Demonstrators protest against a possible base of a US missile defense radar system in the Czech Republic, on Venceslas Square in Prague. The United States will go ahead with its plans to set up a missile defence system in Eastern Europe despite Russia's strong objections, a senior US Defense Department official said Saturday. Photo courtesy AFP. US Missile Shield Not Aimed At Russia Says White House Washington (AFP) May 29 - The White House repeated assurances Tuesday that a planned US missile shield was not aimed at Russia, after Russian President Vladimir Putin said it risked turning Europe into a "powder-keg." "The United States has made clear to the Russians that this missile shield is directed at other nations that could conceivably affect the peace of Europe," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. "We will continue to make sure that Russia fully understands our intentions." Washington has insisted that the proposed anti-missile defense system to be deployed in central Europe is aimed at thwarting any Iranian ballistic missile attack. Putin warned Tuesday that the planned shield would make Europe a "powder keg," hours after Russia tested a new ballistic missile aimed at overcoming such defenses. "We think it is damaging and dangerous to transform Europe into a powder keg and fill it with new forms of weapons," Putin said during a briefing with Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates. "It creates new unnecessary risks in the system of bilateral relations in Europe," he said.

Moscow - The U.S. president had an opportunity to imagine at the end of the past week what awaited him in the Czech Republic, which he is going to visit on June 4 as part of his tour of seven Central and West European countries. Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Prague in protest against the U.S. plan to deploy military radar to the south-west of the Czech capital.

The radar and 10 interceptors in Poland are designed to create an ABM shield against hypothetical attacks by Iran or South Korea. This idea is expected to move to a more practical plane during George W. Bush's talks with the Czech and Polish leaders. But as the demonstration in Prague has shown, the opinions expressed by the East European governments may differ substantially from the prevailing public attitudes.

Judging by recent public opinion polls, three out of five Czech citizens are against the deployment of American radar, and four insist that this issue should be discussed at a national referendum. The Czech as well as many Polish people do not understand why their countries are better sites for ABM components than Turkey, where their deployment would make more sense geographically.

They are dismissing as bluff the very idea of a threat to Europe from Tehran or Pyongyang, which do not even have carriers of the required range. "The likelihood of Europe being hit by an asteroid is incomparably higher than a missile attack from Iran against us," said Jan Tamas, an organizer of a protest march in Prague.

People are also worried about something else. Even if we assume against all reason that the international forces of evil manage to launch a ballistic missile over European territory, the destruction of its nuclear, chemical or biological warhead over the Czech Republic or Poland may be fatal for their residents. They rightly consider themselves to be hostage to the security of the remote Trans-Atlantic ally.

These mounting attitudes of protest are compelling the Czech leaders to find unconventional methods of influencing the public on the eve of Bush's visit. Thus, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Vondra warned a multi-million audience during the television debates on May 27, that if Prague turned down the U.S. request on radar deployment, the Czech Republic might have to resume the draft.

In his logic, such refusal will cause Czech relations with NATO allies to deteriorate. As a result, Prague will not be able to count on their support if Czech security comes under threat. Therefore, the Czechs cannot do without mandatory conscription cancelled in 2005.

The opponents of this view point out that for the time being the United States is talking about deployment of its national ABM system. NATO as a whole has not yet determined its role in this system, and therefore Vondra's warning is bordering on intimidation of his compatriots.

At the ABM talks during the Czech and Polish visits in June, the American president will have to talk from weaker positions. Congress has just stabbed his administration in the back by denying the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency the requested $764 million to fund the construction of silos for interceptors in Poland. Without silos a radar in the Czech Republic makes no sense unless it is designed, as Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov suspects, for monitoring Russian territory from the West to the Urals.

George W. Bush and his team - Defense Secretary Richard Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - have already sent an indignant letter to Congress, and sooner or later they are likely to overcome the legislators' resistance. Vladimir Putin's emphatically negative attitude to the U.S. ABM in Europe poses a much bigger problem, and the U.S. president will meet with him at the G8 summit in Germany on June 6-8.

Moscow does not understand why Europe is being stuffed with American mini-bases and missile silos at a time when Russia has withdrawn its heavy weapons to beyond the Urals. Putin does not believe that this is being done to protect Europe.

At a recent news conference in Luxembourg, the Russian president said that the American colleagues did not even say whether they had asked the Europeans about this. Putin called the situation unseemly. He insists that the ABM project should be scrutinized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) - an institution that was set up for cooperation in the name of safer Europe.