29 October 2004
Britain: the outpost for Son of Star Wars?
By Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian

An agreement on the highly sensitive issue of locking Britain into the US missile defence system is likely to be opposed by many Labour MPs. Senior military figures also remain deeply sceptical about the need for such the project.

Aware that the subject has the potential to be hugely divisive, the Ministry of Defence says that the US has so far made no formal request to deploy interceptors here.

However, MoD officials did not deny that talks between the two countries have taken place. "There may have been discussions," a spokesman admitted.

The Pentagon said on Wednesday that the State Department was the best US department to comment on the issue. Yesterday, the State Department said it could not comment. When asked earlier this week whether the Labour government had agreed in principle to have interceptors in Britain, Lt Gen Henry Obering, director of the US Missile Defence Agency, replied: "I think it's important that we invite our friends, our allies to participate in this with us, and that they can benefit from the coverage the same way we have".

Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, has always played down the significance of contacts with the US about missile defence, insisting they have merely enabled the government and British industry to keep abreast of the American project. He has also suggested it could lead to lucrative contracts for British companies.

However, a memorandum of understanding between the two countries, signed in secret earlier this month, paves the way to much more extensive cooperation on missile defence.

A revised copy of the agreement has been deposited in the House of Commons library.

A hitherto unreported annex refers to broad areas of cooperation between the US and Britain.

They cover "potential threats, including threat countermeasures, development and analysis of options for the extension of the US system to make missile defence capabilities available to the UK".

The annex also refers to exchanging information "for the purpose of harmonising the participants' ballistic missile defence requirements" and "joint development of defence options".

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said yesterday: "This document suggests the government is much more advanced in collaboration with the USA over missile defence that it has been prepared to admit publicly".

"Decisions of this kind may have a profound effect on Britain's strategic interests. It is regrettable, to say the least, that the government has not been prepared to be more forthcoming".

Gen Obering, talking to defence journalists in Washington on Tuesday, said discussions were well under way with allies about a site for ground-based interceptor missiles in Europe.

"We...have plans, and have conducted quite a bit of consultations with our allies, on putting [in] a third interceptor site," he said. In addition to Fort Greely [in Alaska] and Vandenburg [in California] we'll put a site in Europe to expand that coverage to our allies."

The idea is for the interceptors to knock out ballistic missiles tracked by satellites. Washington is discussing the plan with other Nato allies, including Poland.

The government has already agreed to allow the US to upgrade the early warning station at Fylingdales, on the North York Moors, for the project. Interceptor missile batteries could be based there or at the large US airfields in Lakenheath, Suffolk, or Fairford in Gloucestershire.

Critics of America's multibillion dollar project say it would fuel a new arms race, and is irrelevant to the "war on terror" because international terrorists were unlikely to be able to get their hands on long-range ballistic missiles.

"What we want is not counter-proliferation with 'Son of Star Wars' - but non-proliferation with real nuclear disarmament", the Labour MP Llew Smith said yesterday.

The great US protection plan

The "Son of Star Wars" - a more modest version of Ronald Reagan's missiles plan - was proposed by President Clinton and seized on by his successor, George Bush. The idea is for interceptor missiles to attack incoming missiles soon after their launch, or when they are in orbit, or when they approach their target.

The incoming missiles would be tracked by sea or land-based radar, including the early warning station at Fylingdales on the North York Moors. The satellite eavesdropping station at Menwith Hill, North Yorkshire, would also play a part. America's first two interceptor sites are Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenburg air force base, California. The US wants the third to be in Europe. Britain is an obvious candidate.