State Department Appointee Expresses Misgivings About Proposal

Statements recently made by President Barack Obama, as well as a California congresswoman leaving her job for a position in the US State Department, have left officials in Poland at something of a loss.

Last week, US Representative Ellen Tauscher was asked to serve as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Tauscher -- described by CNN as a moderate Democrat -- recently questioned the decision to build several missile interceptor bases throughout Europe, including one in Poland to ostensibly counter ballistic missile threats from the likes of Iran.

"We need to reassess" the need for those bases, Tauscher said recently, reports Agence-France Presse. "The threat is short- and medium-range missiles targeted towards our forward deployed troops, and our allies in southern Europe."

Tauscher also says any missile defense system should undergo "three or four more tests" before being deployed.

Those proposed bases have caused friction in the already strained diplomatic relationship between the US and Russia. The Bush administration took a hard line in response, stressing the bases were in Russia's best interests as well... but the Obama White House has expressed some wavering from that view, as ANN has reported.

That has caused concern from Polish proponents of the shield. "We hope we don't regret our trust in the United States," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said this weekend at the Brussels Forum conference to an audience of senior world politicians and experts.

Sikorski also expressed fear of Russian reprisals against Poland for its support of the missile shield, particularly if those defenses don't come to fruition. "When we started discussing this business with the United States, the US assured us that they would persuade Russia," Sikorski said. "I am afraid Russian generals and even the Russian president continue to threaten us with the deployment of medium-range missiles.

"Poland has taken a political risk in signing up with the previous administration," he concluded.

In response to US plans to deploy the missile shield throughout Eastern Europe, Russia has threatened to deploy Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, which is nestled in between Poland and Lithuania.

FMI: www.whitehouse.gov, www.state.gov, www.defenselink.mil