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 ...
My apologies to Poland and the Czech Republic.
Outstanding composition.
Holy shit....and we set the stage for it again today.
Some have said Obama doesn’t know history and the Russians picked this date. Having watched this narcissistic b——— in action a few months, he knows what this date means exactly and is thumbing his nose at freedom-loving people everywhere.
I like this version better
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2341504/posts
The MSM added Bushes name to make it somehow sound political like all the boogie man Bush did was bad, so 0bama the false messiah can appeal to his own left wing.
Don’t forget this action tells the Israelis a lot too.
The United States will cut you off in a minute.
Thank you for the catalogue of all my frustration and feelings of helplessness while watching my country disintegrate before my eyes.
Time for Eastern Europe to organize their own self defense systems.
No help from their former friends now.
Interesting comments on that blog. I tend to agree with those who say we can’t afford it. And that Europe should defend itself.
Amen. Why should we do it?
Yep. Although I don't think Israel has a whole lot of choice in the matter. They have to act or face annihilation, with or without the USA's approval. Israel finds themselves between a rock and a hard place. If they act, war will certainly be declared against them by a much larger aggressor(s). If they don't act they'll likely get nuked by Iran sometime in the next few years. As an old acquaintance of mine used to say "When it gets down to you or me, you gotta go!" .....
“Time for Eastern Europe to organize their own self defense systems.
No help from their former friends now.”
That is very obvious with this announcement.
And it comes on the 70th Anniversary of the Soviet Invasion of Poland.
Obama believes we have a monarchy, and that he is the King.
And what about in ten years timeframe, what kind of missiles will Iran be hosting then? This administration can be shortsighted to a fault.
Yeah, that’s the problem with monarchs - how do you get a good one? And what do you do if he turns bad?
So, in the course, of a week, we have caved to North Korea, caved to Iran, betrayed our best European allies, knifed Honduras in the back, and sucked up to an American hating dictator in Venezuela. Nice.
Can we really wait for 2012?
The shield never had anything to do with defending those two countries. It would have defended all of Europe.
Screw Europe. Let em defend themselves.
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