Missile shield to counter Iran

Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the Pentagon's Enemy No 1. Picture / Reuters

WASHINGTON - In a move that is raising hackles in Moscow, the US is proposing to install an anti-missile defence system in central Europe to counter any future attack from a nuclear-armed Iran.

The plan, for which the Pentagon has requested US$56 million of exploratory funding from Congress, would cost US$1.6 billion ($2.55 billion) and involve 10 interceptor units.

The most likely base for the system was Poland, followed by the Czech Republic, officials said. For the moment, the scheme - first reported in the New York Times and which would parallel the anti-missile shield being built in Alaska and California against attacks from North Korea - is largely symbolic and hypothetical.

Iran has no weapons capable of hitting Western Europe, let alone one that could reach the United States.

But as a showdown moves closer between the West and Tehran over its uranium-enrichment programme, and with the Israeli Prime Minister in Washington warning that Iran represents a threat not only to Israel but to Western civilisation, the US is determined to send another signal of its determination to act.

The new shield would bring a US military presence deeper into Europe. And for Russia the project reeks of American encroachment into what used to be its own sphere of influence.

The move would have "a negative impact on the whole Euro-Atlantic security system", Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov told a Belarus newspaper, hinting at further strain on relations between Russia and Nato. The mooted site for the system "is dubious, to put it mildly", he said.

This is not the first time the missile shield has divided the two countries.

In 2002, US President George W. Bush upset Moscow by pulling out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, long regarded in Moscow as the cornerstone of nuclear arms control.

The possible extension of missile defence into Europe is the latest episode of a story that has inspired dreams and controversy in equal measure since it was first sketched out by the then President Ronald Reagan in 1983 as the Strategic Defence Initiative, quickly dubbed "Star Wars".

But despite more than 20 years of work and tens of billions of dollars, it is now accepted that any such shield would be overwhelmed by an attack from Russia, which possesses a nuclear arsenal comparable to the US.

It has now been scaled back to cope with a limited strike that North Korea might be able to deliver to the continental US by the end of the decade.

Even this version, however, is of questionable viability. "It [the shield] has been doing very poorly," a former Pentagon official involved in the testing told the New York Times. "They have not had a successful flight intercept test in four years."

But the slow progress has not deterred extensive contacts between the US and Poland in particular. Polish press reports have said that Boeing, the lead company on the project, has already agreed to subcontract work to Polish concerns.

According to the New York Times, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to receive a recommendation on a European site in the summer. Such a base in Poland would create the first permanent American military presence in the country.

At least as logical a site for the shield would be Britain, where the Pentagon is already upgrading equipment at the early warning radar base of Fylingdales in Yorkshire.

But the intense domestic unpopularity of Prime Minister Tony Blair and hostility to the Iraq war have ruled that option out.

Poland, on the other hand, has been a staunch ally of the US ever since Communism collapsed in 1989. It is now a member of Nato, and has contributed troops to the Iraq occupation.

So far, nine interceptor rockets are in place at Fort Greely in Alaska, and two more at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Each carries a "kill vehicle" that homes in on incoming missiles.

SCI-FI IN THE SKY

* US President Ronald Reagan in 1983 introduced the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI).

* It was quickly dubbed "Star Wars" after the film saga.

* SDI focused on defence rather than the previous attack doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD).

* The research and technologies of SDI paved the way for the anti-ballistic missiles of today.

ALL HEADS TOGETHER

* World powers were to meet in London overnight to discuss a package of "carrot and stick" incentives and threats.

* The package has been drafted by European countries aimed at defusing the crisis over Iran's disputed nuclear programme.

* Senior officials from China, Russia, the US, France, Britain and Germany will try to narrow divisions over how to persuade Tehran to halt its uranium enrichment work.

ON THE TABLE

* The package is likely to include an offer of a light-water reactor and an assured supply from abroad of fuel for civilian reactors so Iran would not have to enrich uranium itself.

* It will also warn of possible sanctions if Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer refuses the offer.

* Diplomats said they would first discuss targeted sanctions, such as visa bans on officials involved in the nuclear programme, before seeking ways of curtailing trade deals.

ONE-ON-ONE, PLEASE

* Some EU officials, analysts and the UN's nuclear watchdog - the International Atomic Energy Agency - want the US to hold talks with Iran.

* They believe the only way to entice Iran into a nuclear moratorium and talks would be a pledge from the US that it would not topple the regime.

* The Washington Post, citing US officials, Iranian analysts and foreign diplomats, reported that Iran is making explicit requests for direct talks with the US.

- INDEPENDENT, REUTERS