Bush’s Approach to Missile Shield

Slimes ^ | 9/17/2009 | PETER BAKER and NICHOLAS KULISH

[balls]

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans to announce on Thursday that it will 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 shorter-range Iranian missiles, according to people familiar with the plans.

President 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 probably either in southern Europe or Turkey, those familiar with the plans said.

The White House will announce the decision Thursday morning and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who was first appointed by Mr. Bush, will then discuss it with reporters at 10:30 a.m. It amounts to one of the biggest national security reversals by the new administration, one that will upset Czech and Polish allies and possibly please Russia, which 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.

“The way forward enhances our homeland defense and protects our forces abroad as well as our European allies,” said an administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid upstaging the announcement by Mr. Gates. “Our review has been driven by an updated intelligence assessment of Iran’s missile programs and new advances in our missile defense capabilities and technologies.”

Administration officials said the Bush missile defense architecture was better designed to counter potential long-range missiles by Iran, but recent tests and intelligence have indicated that Tehran is moving more rapidly toward developing short- and medium-range missiles.

[Churchillspirit]

Two more countries thrown under the bus....we’re gonna need a bigger bus.

[Thunder90]

Obama is a weak wimpy socialist who hates his own country...

Putin is a strong Soviet Communist who loves his country and its past (The USSR).

[caveat emptor]

OB had me confused for a while - until I heard John Bolton explain it on Fox News. Here's the gist:

The cancelled program was for the defence of America against ICBMs - long range missiles. Such a system is now in place in Alaska to defend against the NORKs.

The new system is to defend Europe against medium and short range missiles. OB says we will revisit the former question later, when Iran's rocket development program is more advanced.

According to Bolton, OB is making a bad bet, that Iran won't have any functional ICBMs any time soon. Bad bet because Iran's successful satellite launch indicates their program is already quite far along.

[Nephi]

Obama finally does the constitutional thing, but likely not for the right reasons. Good job. Europe can defend themselves. So can Israel...especially if we quit funding her enemies. Geez, this make twice in one week. First, raising the tariffs on communist Chinese tires, and now, ending our defense of europe. Boy, this is going to piss off all of the Trotskyite neo-con, interventionist, tax and spend, big government, world government Republicans and freepers.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Sedition.

[GI Joe Fan]

The poles should be used to being reneged on by the DEMOCRAT PARTY.

Please keep in mind that it was Conservatives like General Patton who wanted to push the Communist hordes out of Eastern Europe.

He even went as far as to insinuate that joining forces with the Wehermacht would be worth the effort of removing communist forces from the Slavic nations.

[steve0]

O the irony. Poland takes another marxist hit 70 years later. The 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939, during the early stages of World War II, sixteen days after the beginning of the Nazi German attack on Poland. It ended in a decisive victory for the Soviet Union’s Red Army. 2009 Poland suffers another marxist outrage with a knife in the back from the 0.

[Patriotic1]

Capitulation? What does he gain from it?

[kabar]

I assume there is some unspoken quid pro quo. It could be more Russian support on sanctions against Iran with the Obama September 30 deadline approaching. Or it could be the continued ability of the US to send supplies to Afghanistan and use Russian air space for the same purpose.

Regardless of what the Russians may have promised, pulling the rug out from under our allies is the bigger prize for the Russians who have been threatening the Poles and Czechs for some time over the ABM system.

[RightCenter]

Aren't we moving the missiles to Turkey, somewhere closer to Iran?

[RightCenter]

The difference here is that BHO wants to move missiles TO Turkey.

[RightCenter]

But aren't the missiles being sent to Southern Europe or Turkey, which are closer to Iran?

[TomasUSMC]

The run on American Bank has now officially begun.

Print more quick, more more more....print faster....just add a ZERO!

[Cold Heat]

We took some out of there years back when the muzzies took over. Turkey is problematic as a working friendship. It was not always so.

If you want to go farther back, to the Kennedy missile crisis, we had medium range nukes there.

No, this is a new long range interceptor, not yet deployed anywhere and we made a deal with Poland, and Checkolsovakia to put the radar and launch base there. For them it was a way to get the U.S. into a joint defense pact to protect them from the Bear.

For us it was a good spot to protect the U.S. and Canada from rogue missile shots.

These short range Aegis launched missiles are what they are. Short Range and you would have to be on top of the launch to take them out before they went out of range. Iran already countered that strategy by moving their launcher far inland. They can easily defeat it with numerous launches or misdirection. The interception at the terminal phase when the package is falling, is really too late. They need only air burst on intercept and the magnetic pulse will be as or more effective than a direct hit and affect a much larger area.

This explanation is bullchitty. This is a retreat from Iran and the Bear. Zero is playing with fire and no water. He has made a strategic error IMO. Our security cannot be too expensive and Russia will not help with Iran under any circumstances. Iran is not going to shelve it's program and we just gave away what little we had.

[Cold Heat]

The difference here is that BHO wants to move missiles TO Turkey.No, that won't happen, Western Europe either!

There are ideal places to spot these things and we had them. Western Europe will never go against the Bear, the are afraid of them and won't lift a finger. Been there done that.

Obama is lying! But what's new. So is Gates, and that is new and needs watching.

[TomasUSMC]

Media reports in Poland are suggesting that President Obama could not get through to Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw due to “technical problems”

[TomasUSMC]

The news comes on September 17, a difficult day for Polish-Russian relations as 70 years ago to the day, the Red Army invaded Poland.

[null and void]

Today marks exactly, to the day, seventy years since the Soviet Union invaded Poland. How much more blatant could you be?

Ya gotta give the guy credit.

He never passes up a chance to piss off our friends or suck up to our enemas.

[Impy]

Should not have come as any surprise. All too predictable.

It’s shameful we don’t have a system fully in place already. It should have been our #1 defense priority for the past 20 years.

[topfile]

I smell a deal...... what was Obama’s take?