UK Not Part Of Anti-Missile Defence Plans, US Says

Taken from The Guardian, February 23, 2007
Mark Oliver

The UK is interested in hosting part of Washington's contentious "son of Star Wars" missile interceptor system, Downing Street said today, only to have US officials respond by saying Britain is not currently part of its plans. If the UK did host a missile silo or radar site it would likely prompt considerable opposition from the anti-war movement, and might spark protests echoing those at RAF Greenham Common in the 1980s.



The prime minister's office confirmed today it had discussed the missile system with Washington. However, a senior US diplomat said the country was not as yet interested in placing it in Britain.

"As we go forward there may be opportunities for us to talk to other countries about their needs, but right now we are concentrating on the Czech Republic and on Poland as the primary sites where we would be looking for this," the US deputy chief of mission in London, David Johnson, told BBC Radio 4's The World at One.

The US Missile Defence Agency added that it had also not heard anything about involving the UK in the system.

Surveys had shown Poland was the best place for the interceptors and that the radar should be in the Czech Republic, the agency spokesman Rick Lehner said. No other site would be necessary.

"Those are the best locations, the ones that best meet the technical requirements of a missile defence system," he said.

Earlier this week, the prime ministers of the Czech Republic and Poland said they were "likely" to accept a formal request from the Pentagon to part-host the system.

This prompted condemnation from a Russian general who said it would wreck the post-cold war balance of power in Europe. Moscow is furious at the prospect of former Soviet states being involved in the defence shield so close to its borders.

Russia claims that it is the missile shield's intended target, rather than a "rogue state" such as Iran, as the US insists.

Following a report in today's Economist that the UK was in talks with the US, a Downing Street spokesman confirmed that discussions were at an "early stage".

The Economist said a new missile silo could be sited at an existing US military base in the UK, but not at RAF Fylingdales in Yorkshire, which already houses early-warning radar equipment used within the system.

Britain's decision in 2003 to upgrade facilities at Fylingdales to support the missile interceptor system sparked enormous controversy and was bitterly opposed by some Labour MPs.

The Downing Street spokesman said: "The objective of these conversations was to make sure that the UK is kept in consideration to be one of the locations for the system should the US press ahead.

"No party to these discussions has got as far as discussing the specifics. We are simply at the stage where we have decided we want to be part of the discussion."

Downing Street sought to play down parts of the Economist report, which claimed the prime minister, Tony Blair, had been "discreetly waging a campaign since last autumn to secure the missile-interceptor site for Britain". The No 10 spokesman said the article "goes too far" in its account of the stage of talks.

The spokesman did not comment on BBC reports suggesting that Mr Blair had raised the issue directly with the US president, George Bush, or that Mr Blair had charged his chief foreign affairs adviser, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, with liaising with the US national security council about the missiles.
It is thought the Pentagon wants to site a radar station in the Czech Republic, which would work in tandem with a silo of 10 interceptor weapons in neighbouring Poland. The cost of a European-based system has been estimated at £810m.

The various reports give the impression that the UK is actively seeking a role, whereas the Czechs and Polish appear to have been courted by the US. While the prime ministers of the east European countries have signalled support for the plan, both have also expressed misgivings.

Reports have also claimed that the Pentagon wants the interceptor silo to be considered as US territory, something about which the Polish prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has said he is uneasy. Maintenance of the silo might require 500 US personnel.

Polls in both the Czech Republic and Poland reflect public unease; a recent poll showed that 53% of Poles opposed hosting such a base, while 34% were in favour. Since 2002, the US has built two missile interceptor sites in Alaska and California.

The system is supposed to work by firing missiles to shoot down enemy missiles targeting the territory of the United States or its allies.