Obama Scraps Bush’s Missile Defense Shield

Obama on Thursday announced he would scrap the Bush-era plans to setup Poland with 10 intercept missiles and the Czech Republic with radar sensors. The plan was proposed to defend Europe against Iranian missiles. The missile defense shield was highly controversial with Russia a permanent member of the U.N. security council, they perceived it as a threat to their own missile defense systems.

Fox News reports that Czech President Vaclav Havel and other Czech politicians felt “let down” by Obama’s decision to cut the plan.

“The general public may be less disappointed, as polls show as much as 80 percent of the Czech population opposes a U.S. shield system in their country.”

The Obama administration decided to scrap the missile defense shield after a 60 day review. CNN reports that the President along with the support of Defense Secretary Robert GatesSecretary Robert Gates and the Chiefs of Staff back a new plan that has not yet become public. Obama commented that the new plan “will provide capabilities sooner, build on proven systems and offer greater defenses against the threat of missile attack than the 2007 European missile defense program.”

The Polish and Czech administrations are more worried about defense not from Iran but Russia. The CNN reports that both these countries “future security policy” was greatly based on Bush’s defense systems.

All of these conclusions may clear up some of the fog as to why the U.S.was planning on building the missile defense systems in the first place, as well as to the intentions of the Obama administration.

Not only was the original plan for the defense system used as an excuse to place missiles in Eastern Europe in defense of Iranian missiles it clearly was a move to provoke Russia. Poland and the Czech Republic administrations wanted the shield for security and bargaining power against their militarily superior neighbor Russia, not Iran. Bush slithered his way into making Americans believe the missiles where their strictly for defense against Iran.

Surely Obama has scrapped the plan to please and make amends with Russia, hoping for Russian cooperation in implementing economic sanctions against Iran if they continue with their nuclear program. Since Obama’s election he has tried to woo Russia back from the sour relations they maintained with the U.S. during the Bush administration.