Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

NTI: Global Security Newswire
June 12, 2009

Northrop Grumman Corp.’s Kinetic Energy Interceptor project is officially dead, Reuters reported yesterday (GSN, June 11).

The U.S. missile-defense project had undergone $1.2 billion of work, but fell victim to the Obama administration’s plans to cut funding for missile defense activities in the fiscal 2010 budget. The Defense Department delivered a stop work order in May and formally terminated the program Wednesday.

The Kinetic Energy Interceptor was designed to destroy enemy missiles during the early stages of flight. A major test of the technology was scheduled for September, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates argued that the system’s cost and limited capabilities made it expendable.

The project was cut “for the convenience of the government” rather than any problem with the defense contractor, according to the termination message (Jim Wolf, Reuters, June 11).

www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20090612_9681.php

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Reuters
June 17, 2009
By Dmitry Solovyov

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia hopes U.S. President Barack Obama will not pursue his predecessor’s plan to deploy weapons in space but Moscow is ready to respond appropriately to any such moves, a senior Russian general said on Wednesday.

Russia, negotiating with the United States a new treaty to curb nuclear arms to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-1) expiring in December, has argued against the “weaponization of space.”

President Dmitry Medvedev, due to receive Obama next month on his first visit to Moscow, has said Russia’s conditions for new nuclear arms accords include banning arms in space. …

“As far as I know, today’s U.S. administration has somewhat different plans — they have become more down-to-earth and more realistic,” one of Russia’s deputy defense ministers Vladimir Popovkin, in charge of weapons, told a news conference.

He said Russia could find a cheap way of dealing with any potential U.S. space defense system. …

www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE55G4I820090617

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The Epoch Times – New York
Jun 14, 2009

LONDON—A planned U.S. missile shield may not strengthen Europe’s security and could hurt NATO’s interests if deployed in the face of Russian opposition, members of parliament said on Sunday.

The United States says the anti-missile system is designed to prevent potential attacks from countries such as Iran, but the plan has outraged Moscow which sees it as a threat.

Russia has urged Washington to drop its plan to put 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic. Both former Soviet satellites are now NATO members.

Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, made up of legislators from the main political parties, voiced reservations about the U.S. plan in a report on weapons proliferation.

“We are not convinced that, as they are currently envisaged and under current circumstances, the United States’ planned ballistic missile defence (BMD) deployments in the Czech Republic and Poland represent a net gain for European security,” it said.

“We conclude that if the deployments are carried out in the face of opposition from Russia, this could be highly detrimental to NATO’s overall security interests,” the report said.

www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/18113/

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