**US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates has rejected the claim that a decision to shelve a plan for missile defence in Europe was a concession to Russia.**Writing in the New York Times, Mr Gates said Russia’s attitude “played no part” in his recommendation to President Barack Obama to drop the plan.
Mr Gates said the aim was to deal with potential threats from Iran.
A new system will be able to provide such a defence sooner and more effectively, he said.
Under the original plan, the US signed a deal in August 2008 with Poland to site 10 interceptors at a base near the Baltic Sea, and with the Czech Republic to build a radar station on its territory.
Russia, which had always seen that plan as a threat, welcomed the decision to abandon it.
However, there has been criticism of the decision in conservative circles in the US.
‘Greater flexibility’
Mr Gates, a Republican who also served as defence secretary during George W Bush’s final years as president, described initially recommending the missile defence plan in late 2006.
“At the time, it was the best plan based on the technology and threat assessment available,” he said.
“I have found since taking this post that when it comes to missile defence, some hold a view bordering on theology”
Robert Gates
But he said the system, designed to deal with long-range missiles, would not have been installed before 2017, and that a new system announced by President Obama this week would provide better protection.
He said this system, which would use sea and land-based interceptors, “actually provides us with greater flexibility to adapt as new threats develop and old ones recede”.
“This will be a far more effective defence should an enemy fire many missiles simultaneously the kind of attack most likely to occur as Iran continues to build and deploy numerous short- and medium-range weapons.”
Mr Gates rejected the idea that Russia’s opposition to the original missile defence plan played a part in the policy change.
He added: “Of course, considering Russia’s past hostility toward American missile defence in Europe, if Russia’s leaders embrace this plan, then that will be an unexpected and welcome change of policy on their part.”
He said the decision to drop the initial plan was a “pragmatic” one, scolding those who he said provided a “devoted following” to missile defence plans that were “unworkable, prohibitively expensive and could never be practically deployed”.
“I have found since taking this post that when it comes to missile defence, some hold a view bordering on theology that regards any change of plans or any cancellation of a program as abandonment or even breaking faith,” he said.