WASHINGTON — President Bush promised Monday to upgrade Poland’s antiquated armed forces before leaving office next January as he sought to secure an agreement that would allow the United States to establish an anti-missile system in Eastern Europe despite vigorous Russian objections.
Meeting with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the White House, Bush appeared to boost efforts to get his missile defense program on track. Tusk came to office in November far cooler to the idea of stationing U.S. interceptors on Polish soil than his predecessor, and until recently talks had bogged down.
Poland has maintained that its air defenses must be upgraded before it accepts any U.S. system, particularly given Russian threats to target the country if American interceptors are based there. Bush implicitly linked the two issues Monday. “Mr. Prime Minister, before my watch is over, we will have assessed those needs and come up with a modernization plan that’s concrete and tangible,” he told Tusk in front of television cameras.
Tusk interpreted that as a deal, saying that he and Bush “came to a conclusion … that the missile defense system and the modernization of the Polish forces … come in one package.” He called it “a breakthrough” that the president and his administration “understand quite clearly our expectations.”
Warsaw has sought Patriot missile systems, which are used to take down incoming missiles.
White House press secretary Dana Perino later rejected an explicit linkage because Washington would naturally help Poland as a fellow NATO member. “It’s certainly not a quid pro quo because, as we would with any ally, we would help them modernize a different part of their defense system,” she told reporters.
Bush repeated Monday that the missile defense system is intended as a deterrent against Iran or other threats, not against Russia, whose nuclear arsenal could easily overwhelm the 10 planned interceptors. But his meetings with Polish and Czech leaders, coming just weeks before he will see outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin at a NATO summit in Bucharest, are sure to further rile the Kremlin, which sees the prospect of an anti-missile system in its former satellite countries as a direct threat.
Just last month, Putin said Russia would react strongly to the deployment of U.S. interceptors in Eastern Europe. “In such a situation, we probably would be forced to re-target our missiles against the sites that represent a threat,” he said.
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