US President George W Bush met with Polish President Lech Kaczynski on Monday to discuss a plan to deploy a missile-defence shield to Eastern Europe, according to dpa. The United States wants to place 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic to defend against potential missile attacks from rogue states like North Korea and Iran. Russia has strongly objected to the plans and wants the Americans to instead use a radar base in Azerbaijan, and on Saturday suspended participation in Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty in apparent anger over the plan. Bush has vowed to forge ahead with the plan while pledging to consider Russian President Vladimir Putin's Azerbaijan proposal. Putin expanded on the suggestion during a summit between the two leaders in the United States earlier this month. Bush's plan has faced resistance at home as well. The Democrats in the House have moved to deny funding needed to begin preparing the sites in Poland and the Czech Republic that Bush had asked for in the 2008 budget. The Senate is taking up similar cuts this week. Kaczynski also wants to move ahead with the installation despite Russian threats to target Poland and the Czech Republic if the missile defence-system is deployed. Kaczynski, and the government led by his twin brother Jaroslaw, have also faced domestic opposition the plans. Moscow fears the missile defence system is truly designed to target Russia's nuclear fleet and rejects US intelligence assessments that Iran could have a ballistic missile capable of reaching Western Europe by 2015. US officials say the system is too small to have an effect on Russia vast nuclear warhead fleet.
