Saying the U.S. is committed to the independence and security of countries like Poland and the Czech Republic, President Barack Obama on March 3 denied offering to delay deployment of a controversial missile defense system in Eastern Europe in exchange for Russian help in preventing a nuclear-armed Iran.

Obama also denied a published report that the offer had been made in a secret communication with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who opposes the missile defense plan and has threatened to retaliate by basing Iskander medium range missile batteries on the Polish-Russian border.

Obama said the communication with Medvedev was “simply a statement of fact” that he’s made before: “The missile defense program, to the extent that it is deployed, is designed to deal with, not a Russian threat, but an Iranian threat.” He said there was no quid pro quo offer.

Obama’s comments came in response to a New York Times March 3 front-page story that the president offered some sort of compromise on the controversial deployment of 10 ground-based interceptor missiles in Poland and an X-band radar in the Czech Republic in exchange for Russian pressure on Iran to cease its nuclear ambitions.
“Russia needs to understand our unflagging commitment to the independence and security of countries like a Poland or a Czech Republic,” Obama said, adding there were still areas of mutual concern that he hoped to work with Moscow on, including nuclear nonproliferation and terrorism.

Members of the Obama administration, most recently Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have said that there would be less need for a Polish-Czech-based missile defense if the Iranian threat was diminished.

Advocates and critics of the missile program were quick to take sides in the matter before Obama’s clarifying statement. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), a member of the House strategic forces subcommittee, which oversees U.S. missile defenses, said he welcomed Russian cooperation in dealing with Tehran but “it would be derelict to trade our most cost-effective means of defending the U.S. homeland … for the hope that Russia may be able to convince [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad to suspend the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.”

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who has expressed skepticism about the ground-based system’s capabilities, called it “wise” to reach out to Russia. Levin has suggested possibly developing a joint missile defense program with Russia that “could change the dynamics significantly, relative to Iran.”

A State Department spokesman said the U.S. “with our NATO allies,” also is interested in exploring the possibility of cooperation with Russia on new missile defense configurations “which might take advantage of the assets that each of us had, but that offer has always been there through NATO.”
However, Medvedev, speaking in Madrid, said the issues of missile defense and Iran were separate, not linked.

Rep. Trent Franks, a Republican, represents the 2nd District of Arizona in the U.S. Congress. He is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the House Judiciary Committee and vice chairman of the Subcommittee on Commerical and Administrative and Law.

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