Israel Matzav

To Russia with love?

Brad Roberts testified before a House Armed Services subcommittee Tuesday that the Obama administration was actively considering giving Moscow classified missile defense data to allay Russian concerns about the capabilities and intent of our proposed ballistic missile defense system based in Europe to guard against missiles launched from Iran.

Roberts testified that the administration believes "cooperation could be well-served by some limited sharing of classified information of a certain kind if the proper rules were in place to do that." The Bush administration also sought cooperation on missile defense, he noted.

The only thing President George W. Bush wanted to share with the Russians was a heads-up on our plans to deploy long-range, ground-based interceptors, such as those deployed in California and Alaska, in Poland as well as missile defense radar in the Czech Republic.

He certainly wasn't offering them data such as the burnout velocity of Raytheon Co.'s Standard Missile-3 interceptors, the centerpiece of our Aegis ballistic missile defense system.

When the Russians protested, President Obama scuttled those plans and substituted a more modest, layered defense capable of defending Europe but not the continental U.S. against Iranian missiles. It was one of many concessions Obama has made to Russia as part of pressing the "reset" button in return for nothing but unfulfilled promises of cooperation on Iran.

Typical of the way the president has treated loyal allies such as Britain and Israel, the Poles were notified with a midnight phone call in September 2009, the 70th anniversary of their country's invasion by Soviet and German forces, telling them we were pulling the plug.

The Russians say our ballistic missile defense is really targeted against them, which is nonsense. It would take more robust systems and widespread deployment to pose such a threat. They are rearming, having recently deployed their Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile, and want us as weak as possible.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Missile defense, Russia

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:19 AM