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UK seeks to station US 'Son of Star Wars' on its soil

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Feb 23, IRNA
UK-US Missile Defence
The British government confirmed Friday that it was holding talks with the Bush Administration over the possibility of siting part of the controversial US missile defence system on UK soil.

"We have certainly been engaged in conversations with the US about this," a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said.

"The objective of these conversations was to make sure that the UK is kept in consideration to be one of the locations for the system should the US press ahead with the system," the spokesman was quoted saying by epolitix news service.

But shadow defence secretary Liam Fox said that the opposition Conservative Party had "no details at all from the government, despite asking a lot of questions in Parliament."

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme Friday, Fox called for the government to be 'honest' and lay out the risks and benefits that such a missile system would pose to the UK.

The confirmation comes after the Economist magazine this week reported that Blair has been discreetly waging a campaign since last autumn to secure the missile-interceptor site for Britain, believing it will make the UK as well as the US.

"The prime minister has led the lobbying in person, apparently convinced that missile-defence technology - long derided in polite European circles as an expensive 'Star Wars' fantasy - now works," the weekly said.

Last August, it was reported that the US Pentagon was again looking to the UK as a European site because of the opposition in its preferred locations of Poland or the Czech Republic.

"The prospect will alarm Downing Street because Tony Blair has paid a heavy political price for being seen by voters as too close to George Bush over the Iraq war and unable to turn down any request from the US," the Times newspaper said at the time.

Critics of the so-called Son of Star Wars system, a scaled-down version of the ambitious plan envisaged by former US President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, say the interceptor units will inevitably become a target for America's enemies.

Britain has already controversially agreed to upgrade the early warning system at the US base at Fylingdales in northern England to track incoming ballistic missiles. Electronic surveillance at nearby Menwith Hill is also expected to be a key part of the system.

But doubts have been raised about the operational effectiveness of the US missile defence system, despite interceptors being established in Alaska and California and Congress approving Dlrs 56 million in preliminary funding for a European base.

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