"U.S. missile shield in Europe aimed against Russia - army chief"
RIA Novosti
Tuesday November 13, 2007
Missile defense elements the United States plans to deploy in Central Europe are undoubtedly directed against Russia, the country's top military commander said on Tuesday.
Washington wants to place a radar in the Czech Republic and 10 missile interceptors in Poland, purportedly to counter a missile threat from Iran and other "rogue" states. Moscow has responded angrily to the plans, saying the European shield would destroy the strategic balance of forces and threaten Russia's national interests.
"If the Americans deploy the radar by 2011 and anti-ballistic missiles by 2012-2013, they will certainly be directed against Russia, and we can easily prove it," the Chief of the Russian General Staff, Gen. Yury Baluyevsky said in an interview with Russia Today, an English-language state TV channel.
He said those advising the U.S. president to create a global missile defense network were driven by a desire to ensure that the U.S. could strike with impunity and prevent any kind of retaliation.
He also reiterated that the alleged Iranian missile threat was used by the U.S. as a simple pretext to deploy weaponry close to Russia's borders, as Iran does not possess the technology to develop and produce long-range inter-continental ballistic missiles.
"There will be no Iranian threat to the United States in the near future. Iran will be unable to create intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States until at least 2020," he said.
"As to the European segment of the missile shield, it is certainly not aimed against Iran," he said, adding that Washington had turned down Russia's proposal to jointly monitor missile test launches in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Baluyevsky's comments came on the eve of his visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels to attend a session of the Russia-NATO Council. His talks with senior NATO officials will focus on the NATO-Russia work plan for 2007 and a variety of ongoing controversial issues, including the U.S. missile shield.
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"Russian Military Chief Calls America "Evil"; Baluyevsky says U.S. missile defense is aimed at Moscow as tensions rise" by Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Russia's top military chief has dubbed America "evil" while cautioning that the "insidious" U.S. missile defense shield weapons system has nothing to do with countering Iran and is aimed squarely at Moscow, as tensions continue to heat between the two superpowers.
The Chief of the Russian General Staff, Gen. Yury Baluyevsky told Russia Today, an English-language state TV channel, that Washington's plans to place a radar in the Czech Republic and ten missile interceptors in Poland supposedly to counter Iran was just a pretext to deploy weaponry close to Russia's borders.
"If the Americans deploy the radar by 2011 and anti-ballistic missiles by 2012-2013, they will certainly be directed against Russia, and we can easily prove it," said Baluyevsky. "There will be no Iranian threat to the United States in the near future. Iran will be unable to create intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States until at least 2020," he added.
In the same interview, Baluyevsky labeled America as "evil" and swore to defend Russian military interests while absolving Russia of the responsibility of defending the rest of the world against American imperialism.
"Today, there is no need to be afraid of the Russian Armed Forces. However, I do not believe that the Russian military is obliged to defend the world from the evil Americans," he said.
Baluyevsky's inflammatory comments are likely to sour increasingly hostile relations between Washington and Moscow and they come just a month after Russian President Vladimir Putin compared the Pentagon's plan to deploy weapons in central Europe to the Soviet Union's 1962 deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba, which led to the Cuban Missile Crisis and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
