Europe divided over U.S. plans for missile shield

ZAJECOV, Czech Republic — The outcome of Saturday's referendum was never in doubt. Residents of this postcard village in the forested hills of central Bohemia voted 728-10 in favor of a resolution that directs the local municipal council to take all necessary steps to block the U.S. government from installing an anti-missile radar in their backyard.

Josef Hruby, mayor of Zajecov and a retired ambulance driver, smiles sheepishly when he admits there's not much the municipality can do to stop the U.S. project, but the referendum was a measure of the grass-roots opposition President Bush faced this week as he traveled to the Czech Republic and Poland to promote the missile-defense shield.

Several other villages in the vicinity of the proposed radar installation have held referendums with similar outcomes. In the Hvozdany municipality, which consists of six villages, 95 percent of voters said "no" to the radar. In Visky, 30 of the tiny hamlet's 31 eligible voters participated in a referendum and unanimously opposed the radar.

The Bush administration's plans for the missile-defense shield call for a radar-tracking station to be built in the Czech Republic and for 10 interceptor missiles to be placed in Poland. The Czech and Polish governments have signaled their support even though national opinion polls in both countries show strong opposition to the U.S. plan.

The missile-defense shield is supposed to protect the U.S. and much of the European continent from attacks by Iran and other "rogue states" that do not yet pose a threat. Thus far, the missile-defense shield technology has not proven itself reliable. But the U.S. hopes to have the bugs worked out in a few years.

The Bush administration began negotiations in January to put missiles in Poland and the radar system here. Other sites for the global missile-defense system, which is still being tested, are in Alaska and central California and are intended to defend against a North Korean attack.

There has been widespread skepticism about why the Bush administration is pushing the system so aggressively now. Congressional critics have questioned the occasionally erratic system's maturity and would cut funding for the European site's development in legislation being debated by both houses. In addition, even optimistic U.S. intelligence estimates predict Iran will be unable to develop a long-range ballistic missile until the middle of the next decade.

The question of Czech participation in the project is one of considerable political sensitivity here, bringing Prague, which has lost soldiers in the U.S.-led Iraq war, into yet closer military cooperation with Washington. President Vaclav Klaus said he supported the radar plan. But, reflecting the need to persuade his electorate, he said he had told Bush that it was important to win Czech public support for it, too.

Although the Czech Republic and Poland are NATO members, the Bush administration's approach has ruffled feathers among other NATO countries, especially France and Germany, who wonder why the U.S. appears determined to bypass NATO and instead negotiate bilaterally with Warsaw and Prague.

More ominously, Russia has taken exception to the notion of a U.S. military presence on the soil of two of its former satellites.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to Moscow last month to tell the Russians they had nothing to fear from missiles on their border. The U.S. has even offered to share intelligence on potential threats, but the Russians were not mollified.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last week accused the U.S. of "imperialism" and authorized tests on a new intercontinental ballistic-missile and cruise-missile system. On Sunday in an interview published in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, he warned that Russia would be forced to target its own missiles toward Europe if the U.S. proceeds with its plans.

Even skeptics of the missile-defense system acknowledge that Moscow's claim it could be used offensively against Russian missiles or other military assets has little foundation. The warheads used in American interceptor missiles have no explosives, and the silos in which they would reside would take years and billions of dollars to refit into more conventional weapons. Indeed, Russian defense officials have, in the past, quietly admitted that the system poses little threat to its nuclear arsenal.

The eagerness of the Czech and Polish governments to sign up for the missile shield is the clearest indication yet that they view America — not the European Union or even NATO — as the ultimate guarantor of their security.

This is particularly true for Poland under the Kaczynski twins — President Lech and Prime Minister Jaroslaw. Since coming to power in late 2005, the brothers have not missed an opportunity to antagonize the Russians or provoke the Germans. Polish negotiators have said openly that they see the missile-defense shield as an opportunity to strengthen bilateral military ties with the U.S.

The Czechs are only slightly more circumspect. In a recent speech, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek said building the American radar base on Czech territory would "complete the process" of liberation that began with the departure of the last Soviet soldier on June 30, 1991.

Martin Povejsil, a member of the Czech negotiating team, said "a concrete U.S. presence in the Czech Republic enhances the strategic importance of this country."

But Mayor Hruby recalled the words of Vaclav Havel, the hero of Czechoslovakia's 1989 Velvet Revolution and its first post-communist president, who promised that no foreign troops would ever again be invited to set foot on Czech territory.

"And now, things should be so different?" Hruby asked.

Local residents, who like to pick mushrooms and go bicycling in the deep pine forest that was a closed military zone during the Soviet era, are asking the same question.

"I was glad when we got rid of the Russians, and I don't want to see another army come in and replace them," said Milan Cizek, 61, a truck driver who lives in Zajecov.

"Why should we be dealing with the U.S.?" he asked. "Lately, the Americans seem to me more like an aggressor than a protector."

Petr Plecity, a 33-year-old telecommunications worker, said he voted no because the Czech government had failed to address the health and safety worries related to the radar installation.

"All I want is a healthy and peaceful environment for my children," he said.

Others seemed to be opposed to the missile-defense plan simply because a profoundly unpopular American president favors it.

"In some ways, the referendum is about George Bush and also our unhappiness about what the world became after 1989," said Ondrej Liska, a member of the center-right ruling coalition from the Green Party. "People feel that if they sign up for the radar, they are signing up for Guantánamo."

Some European analysts believe the real objective behind the Bush administration's big push on the missile-defense shield is to thwart the EU's fledgling effort to establish a common European defense policy.

"It is strange that one would aim to achieve [European] security by dealing with only one or two partners. Whether this is part of a strategy to ignore the multilateral approach, or just a lack of sensitivity, I don't know, but the result is the same: a weakening of cooperation within Europe," Liska said.

Liska, whose party holds the balance of power in the fragile ruling coalition, said he would support the missile-defense shield only if it is fully integrated into NATO structures.

Additional information from the Los Angeles Times