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President Obama offered to consider scrapping plans for a missile defense shield in Europe if Russia helps rein in Iran's nuclear program, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported.
The article said Obama wrote to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to tell him Russia's aid in resolving the threat from Iran would make the missile shield plans unnecessary, according to an account from Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
A senior administration official told FOX News that Obama sent a letter to Medvedev but "we won't comment on the specifics."
Obama inherited plans to build the system in Poland and the Czech Republic from the Bush administration, but the new administration has equivocated over the project. Though the plans were put in place to deter nations like Iran and North Korea from launching attacks and developing nuclear weapons, Russia has interpreted the planned installation as a threat.
Originally posted by jam321
Is Obama trying to knock out two birds with one stone?
On one hand he is trying to improve relations with Russia and with the other he is trying to get Russia to help stop Iran's nuclear program.
How do you think the Iranian's will respond to this effort?
Do you think it is a wise move on Obama' behalf?
I really don't think Iran will like this latest news.
www.foxnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)
This is what the future will hold, America will scrap its missile shield program without having Russia's cooperation on Iran.
Originally posted by jam321
reply to post by Ownification
This is what the future will hold, America will scrap its missile shield program without having Russia's cooperation on Iran.
I have had this same feeling.
Do you think we should scrap the program?
After decades of development, at a cost exceeding $100 billion, the missile defense system now in place in America—mainly at bases in Alaska and California—is unproven and unpopular in Congress.
However, the Administration is making a number of miscalculations if it intends to abandon the third site deal in a rapprochement with Moscow. Firstly, the third site deployment is a win-win for national and global security, as it will defend against ballistic missile attack from rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea. Secondly, it is a win-win for American diplomacy, having been backed by the 26-nation NATO Alliance on two separate occasions. To abandon the deployment now makes no sense politically or strategically.
It is wrong to claim that ground-based missile defenses are unproven or unworkable. On December 5 2008, the Missile Defense Agency performed a successful intercept of an incoming ballistic missile. On September 28, 2007, the U.S. missile defense system also destroyed the mock warhead of a long-range missile. As General Trey Obering, former director of the Missile Defense Agency, states in Heritage’s “33 Minutes” documentary, we are not only now able to hit a bullet with a bullet, but can also hit a spot on a bullet with a bullet.
Do you think we should scrap the program?
We all know there is no imminent threat coming from Iran or Russia. Having shields in Europe is gonna irritate Russia which will start another arms race and potentially another cold war where the helpless population listening to BBC while shivers run down their spines, waiting for the nuclear weapons to hit them. Really what is the point? Iran?
Development continued, with weapons such as the nuclear B61, and conventional thermobaric weapons and GBU-28. One of the more effective housings, the GBU-28 used its large mass (2,130 kg / 4,700 lb) and casing (constructed from barrels of surplus 203 mm howitzers) to penetrate 6 meters (20 ft) of concrete, and more than 30 meters (100 ft) of earth.[6] The B61 Mod 11, which first entered military service in January 1997, was specifically developed to allow for bunker penetration, and is speculated to have the ability to destroy hardened targets a few hundred feet beneath the earth.[7]
While penetrations of 20–100 feet (30 m) were sufficient for some shallow targets, both the Soviet Union and the United States were creating bunkers buried under huge volumes of soil or reinforced concrete in order to withstand the multi-megaton thermonuclear weapons developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Bunker penetration weapons were initially designed out of this Cold War context.
We all know there is no imminent threat coming from Iran or Russia.
Iran can never produce a nuclear weapon using its current facilities, just ask any expert they will tell you. Iran has allowed full inspections, you can't ask them anything more than that, full inspections of every site.
Originally posted by mrmonsoon
I hate to admit it...
That is a realistic, smart, doable proposition.
It, as the OP said, gets two birds with one stone.
I am not used to intelligence coming from Washington, I am not sure how to feel.
Originally posted by TheAgentNineteen
"Smart" Proposition? Are you out of your mind? This would be the single greatest mistake which the United States could ever make, along with President Obama's plan to scrap the F-22, and other Future Systems, seeing as they do not provide advantages "Against Terrorists" as he so dumbly stated. Yes, lets us completely do away with our Defense Systems, and see how fast we end up being raped in the rear by an enemy.