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Updated Saturday, September 19, 2009 11:35 am TWN, By Robert Burns, AP

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Obama abandons old view of Iran

Those reactions, and other similar expressions of disappointment by missile defense advocates, say much about the ideological divide between supporters and skeptics of the missile defense push that began in earnest with former U.S. President Ronald Reagan's famous “Star Wars” speech in March 1983.

The Clinton administration quickly deep-sixed the Reagan program, but a scaled-down version was revived by U.S. President George W. Bush, leading to a decision in 2007 to go ahead with the system in Europe.

Bush also gave the go-ahead in 2004 for a U.S.-based system to defend against a long-range missile threat from North Korea.

As it happened, Gates was in charge at the Pentagon when Bush made the 2007 decision. Gates backed Bush's move in 2007, but now the holdover defense secretary is singing a different tune, telling reporters Thursday that two big changes since 2007 led him to conclude that the Bush approach is outdated.

The first change was the U.S. assessment of Iranian missile developments. The second was advances in U.S. missile interceptor and missile-tracking sensor technologies — improvements that Gates said allow the U.S. to pursue defensive capabilities in Europe six or seven years earlier than the Bush approach's timetable.

In place of the Bush blueprint, he said, is a less costly system that would provide defenses more compatible with NATO plans, while preserving flexibility to expand and improve as technology allows and the missile threat requires.

It would consist initially of anti-missile weapons based on U.S. Navy ships in the Mediterranean and the waters of northern Europe, plus land-based Patriot missile interceptors and a more advanced land-based interceptor known as the Theater High-Altitude Area Defense missile that has been largely successful in tests.

The ship-borne missile, known as an SM-3, gained international acclaim in February 2008 when a souped-up version was launched from a Navy cruiser in the Pacific and shot down a failing U.S. satellite in space.

By about 2015, a newer version of the SM-3 interceptor is to be available for basing on land in Europe, Gates said.

Still further improvements to the interceptor would allow more upgrading of the system by about 2018, and two years after that the U.S. could field a version of the SM-3 that would have “a substantial capability” to intercept not only missiles headed for Europe but also those targeting the U.S., according to Marine Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Compared with the interceptor that Bush had planned for use in Europe, known generically as the ground-based interceptor, the smaller SM-3 is believed to be “the more effective killer,” Cartwright said.

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