AFP, Warsaw, Aug 20, 2008 (excerpts) – Warsaw and Washington signed a deal Wednesday to deploy part of a US missile shield in Poland, insisting the aim is to ward off Iranian attacks, despite deep Russian anger at the move.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski inked the accord at an official ceremony in Warsaw.
“This will help us to deal with the new threats of the 21st century, of long-range missile threats from countries like Iran or from North Korea,” Rice told reporters ahead of the ceremony.
“It is defensive and is not aimed at anyone. It is nonetheless a system that establishes firmly again, and reaffirms, our cooperation and relationship with Poland. It will deepen our defence cooperation and it will deepen our ability to deal with threats,” she said.
Washington plans between 2011 to 2013 to base 10 interceptor missiles in Poland plus a radar facility in the neighbouring Czech Republic — both NATO members since 1999 — to complete a system already in place in the United States, Greenland and Britain.

In an interview with BBC on the verge oo trip to poland in Brussels, Rice had said We’ve been negotiating this with Poland for quite a long time. I signed the agreement with the Czechs just a little while ago in order to place the censors and the radars in the Czech Republic. And so the deal was signed when the deal was ready.The important point about this deal is that we’re talking about a defensive system. We’re talking about a missile defense system that couldn’t possibly be aimed at the Russian nuclear deterrent. Russia has thousands of nuclear warheads. This is for small missile attacks of the kind that Iran might launch.