President Obama cancelled Bush's missile defense plans for Europe (on a date with unfortunate significance to the Poles) which also would have defended America's east coast from missiles launched from Iran.
President Obama said his plan based on proven Navy missiles would be implemented faster than the new missiles being developed for the Bush plan. So now Aegis Ashore will be set up:
Workers have begun moving through all three floors of the building, unbolting, unplugging and lifting electrical components and beams and huge radar arrays. In a few weeks, virtually everything — the radars, the computers, the walls and floors and stairs — will be packed up, nearly all of it ready for shipping in about 60 standard 40-foot container boxes to a field in Romania.
And in about a year, everything will be reassembled and re-energized to become the first operational shore-based element of the European Phased Adaptive Approach — a US plan to protect Europe from ballistic missile attack.
Part of this is the dispatch of four Aegis destroyers to Europe to complement the land-based system.
And this initial deployment is supposed to be part of a phased adaptive approach that will eventually defend the United States.
Sadly, the phase 3 that defends the United States in 2018 is no more proven than the Bush plan missile. Will it be built?
So we'll see. But congratulations to the Europeans who will have missile defenses. I know I'll sleep better at night knowing that.
