Bush touts missile defense, ‘freedom agenda’ in Prague

President Bush presented a determined argument Tuesday for support of a U.S. missile defense system to be deployed here and in Poland, and said Russia had nothing to fear from the weaponry.

The plan, which has drawn Cold War-style threats of retaliation from Moscow, is coloring the start of the president’s weeklong European tour, and, beyond that, overall U.S.-Russian relations.

Risking further enmity with Russia, Bush also delivered a speech Tuesday promoting what he terms his “freedom agenda,” designed to encourage the spread of democracy in Russia, China and smaller nations around the world.

Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, with whom Bush is due to meet Thursday during a Group of 8 summit in Germany, has objected strenuously to the missile system. In recent days, he has called it a threat to Russia and has said he may respond by aiming new nuclear missiles at European targets.

Bush said Tuesday that the system “is a purely defensive measure, aimed not at Russia but at true threats.”

He argued that missile-tracking radar, which would be deployed in the Czech Republic, and missile interceptors, which would be deployed in Poland, were intended to protect Europe and the United States from long-range missiles launched by “rogue regimes,” meaning, in this case, Iran.

“That’s a true threat to peace,” Bush said, referring to the risk of a missile attack.

The Bush administration began negotiations in January to put 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and the radar system here. The two nations would be the third site for Washington’s global missile-defense system; the other two, which are still being tested, are in Alaska and central California and are aimed at defending against a North Korean attack.

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 for more conventional weapons. Indeed, Russian defense officials have, in the past, quietly acknowledged that the system poses little threat to their nuclear arsenal.

But there has been widespread skepticism about why the Bush administration has been pushing the system so aggressively. Congressional critics have questioned the occasionally erratic system’s maturity and have cut funding for the European sites’ development in legislation being debated by both houses. In addition, U.S. intelligence estimates predict that the earliest Iran will be able to develop a long-range ballistic missile will be the middle of the next decade.

The question of Czech participation in the project is one of considerable political sensitivity here, since it would bring Prague, which has lost soldiers in the U.S.-led Iraq war, into closer military cooperation with Washington.

President Vaclav Klaus has said he supports the radar plan. But he has also said that he has told Bush it is important to win Czech public support for it too.

Bush, previewing the case he will make to Putin, said Tuesday: “My message will be ‘Vladimir’ -- I call him Vladimir -- that ‘you shouldn’t fear a missile defense system. As a matter of fact, why don’t you cooperate with us on a missile defense system? Why don’t you participate with the United States?’ ”

Bush, due to meet with Putin in a longer set of meetings planned for July 1 and 2 in Kennebunkport, Maine, said Russia could send scientists and generals to see how the system would work.

The president met Tuesday with Klaus and Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek at 1,100-year-old Prague Castle and gave his “freedom agenda” speech in a grand hall of the 17th century Czernin Palace, where the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, a key moment in the crumbling of Soviet rule across Central and Eastern Europe. In the speech, Bush said that “in Russia, reforms that once promised to empower citizens have been derailed, with troubling implications for democratic development.”

He also singled out Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which have generally supported his campaign against terrorism, saying “they have a great distance still to travel” in opening their political systems.

Garry Kasparov, a leader of the Russian political opposition, said it was in his nation’s interest to cooperate with the antimissile program, but that Putin, once a member of the Soviet KGB intelligence operations, was using his opposition to gain leverage against Bush’s campaign for greater democracy in Russia.

Speaking with reporters in Prague before Bush delivered his address, Kasparov, the former world chess champion, said Putin’s objective was to protect his own interests before his term ends next spring.

Putin, Kasparov said, was “trying to follow this algorithm by creating new bargaining chips that he could throw at the table to get

“The only way to deal with Putin is to confront him publicly,” Kasparov said. “Putin thrives in an atmosphere of secrecy. He’s a KGB spy. Anything behind closed doors gives him advantage. He’s vulnerable to daylight.”

While Bush’s speech was the formal centerpiece of the day, the troubled relationship with Russia, underscored by differences over the antimissile program, formed the backdrop.

Klaus praised Bush for promising to “make maximum efforts to explain” the missile-defense plan “to Russia and President Putin.”

He said the matter was “very sensitive” to the Czech people, for whom Cold War memories remain strong. For four decades the Czechs were trapped in the antagonism between Moscow and Washington, their lives controlled by Kremlin-imposed rule.

“The Cold War is over,” Bush declared. “It ended. The people of the Czech Republic don’t have to choose between being a friend to the United States or a friend with Russia. You can be both.”

But Putin has presented the missile defense in Cold War-era terms.

He told reporters in Moscow in a pre-summit interview, according to the Associated Press: “We are being told the antimissile defense system is targeted against something that does not exist. Doesn’t it seem funny to you, to say the least?”

He continued: “If a part of the strategic nuclear potential of the United States appears in Europe and, in the opinion of our military specialists, will threaten us, then we will have to take appropriate steps in response. What kind of steps? We will have to have new targets in Europe.”

These could be targeted with “ballistic or cruise missiles or maybe a completely new system,” he said.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said Tuesday of Russian objections: “Clearly, there’s been an escalation of rhetoric, which we find unfortunate. But it’s something we need to work through.”

Bush began the day with a motorcade ride through the hairpin turns leading up to Prague Castle, where, on the cobblestones of the entrance courtyard, Czech soldiers greeted him in a high-stepping, heel-clicking display.

The castle overlooks the city and has been home to Czech kings, Holy Roman emperors and, at times, Czech presidents.

For Czechs, the debate over the antimissile system is joined with a dispute over a U.S. requirement that they obtain visas before visiting the United States -- a requirement not applied to visitors from Western Europe.

“I cannot imagine having a radar base near Prague while my countrymen still need a visa to visit our great ally, the United States,” Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra was quoted as saying.

But Prime Minister Topolanek, with Bush at his side, suggested that his government was not directly linking the two, and that it would be arguing for the visa-less access even if the United States was not asking to put the antimissile radar on Czech territory. “We would want to help our allies, protect our allies, against a rogue state’s rockets, even if there was no visa problem,” he said.

Bush said he was sympathetic to the Czech complaints, and said he would work with Congress to win Czechs easier access to the United States. He noted that the matter was part of the immigration debate taking place in Congress.

“I understand the issue well,” Bush said, summarizing the Czech view as one focused on the “contradiction” of sending troops to fight alongside Americans in Iraq, but being denied the privilege of visiting the United States without visas, while citizens of Western Europe, some from countries that did not send troops to Iraq, may make such visits.

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james.gerstenzang@latimes.com

Times staff writer Peter Spiegel in Paris contributed to this report.