Missile-shield row erupts again

Czech officials are refusing to comment on the latest missile-defense row between the United States and Russia despite plans for the Czech Republic to play a leading role the deployment of a new system.

In September, the White House pulled the plug on the Bush administration's plans for a missile shield, but, in October, on a visit to Prague, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Jan Fischer confirmed the Czech Republic supported and would be involved in a new scaled-down version of the missile-defense shield.

Part of the new system, like its scrapped predecessor, will be at a military base in Poland, with a radar installation in Brdy. Technical consultations about the radar system began in November with the visit of Eileen Tauscher, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security to Prague.

But America's new missile-defense shield plans were sharply criticized Dec. 29 by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who claimed they will complicate efforts to cut the nuclear arsenals of the former Cold War rivals. Putin said Moscow should press ahead with a new generation of weapons to stop the Americans from doing "whatever they want."

"To preserve the balance, we must develop offensive weapons systems, not missile-defense systems as the United States is doing," he said during a visit to the naval port of Vladivostok on the Pacific coast.

It had previously seemed Washington and Moscow were edging toward a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), despite failing to meet the original target of Dec. 5, but Putin's comments signal a reversal.

"We don't feel there is any reason to comment on it," said Jiří Beneš, spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Neither was the Defense Ministry willing to talk about the new shield.

"The ministry will not react to it. If anyone should react, it is the Foreign Affairs Ministry," said Defense Ministry press officer Jan Pejšek.

However, Jan Májíček, spokesman for the Czech organization No Bases Initiative, said the new system will benefit corporations but endanger citizens.

"The development of new weapon systems benefits armament corporations, but ordinary people bear the cost when bombs fall."

New plans, unlike the previous version of a missile-defense shield, will not be entirely land-based, and will incorporate Aegis ships with SM-3 missiles deployed in the Mediterranean to protect Southern Europe by 2011, with land-based SM-3 missiles, in Poland, by 2015.

- Petr Cibulka Jr. contributed to this report.

Tom Clifford can be reached at
tclifford@praguepost.com