US and Czechs agree missile shield deal

The United States and the Czech Republic today signed an initial agreement to base a US missile shield in Eastern Europe.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the shield is a good deal for the Czech Republic and for Poland, where the US hopes to place another part of the system, although Warsaw has yet to agree.

The next American president will have to decide whether and how to go forward with the missile defence system, Ms Rice said, while making the case that the threat from Iran is growing and it is hard to imagine any administration giving up an effective deterrent.

“It’s hard for me to believe that that’s not a capability an American president is going to want to have,” Ms Rice said.

Ms Rice signed the agreement along with Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.

“This treaty will not only increase security of the Czech Republic but also of Europe,” and beyond, Mr Schwarzenberg said.

Ms Rice has all but ruled out a stop in Poland this week to finalise the missile defence shield plan there, saying the US has answered Polish demands for military hardware and the final agreement rests with Polish authorities.

“We are at a place where these negotiations need to come to a conclusion,” Ms Rice told reporters.

However, she said there was little point in going to Warsaw unless the Poles were ready to move ahead.

The missile systems, which the US says are a defence against long-range weapons from the Middle East and especially Iran, are highly unpopular in both the Czech Republic and in Poland, the former Soviet satellite states where the US wants to place missiles and interceptors in the next five years.

“Ballistic missile proliferation is not an imaginary threat,” Ms Rice said after meeting Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek. She said Iran continues to perfect the tools it might one day use to build a bomb, along with long-range missiles that could carry a warhead.

The proposed US missile defence system calls for a tracking radar in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland.

Russia, however, bitterly opposed the plan, calling it an affront to its sovereignty and a potential threat, and has threatened to aim its own missiles at any eventual base in Poland or the Czech Republic.

The Bush administration is trying to arrange deals before US President George Bush leaves office in January. But talks with Poland have bogged down recently over Polish demands for billions of dollars worth of US military aid, in part to deter a possible strike from Russia.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said last Friday that Poland wants US assurances of short and medium-range anti-missile systems, including a Patriot missile battery to shore up its own defences.

Today’s signing in Prague isn’t a guarantee that US will be able to build and operate a proposed radar base near the Czech capital.

There are still open negotiations on a second treaty dealing with the legal status of US soldiers to be deployed at the planned radar base.

Even more difficult will be parliamentary approval for both documents.

The three-party governing coalition enjoys the support of only half of the 200 MPs in the parliament’s lower chamber, not enough to ratify any deal as the opposition parties fiercely oppose the missile defence plan and call for a nationwide referendum on the issue.

About two thirds of Czechs say they oppose the missile defence deal, according to a number of polls.

The government plans to submit the deal with US to the hostile parliament for a heated and lengthy debate only after the next general elections planned for 2010.