The White House will have to find the rights words to persuade the Congress that the United States needs a European missile defense system before approaching Moscow on the subject.
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American Radars Get Interference
// The U.S. Congress puts obstacles to their deployment in Eastern Europe
Another round of Russian-U.S. talks on the deployment of American missile facilities in Eastern Europe started in Budapest on Thursday. Moscow on Wednesday received unexpected support from the U.S. Congress when American lawmakers passed a bill setting conditions for the construction of the U.S. missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. It will now be more difficult for the White House to ask Russian leadership to concede. Moscow will surely suggest the U.S. administration convince the Congress first.
The new round of Russian-American talks in Budapest on anti-aircraft defense facilities in Eastern Europe two days ago seemed doomed to a failure. After Moscow turned down Washington’s written proposals handed from the U.S. State Department to the Russian Foreign Ministry the diplomats clearly had nothing left to discuss. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said back then that the United States made “a step backwards” with its suggestions on missile defense that which is not acceptable for Russia. Thus, the progress of the October meeting of U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates with Sergey Lavrov and Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov in Moscow was brought to naught, and parties had to start from scratch when talks began in July.
But American lawmakers gave an unexpected hand to Russian diplomats. The House of Representatives voted 370-49 to pass the 2008 military budget to substantially cut funding for the Pentagon’s plans on the deployment of anti-missile facilities in Eastern Europe. The bill earmarked $225 million for the deployment of the radar station in the Czech Republic and ten interceptor missiles in Poland in 2008, which is $85 million less than the sum that the Pentagon was seeking for. The funding was cut from facilities in Poland that Moscow are the most unhappy about. But the American military will be able to use the money only if they meet two key conditions of the Congress. First, Poland and the Czech Republic must give “final approval” to any deal with the United States. Second, the Pentagon chiefs will have to present an independent study of the plan and alternatives to it. The Congress will have another 45 days to think before giving the go-ahead to the project or sending it for redrafting.
Finally, the Senate and Congress’ Armed Services Committees, which drafted the bill, expressed a suggestion that America’s European patch of missile defense be integrated into the NATO-led European anti-aircraft system. “Only with these conditions we can be sure that the system is safe and protects our common interests,” said the committee’s chair Carl Levin. His counterpart in the Senate Ike Skelton supported the speech.
The bill now goes to the Senate and to President Bush for signature. But hardly anyone doubts that the bill will be approved soon. Senators were active debating the bill meeting a lot of key arguments the White House such as authorizing more spending on the Iraq and Afghan wars.
Some stipulations of the bill pose a merely technical difficulty for the Pentagon. Lt Gen Henry Obering, who oversees the Missile Defense Agency, said earlier this week that an $85 million cut in spending would slow down the program by half a year but added that the interceptors would be deployed by 2013. But other restrictions imposed by the Congress could have a more serious effect. In his report to the lawmakers on alternative projects the Pentagon chief is going to have to explain why he had not agreed to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s suggestion on the joint use of Russian radar stations in Armavir, southern Russia, and Gabal, Azerbaijan. He will also have to persuade the Congress that Iranian missiles pose an immediate danger and the missile shield should be build as soon as possible. But this would be very hard to do after the recent report by the U.S. intelligence on the current state of the Iranian nuclear program.
However, the main obstacle on the way to its missile plans in Europe is having to secure approval from Polish and Czech parliaments to build the facilities. It looks that the Americans will have a free ride in the Czech Republic but the process in Poland could be problematic. Poland’s new Prime Minister Donald Tusk promised right after his Civic Platform party won the October parliamentary election to hold talks on the interceptor base in the country will all the parties involved including Russia and the EU. So if it comes to a vote in the parliament, the outcome will not necessarily will be in favor of the United States. “There are considerable forces in the parliament who have serious doubts about whether the American shield will improve security of Poland,” Tadeusz Iwinski, member of the parliament’s international affairs committee, told Kommersant. “If we decide to create this system, it should be done by the whole NATO and even better with Russia’s participation.”
Alexander Gabuev
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 14, 2007
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