Posted on 09/17/2009 7:09:46 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Disgusting but true.
Right now I am watching SecDef Gates defend this atrocious decision.
Sickening.
I know, silly question. There's no such THING as treason any more.
Yes we should have one here, and there is technology avaialable. Since Reagan, congress has never had the will to do it.
It isnt defending Czechs and Poles. Get out a globe, look at Iran,,,trace your way to New York and DC by the direct route. A missile in its early boost phase passes over Czech republic, where the radar plots it. Then missiles are fired from poland for the intercept.
This never had anything to do with Russia. It was a mere handful of missiles, like 10 or so. Russia could easily overwhelm that. Also any russian launch tracks wouldnt pass over europe, they would fly over the polar region.
Russia knew the missiles had nothing to do with them, and had an ulterior diplomatic motive. Obama the amateur got owned by them. This was a minor thing he could easily have won.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague”.”
~~Marcus Tullius Cicero
And his friends in Iran. Meanwhile, he is aking a hard line in Honduras, and will not meet the Dalai Lama.
What a punk, what a tool.
Of course no questions: he DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT EXCEPT THAT HE WANTS TO SURRENDER TO RUSSIA'S DEMANDS.
So he sloughs off to golf some more and has his SecDef do the heavy lifting.
He is nothing more than a script reading ignoramus.
WHY Gates has continued to stay on and defend this dolt is amazing.
Yeah, apparantly it’s all about IRAN. And so they are moving the system closer to IRAN. Doesn’t really sound like caving in to me. If it’s a better way to defend against Iran, I’m for it. If it makes Russia happy too, so what?
bttt. good quote.
Well that's just great, we'll be well prepared for the next horde of French knights.
Three more years of this bullshit and we’ll be reduced to throwing strongly worded letters of protest at our enemies.
Oh, wait - we’re doing that now.
Moving it where? Aren’t our Eastern European allies worth defending?
You wouldn't think you'd have to explain this kind of thing to a sentient being.
I really have mixed emotions on this. I appreciate your comments however we have navsats around the globe and intercept aircraft and missile’s for any long ride here.
I think europe should pay for its own defense - they have not and want the american taxpayer to pay for them.
There is nothing stoping either country from buying and implementing their own defense.
Are that many people in the leadership of America really so much in favor of bald-faced treason? One of the few legitimate functions of government is to protect its people; here we have an administration that is usurping all kinds of roles government is NOT supposed to have, while doing what it can to undermine its legitimate roles. We need regime change, urgently.
Obamalamadingdong chose the 70th anniversary, to the day, of the Soviet Union's invasion of Poland to make this announcement. Accident? Chance? This plan has been in the works for months. He could have chosen any day this week, but he chooses September 17th to make this announcement. If Russia never had anything to do with it isn't the timing kind of odd?
If America’s word is only good until the next election, maybe monarchy wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
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