US AND POLAND INK MISSILE DEAL, RATTLING RUSSIAAugust 15, 2008The EU Observer reports: “The US and Poland have agreed to put part of a US global missile shield and new anti-aircraft defenses on Polish soil, in a move further aggravating east-west relations amid the fallout from Russia's incursion into Georgia.The deal - initialled in Warsaw on Thursday (14 August), but still subject to negotiation on ‘technical details’ - will see 10 long-range Interceptor missiles installed on the Baltic Sea coast by 2012 to help defend the US and Europe against attacks from ‘rogue states.’The pact will also see one US-controlled unit of 96 short-range Patriot missiles accompanied by 110 US soldiers moved from Germany to Poland. And it contains a clause obliging US military support in the event of attack by a third party, governed by a process which is faster than the NATO solidarity clause.‘The Poles do not want to be in alliances in which assistance comes at some point later - it is no good when assistance comes to dead people,’ Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on Polish TV. ‘Poland wants to be in alliances where assistance comes in the very first hours of - knock on wood - any possible conflict.’The Polish foreign minister and White House spokesmen denied that the breakthrough, which comes after 18 months of talks, was connected to Russia's attack on Georgia last week. But the Polish defence minister, Bogdan Klich, and US officials made the link.‘Above all, it seems that the Americans changed their opinion as a result of the situation in the Caucasus,’ Mr. Klich said in Polish daily Dziennik. The Georgia conflict ‘pushed the Poles, to be very frank,’ a US official told the Wall Street Journal. ‘It sends a signal to Moscow that people are not going to be intimidated.’The US missile deal had an instant impact on already fragile Polish-Russian relations, with Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, cancelling a scheduled trip to Warsaw in September as soon as media reported the initialling ceremony would take place.Russia says the Polish missile base is designed to help neutralise its nuclear arsenal, instead of rockets from states such as Iran or North Korea…”--------------------------------------------------------------------------------