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Secretary Clinton on
Missile Defense and Europe
Press Availability after NATO Meeting
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Brussels, DC, Belgium
March 5, 2009
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to full transcript of Press Availability
(Begin excerpt)
QUESTION: Yes, Pravo daily newspaper, the Czech Republic. To the
missile defense, there were some controversies over the letter
President Obama sent to President Medvedev. Will you have any
clarification tomorrow with – dealing with Secretary Lavrov on this
issue?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Let me clarify, as I have said before, what has
been a constant theme both by myself and the President and other
members of our Administration. We applaud the decisions by the
people of the Czech Republic and their government – as well as the
people and Government of Poland – for proceeding with missile
defense on their soil. And the reason for that is it has always been
the American position that missile defense is primarily aimed at a
nation like Iran or networks of terrorists that could obtain
deliverable nuclear or conventional or biological or chemical
weapons, and the missiles to use that.
Our discussion about missile defense is aimed at determining its
feasibility economically, technologically, and we will continue to
explore it with our allies. We’ve made the case to Russia time and
again, and I will make it once more tomorrow in Geneva, that Europe
has a right to defend itself from the new threats of the 21st
century. We happen to believe in the United States that those
threats in the future are more likely to come from regimes and
terrorist networks than from nation-states in the immediate
vicinity.
Therefore, we want to help Europe be prepared and that’s why what
Poland and the Czech Republic have done sets the stage for what will
be strategic decisions going forward. I know that there’s an ongoing
debate about what the status of Iran’s nuclear weapons production
capacity is, but I don’t think there is a credible debate about
their intention. Our task is to dissuade them, deter them, prevent
them from acquiring a nuclear weapon, which given the range of the
missiles they currently have access to threatens Europe and Arab
neighbors in the Gulf, not the United States.
We pick up the newspaper and read of
a nation testing a chemical weapon. We pick up another paper and
read about the continuing desire of terrorist groups to obtain such
weapons.
Just as we had a defensive posture against the old Soviet Union in
the 20th century, we must now have a defensive posture against the
new threats of the 21st century. Therefore, the Czech Republic and
Poland –in our view –have been very visionary in looking over the
horizon about what we have to be prepared for if we’re not
successful in preventing the acquisition and proliferation of these
weapons of mass destruction.
(End of Excerpt)
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