MDA Official Upbeat on Russian Talks, but U.S. Lawmaker Signals Budget Cuts Possible

By JOHN T. BENNETT

U.S. and European officials working to field missile defense equipment in the Czech Republic and Poland say other nations there are warming to the idea, but a key House Democrat is hinting that the chamber might withhold its authorization of funding for the European facilities in 2008.
Leaders in Germany “and even France” are signaling they are softening their resistance to a U.S.-led effort to place missile interceptors in Poland and a high-tech radar in the Czech Republic, Karel Schwarzenberg, Czech minister of foreign affairs, said April 19 during a conference here, sponsored by the Atlantic Council of the United States.
A “turning of the tide” is underway, with top officials in key European nations “becoming realistic and starting to see the facts of life,” Schwarzenberg said, referring to what many Western governments agree is a mounting long-range missile threat from North Korea and Iran.
The Bush administration is spearheading efforts to place 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic, a plan that has met stiff resistance across Europe and in Moscow.
The fledgling concept got a boost in Europe last week when German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung told the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee that such a shield could play a “protecting role” there, according to press reports.
But Russian leaders, including President Vladimir Putin, are leery of the missiles and radars near its borders and have offered the stiffest opposition to Europe’s involvement in the U.S. shield. U.S. Air Force Gen. Henry Obering, chief of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), has said talks with Moscow have been productive, but Washington must do more to allay Russian concerns.
To that end, talks this week in Moscow with “very senior Russian officials from across the government” were “productive,” the MDA’s deputy director, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, told reporters during a break at the Washington conference.
“They thought our proposals [on greater Washington-Moscow missile defense] cooperation were interesting,” O’Reilly said.
The United States is interested in discussing with Russian leaders “the full spectrum of cooperation” on missile defense technologies, he noted. During the Moscow meeting, O’Reilly said, he made it clear that Russian officials and technicians would be free to view the European facilities, if they are constructed and the host nations approve of such inspections.
“There was a discussion about why they thought the U.S. system would interfere with their system,” O’Reilly said. “But we do need further discussions so the Russians can demonstrate for themselves that there [will be] no offensive capability.”
Several other officials who addressed the conference also reported this week’s Moscow session went well, with one saying the meeting lasted several hours longer than U.S. and European officials had anticipated. Obering is in Europe this week huddling with leaders there on this subject.
But even as U.S., Czech and Polish officials reported some forward movement in their efforts to secure diplomatic approval across the continent for the interceptors and radar, Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, hinted her panel may strip funding for the European concept in the next Pentagon authorization measure.
In its 2008 budget request, MDA is asking Congress for $310 million to field the European sites. But Tauscher said the subcommittee is poised to strip those funds from the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill because the MDA has yet to complete testing to prove the system will work.
When pressed by a reporter about the matter, Tauscher sternly noted House Republicans last year, while still in control of the chamber, zeroed the Pentagon’s 2007 request for the European work for the same reason.
“This is not about Republicans and Democrats,” the subcommittee leader said.
If House Armed Services Committee leaders opt to strip the $310 million from the authorization, Democrats likely will point to language the Republicans placed in the 2007 measure requiring the agency to conduct “end-to-end ... integrated operational testing” on the system, she told reporters after her speech. “The requirement in the [2007] language has not been met yet,” Tauscher said.
Committee leaders plan to mark-up the authorization bill “in about 15 days,” she added.
Tauscher’s comments show that as Obering meets with officials abroad, Bush administration and Pentagon officials also face a fight at home over their global missile shield concept.
As for Czech and Polish officials, Schwarzenberg said they, too, have work to do on their own soil to convince a skeptical parliament and public to support the radar plan.