Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, was in Ukraine this week trying to soften resistance there to the deployment of an American missile defense system. Obering tried to convince his hosts that the interceptor system threatened neither Russia nor the Ukraine.
“We are talking about no more than 10 interceptors,” Obering told journalists. “They would have no effect against hundreds of missiles and thousands of warheads that the Russians have. … They are not even in a proper position if we were concerned about Russian missiles.” . . .
Obering said the interception process releases a “tremendous amount of energy … destroying almost the entire warhead and interceptor. That is why we want to use this ‘hit-to-kill’ technology.”
He said that an Iranian missile could fly over Ukrainian or Russian territory, but that debris from a destroyed missile “will not fall on Ukraine or Russian territory.”
General Obering also invited the Russians to inspect any potential missile defense facilities in Eastern Europe.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he does not trust U.S. claims that the missile defense sites in Europe were targeted at a potential Iranian missile threat and has warned that Moscow could be forced to take countermeasures. Obering said that Russia has been invited to visit interceptor sites in the United States, and if the host European countries agreed, “we would extend that invitation to those sites in Europe.”
“I hope that our ongoing engagement with the Russians will hopefully mitigate some of their concerns,” he said. “They will be understanding that these sites in no way represent a threat to them.”
