US seeks to reassure Czechs after missile defense move

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday invited the Czech Republic to join a new missile defense system for Europe and promised to bolster US security ties with Prague.

Seeking to reassure the Czechs a day after President Barack Obama announced plans to scrap a missile defense shield based in Central Europe, Gates said he hoped Prague would play a role in the new system that will initially use sea-based interceptors.

"We talked about opportunities for future cooperation, and said that we would welcome Czech participation in the new architecture," Gates told reporters after meeting his Czech counterpart, Martin Bartak, at the Pentagon.

The pair agreed there would be a "high level" meeting soon of defense officials that would focus on "opportunities for enhancing the security relationship between the Czech Republic and the United States," said Gates.

"Missile defense doesn't end here," Bartak said, adding that his country would look to see how it could help with the new system, which would introduce land-based SM-3 interceptors by 2015.

"The Czech Republic is definitely interested in being part of missile defense in the future as well," he said, standing next to Gates.

But it was "too early to talk about hosting interceptors," Bartak added.

Gates said the administration did not discuss the new missile defense system with Russia, which had strongly objected to former president George W. Bush's plan that would have installed a radar in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptors in Poland.

After the decision, Polish and Czech leaders insisted that ties with the United States would remain strong, but newspapers in both countries Friday attacked Obama's move, accusing him of "treachery" and selling out to Moscow.

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout called for the United States to "fill the empty space" left by the scrapped missile plan "with concrete projects."

After his talks with the US defense chief, Bartak said that the main purpose of the meeting -- planned before the missile defense decision -- was to promote more military cooperation and joint research projects.

He said he hoped to see "tangible results soon" in expanding military ties between the two countries.

The new missile defense system is designed to counter Iran's short- and medium-range missiles, while Bush's plan focused on the potential threat of intercontinental ballistic missiles that Tehran has yet to obtain.

When asked how Washington would respond if US intelligence on Iran's missile programs changed, Gates said the new system -- employing a network of sensors -- was more flexible and could be adjusted as needed.

"I'm probably more familiar with the risks of over-reliance on intelligence than anybody," said Gates, a former CIA director who worked for the spy agency for years.

"If the intelligence is wrong, and I was in that business long enough to know that that happens, we are actually better able to deal with a changed situation in which the intelligence assessments are wrong with the new architecture than we were with the old one."

Iran had built up an arsenal of hundreds of shorter-range missiles that could possibly "overwhelm" the Bush-era system, which was designed to counter a salvo of only five missiles, Gates said. Link...