 DRESDEN: U.S. plans to build a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic are dangerous and absurd, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said Sunday.
"The missile defense system planned by the United States and which is to be installed in Eastern Europe is politically extremely dangerous," Schröder said during a speech in Dresden. "It is viewed, rightly, in Russia, and not only there, as an attempt to establish an absurd encirclement policy, a policy which is everything but in the interest of Europe," he said.
| Why is anyone still listening to this man? |
Moscow sees the system as an encroachment on its former sphere of influence and an attempt to shift the post- Cold War balance of power.
| Since when do we honor Putin's claims as to a sphere of influence? Poland and the Czech Republic are part of the west now, didn't Gerhard get the news? |
Germany has criticized the project's planners for failing to discuss it sufficiently with Russia.
Schröder said the missile shield plan was pushing Russia further away from the West at a time when the European Union should be trying to strengthen ties with Moscow. "What we need instead is the exact opposite," he said. "Out of our own interest we must align Russia as closely as possible to Europe and European structures."
| Sounds like he really needs the commission on the gas sales from Russia. |
U.S. officials say that the system will not be directed at Russia and will be too small — with 10 non-weapons-tipped interceptors based in Poland — to counter Russia's ballistic fleet.
| A rather important, basic fact that you'd think a former 'world leader' would understand. |
Schröder has referred to President Vladimir Putin of Russia as an "impeccable democrat" in the past and reiterated that view in interviews last year when his memoirs were released.
| Looked into his eyes and read his soul, did he? |
Less than a month after leaving office in November 2005, Schröder was made chairman of a German-Russian natural gas pipeline consortium that he helped set up with Putin — a move for which he was sharply criticized.
| I'm impressed that the IHT included this fact. |
Schröder has often been critical of the United States. He was re-elected in 2002 largely because of his outspoken opposition to President George W. Bush's plans to invade Iraq.
Other European leaders have joined in the criticism of the U.S. missile-defense plan. President Jacques Chirac of France said last week that the plans threatened to sow divisions in the European Union and stir tensions with Russia. Chirac, who told East European leaders to "be quiet" when they backed the Iraq war in 2003, said negotiations by Poland and the Czech Republic over sites for the anti-missile shield risked reopening old wounds in Europe. "We have to be very attentive not to favor the creation of new lines of division in Europe or to return to the past," Chirac said Friday at an EU summit meeting in Brussels.
| Guessing that the French need the natural gas, too. |
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