Czech citizens and a number of political leaders are less than enthusiastic about potentially hosting a US anti-missile defense shield.

Earlier this month, then-Czech foreign minister Cyril Svoboda, who has since resigned, confirmed long spreading rumors that the US was courting the Czech Republic to be part of the anti-missile defense shield proposed for Europe. He told Czech Television on 6 August that Washington almost certainly would approach Prague with a formal request to be part of the project. The US project hopes to see some ten anti-missile interceptors and hundreds of US soldiers installed at a European site by 2011.

The US defense shield is designed to provide protection for the US and its allies against nuclear or non-nuclear long-range missiles from rogue states in the east, including North Korea and Iran, destroying the missiles before they can strike their targets. The shield will consist of interceptor ballistic missiles stationed in strategic countries such as Czech Republic or Poland. The missile technology consists of a booster rocket carrying a so-called kill vehicle that seeks out and collides with an enemy missile. Nine interceptors already have been installed at Fort Greely in Alaska, and two at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

US experts visited possible sites in the Czech Republic earlier this year, including Libava, Boletice and Jince. In May, a US delegation visited possible sites in Poland, which is also a potential location for the base. Earlier this month, a Czech delegation to the US discussed technical details for the plan. The Czech daily Mlada Fronta Dnes quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Richard Krpac as saying that the sites in Jince, Central Bohemia and Libava, near northern Moravian Olomouc, met the technical requirements far better than the site in Boletice in southern Bohemia. Television Prima reported in late July that the US favored the site near Olomouc.

According to Cesky Rozhlas 1-Radiozurnal, US Missile Defense Agency spokesman Richard Lehner told experts in Prague that establishing a base in the Czech Republic would safeguard NATO members, including the Czech Republic and its neighbors. Also, Czech Deputy Foreign Minister Tomas Pojar told the Czech radio station that US diplomats had said the base would serve as a defense shield for all of Europe.

Four years ago, when the idea of hosting US forces in the Czech Republic was first touted, then-Defense Minister Jaroslav Tvrdik showed an interest in the project, but today Prague is not so sure.

Czech citizens, particularly, are less than enthusiastic about the installation, recalling extraterritorial Soviet bases established in Czechoslovakia after the Prague Spring in 1968.

When civil protests broke out on 20 July, leading Czech politicians and four out of five parliamentary parties were quick to declare their opposition to housing the US base and called for a referendum on the issue.

The conservative Civic Democratic Party of Czech president Vaclav Klaus has not decided on a common position. Prime Minister-designate Mirek Topolanek of the Civic Democratic Party has not officially expressed his opposition to the base, though outgoing Social Democrat prime minister Jiri Paroubek has been clear about his opposition. Czech News Service (CTK) quoted Paroubek as saying that he did not personally think a military site was necessary. He also reportedly agreed to the idea of holding a referendum.

In the meantime, Czechs living near proposed bases continue to voice their opposition, despite the future advantages such bases would hold for economically depressed regions such as northern Moravia.

The Czech Center for Empirical Research conducted a survey for Czech television that showed that almost half of Czech citizens polled were against the site, saying it would not enhance the country's security. Only one-third of those polled said they were not opposed to housing a US base in the Czech Republic. A less representative survey conducted by Mlada Fronta Dnes in July revealed that an overwhelming majority of Czechs were opposed to the base, believing it would increase the risk of terrorist attacks.

And with those sentiments in mind, an independent group of citizens started the initiative "No to the Bases." Some 35 organizations have joined the cause, calling for a nation-wide referendum on the issue. In an interview with ISN Security Watch, Jan Bednar, one of the organizers, said that 3,000 signatures had already been collected. The group has held three demonstrations and plan a fourth for 11 September 2006.

The Czechs fear that a US base would be claimed as sovereign territory and consequently be beyond the reach of national authority. Provisions regarding the missiles and the corresponding staff would be made exclusively by Washington, which the Czech military could only investigate with explicit US authorization. The opponents also claim that they have no influence on US policy and fear that decisions harmful to Czech national interests could be made through the base.

However, according to CTK, the Czech delegation to the US that returned home on 18 August was surprised to be assured by unnamed officials in Washington that the base "would not be excluded from the jurisdiction of the Czech Republic and the personnel would be subordinated to Czech laws" as the communiqué of the Czech Foreign Ministry stated. It reportedly further underlined that the agreements between NATO members on the statutes of their defense forces remained valuable. This signifies that the foreign personnel are subject to national - Czech or Polish - law if being involved in unlawful actions in their free time.

The establishment of an anti-missile base in Eastern Europe would not only have legal but also political implications. The possible deployment of interceptors in Poland - which would represent the first permanent US military presence in the country - has already caused major Russian resentment. Russian chief of staff General Yuri N Baluyevsky told the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza in December that countries with such a US shield would not be more secure, but instead would risk becoming part of a new East-West conflict.

As reported by The London Times on 16 August, the US also approached Britain for the site because of apparent Czech and Polish reluctance. However, a British site is unlikely because of the weak position of Prime Minister Tony Blair's government and his contested US policy.

According to Czech News Service, US Missile Defense Agency director Henry Obering will propose the favored sites in Europe for the project, while US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will make a final decision in the fall, and then approach the selected country - either Poland or the Czech Republic - with a proposal.