US deploys missiles to Poland to train NATO ally

[jakeXT]

Source: Washington Post, Associated Press

By VANESSA GERA
The Associated Press
Monday, May 24, 2010; 11:08 AM

WARSAW, Poland -- Dozens of American soldiers and a battery of Patriot missiles have arrived in Poland, where they will spend the next two years teaching the Polish military to operate the advanced guided missile system at a base just a few miles (kilometers) from the Russian border.

The mission amounts to the most significant deployment ever of U.S. forces to Poland, which once was behind the Iron Curtain but is now an enthusiastic member of NATO.

Though Russia had expressed its strong opposition to having a U.S. military installation close to its border, there was no initial reaction from Moscow to the arrival of the missiles - perhaps an indication that it wants to play down the matter after failing to stop the deployment.

Andrew Paul, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, said the battery arrived on Sunday at a base in Morag, a town in northeastern Poland just 37 just miles (60 kilometers) from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052400548.html

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Poland protests as US missiles reach Morag

Monday 24 May 2010
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Poland's Young Socialists rallied against the stationing of US weaponry in the north of the country on Sunday as US troops and a battery of Patriot missiles arrived in Morag.

The contingent of 100 soldiers will train Polish military personnel in the use of the missiles and are scheduled to leave in two years.

The US insists that it must base the surface-to-air missiles in Poland in order to protect Europe from attacks by so-called rogue states.

But as the missiles arrived by rail from a US base near Kaiserslautern, Germany, a group of around 50 members of the Young Socialists marched in Morag with banners reading: "We do not want to be a shield for the US."

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/90733