Missile shield’s foes on the rise

For months, the Bush administration has courted Russian President Vladimir V. Putin to gain assent for its plans to build a long-range missile defense system in Eastern Europe.

But the focus on Moscow may be misplaced. In the three capitals where legislatures must approve the system before ground is broken -- Washington, Prague and Warsaw -- support is thin and fading.

This growing opposition, detailed in interviews with current and former officials in the three countries, reflects what politicians and analysts view as the administration’s mishandling of the issue and President Bush’s rapidly declining influence both on Capitol Hill and among once-stalwart allies in what his administration has called “new Europe.”

“The U.S. clearly mismanaged this rollout,” said Bruce P. Jackson, a former Pentagon official and administration ally who has worked closely with the new democracies of Eastern Europe. “There weren’t clear talking points, there was no interagency discussion about this, and we blindsided ourselves and also blindsided the governments in question. It’s embarrassing.”

Bush’s meeting with Putin today at the Bush family compound in Maine is his latest chance to seek the Russian leader’s blessing. Over the last three months, Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates each have traveled to Moscow or met with Putin on the issue.

But problems with Bush’s missile defense plans exist elsewhere. In Washington, the House has approved legislation that strips funding for the tracking radar in the Czech Republic and silos for 10 interceptor missiles in Poland, meant to defend against a possible Iranian missile attack. Senate approval of a plan to cut funding could come within weeks, a reflection of both chambers’ concern that allies have not been properly consulted and that the Pentagon has yet to prove the system actually works.

In Poland and the Czech Republic, governments publicly back the proposal but hold shaky parliamentary majorities and are facing growing opposition.

Senior Bush administration officials argue that there is still time to regain momentum. They note that the legislative fight in Congress for next year’s defense budget is not over and that, despite surveys showing that 60% of both Poles and Czechs disapprove of the program, advocates in those countries have yet to make a concerted effort to sell the system.

“I don’t think there’s been a lot of informed public discussion about this, which gives me, as someone trying to make this work, a lot of hope,” said one administration official involved in the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing U.S. strategy. “We do think we have good arguments.”

Time is not on the administration’s side, however. Officials at the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said they would need to break ground within the next year to ensure the system was ready by 2013. Iran may be capable of deploying long-range missiles by 2015, based on U.S. intelligence estimates.

More important, the Bush administration has just over a year and a half left in office, meaning delays could be fatal.

Russia regards the proposed system as a potentially hostile move, prompting the U.S. efforts to reassure Putin. But Gates and Bush also have visited Eastern Europe over the last two months.

Hard sell in E. Europe

There, the most heated debate has come in Poland, where many believe Warsaw has done a series of favors for the U.S., including sending troops to Iraq, without reciprocation.

“There is this general idea that Poland has supported the United States in Iraq in 2003 and we got very little in return -- or we got nothing in return -- and we should not repeat the same mistakes we made then,” said Piotr Maciej Kaczynski, an analyst at the Institute for Public Affairs in Warsaw.

One powerful opponent is former Polish Defense Minister Radoslaw “Radek” Sikorski, an Oxford-educated senator from the governing Law and Justice Party who resigned his Cabinet post in February.

Sikorski, who also has close ties to U.S. policymakers, has argued that the system actually could endanger Poland. Russia has threatened to aim short-range missiles at Poland if the U.S. base is allowed. Sikorski has insisted on sweeteners, including increased American protection against any Russian aggression.

“This will be the first pro-American decision that I believe the Polish public will simply not take,” Sikorski said during a recent visit to Washington, noting that Iran was not seen as a threat by most Poles. “If we get nothing at all ... the public and the Parliament will not forgive us.”

The Law and Justice Party’s two junior governing coalition partners, the far-right League of Polish Families and the populist Self Defense party, both are skeptical of the missile shield, Kaczynski said.

Many U.S. and European observers consider Sikorski the key to the outcome in Poland.

“It’s Radek who could be the guy in Warsaw who really makes it hard for Polish politicians,” said James J. Townsend Jr., who handled European relations at the Pentagon before joining the Atlantic Council of the United States think tank this year.

Opposition has been less vocal in the Czech Republic, where the system’s proposed radar site has the backing of the governing coalition. Despite a June poll showing that 61% of Czechs oppose the site, U.S. and Czech officials believe they can overcome the opposition, which has focused on the project’s environmental impact and the lack of formal NATO endorsement for it.

In an effort to win over Czech public opinion, Pentagon officials recently reversed course and made overtures to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a move long opposed by Gates’ predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld. Last month, Gates presented the plans to a gathering of defense ministers in Brussels. NATO responded by agreeing to shape its own missile defenses around the U.S. plans.

The administration has sought to portray the agreement as a sign that NATO backs its proposal.

“That’s about as much of an imprimatur as I think you’re going to see,” said the senior administration official. “It’s a recognition by NATO that this project makes sense.”

But NATO officials said it was more a sign of European anger over perceived recent Russian belligerence than an embrace of the missile system.

“However they try to present it, it’s not a formal endorsement,” said one official with the alliance, who spoke on condition of anonymity when addressing the dispute. “There is a general acceptance

There are signs that the Czech public is becoming more active in its opposition. Officials in towns near the planned radar site have banded together to oppose construction. More than 25 towns and villages have voted against it in referendums, said Jan Tamas, president of the Humanist Party, which opposes the system and is represented in local councils but not the Parliament.

“There’s almost a civil society springing up in order to deal with this,” said Victoria Samson, an analyst with the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, who recently met with Czech provincial officials in Brussels.

Any intensification of public opposition could spell trouble for the government in Prague, whose allies have a razor-thin majority in Parliament.

“As the pressure will continue to increase on the government, I think it will reach a point where they will realize that they cannot go against the will of the majority,” Tamas said.

Trouble back home

By far the most concrete legislative move against the system has come from Washington. In May, with little fanfare, the House cut the administration’s $310-million funding request by half and barred the Pentagon from starting construction. In June, the Senate’s Armed Services Committee passed a similar bill, which could clear the full Senate early this month.

Congressional critics note that the Bush administration has already spent more than four years and tens of billions of dollars building a similar system based in Alaska and Central California aimed at shooting down North Korean missiles, a system that has proved highly erratic in testing. The most recent test, in late May, was scrubbed at the last minute when a target missile the shield was supposed to shoot down failed to fly into the systems’ range.

Administration officials are quick to note that both bills allow the White House to return for funding later. But Democratic leaders contend that there is enough bipartisan support to force the White House to rethink its plans.

“I think what we’ve done is also make it very clear they’ve run too far ahead of us,” said Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Alamo), a House armed services subcommittee chairwoman and a leading congressional voice on missile defense.

She added: “They have not only not made the case here, but they haven’t made the case over there.”

peter.spiegel@latimes.com

kim.murphy@latimes.com

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Spiegel reported from Washington and Murphy from London.