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 ...
I’m just curious why we’d be spending money we don’t have to defend the Czechs and the Poles? No offense to them, just wondering how that can be a priority? Shouldn’t we have a shield here in the US first? I don’t get it.
Uh, that would be the type of intelligence this bunch decried as "lying about wmd's"--
Pansy-Of-The-United-States is keeping his pre-election promise of unilateral disarmament.
To please his communist buddies in Russia.
Criminal.
Treasonous.
Conspirator.
Key words to describe his treacherous global behavior.
Failure to protect and provide for the American people and her allies. Then they want to spread the wealth to the have not nations? Poor priorities. Ill understanding of how the real world operates and a relentless drive to destroy the US and the west!
Destroyer of the American way. The man needs to be impeached.
OBAMA’S FOREIGN POLICY=SURRENDER.
CAPITULATES TO NORTH KOREA ON TALKS
CAPITULATES TO RUSSIA ON MISSILE DEFENSE
CAPITULATES TO HAMAS ON FUNDING & ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS
WEAK.
America has been the world policeman since the beginning of time at the taxpayers expense. It has provided many with safety and freedom over the last 233 years.
Obama wants to destroy that too.
Domestic-Enemy-in-Chief speaking now...
A predictable development. He is a Democrat, after all, and one from the extreme lftist fringe of the party.
“Domestic-Enemy-in-Chief speaking now...”
Obama is as dangerous as Al Queda and the Taliban.
One Polish take on it, with mixed comments:
http://www.polskieradio.pl/thenews/international/?id=116074
“Shouldn’t we have a shield here in the US first?”
It’s not like a force-field. You can prevent missiles from hitting the US by intercepting them anywhere along the trajectory. Advanced deployment makes sense to me as a building block of integrated missile defense.
That system worked pretty well at Crecy and Agincourt.
No questions... he couldn’t leave the briefing faster if he was strapped on an Iranian missile.
Precisely. Today marks exactly, to the day, seventy years since the Soviet Union invaded Poland. How much more blatant could you be?
Well, the article states the defense system will be placed closer to Iran, so that seems to be in line with your thinking on the matter.
APPEASEMENT ... (definition)
i) Putting today’s worries off until some uncertain future time, when someone else will have to take a stand (because you didn’t).
ii) The immoral practice of sending a much larger number of future Americans into harms way in the future in order to temporarily look good in the present
iii) Progressive strategy, which has no historical validity, for winning wars, defeating enemies and preserving freedom & democracy
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