MDA VISIT ADVANCES PROSPECTS FOR RATIFYING MISSILE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 WARSAW 001281

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/03/2018
TAGS: PREL MARR MCAP PL
SUBJECT: MDA VISIT ADVANCES PROSPECTS FOR RATIFYING MISSILE
DEFENSE AGREEMENT

REF: A. WARSAW 1250

B. USNATO 407

Classified By: Ambassador Victor Ashe. Reason: 1.4 (d)


1. (C) SUMMARY: During an October 28-30 visit to Poland,
Missile Defense Agency Director Obering and Incoming Director
O'Reilly described the benefits of the planned interceptor
Missile Defense (MD) interceptor site to Slupsk area
residents and, in Warsaw, reviewed U.S.-Russian consultations
on MD with senior GoP officials and media. In Slupsk, Deputy
Defense Minister Stanislaw Komorowski said he detected a
marked warming trend in public opinion -- the locals now
realize the site will require few land use restrictions and
will offer economic benefits. Deputy Foreign Minister
Grudzinski said he was awaiting Russian approval of his visit
to Moscow to discuss MD-related, Transparency and
Confidence-Building Measures (TCBMs) with the Russians, along
the lines of U.S. proposals. Post agrees with GoP officials
that ratification of the Ballistic Missile Defense Agreement
(BMDA) should go smoothly, but the process could be slowed by
the requirement to ratify BMDA simultaneously with the
supplemental Status of Forces Agreement and the Land Use
Agreement. Talks on the latter two documents are moving too
slowly, in part because of a key choke point -- the MoD's
Missile Defense Office, which insists on managing all three
processes. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) LtGen Obering, Director of the Missile Defense
Agency, told high-level representatives of the Polish
Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defense, Finance and Justice,
that his October 29 visit to Slupsk/Redzikowo confirmed that
the area is an ideal location for the planned Missile Defense
(MD) interceptor site from a technical standpoint. At a
meeting hosted by the Ambassador, Obering said that he had
showed area residents and media how the local community would
benefit economically from the site. Using widely accepted
economic models, Obering said the $400 million in
construction expenditures would generate 2-5 times as much in
economic multiplier effects, for a total that could easily
reach $1 billion. Those figures, he added, do not include
the economic benefit in contractors' construction and
operation expenses over the next few years, which would have
its own multiplier of .5 to 3 times contractor expenses.


3. (C) Deputy Defense Minister Stanislaw Komorowski agreed
that opinion in the Slupsk area was shifting markedly in a
positive direction. Initially, the community worried about
possible damages from the site construction, in the form of
restrictions on current and planned activities and the use of
local roads. Now, the community is starting to focus on the
sizeable forthcoming economic benefits. Komorowski said
local leaders had agreed with him that it would be a
tremendous loss for the local population if for some reason
the site were not constructed as planned. Komorowski and
Deputy Foreign Minister Grudzinski argued that it should be
easy to maintain a positive message on the benefits for the
Slupsk area without encouraging exaggerated public
expectations. In past instances of major U.S.-Polish defense
initiatives, such as the F-16 sales, Grudzinski said the
public had misunderstood the complicated offset issue and the
government had itself hyped expectations in a time of
economic difficulty.


4. (C) Obering noted that it was important to ratify the
BMDA within a couple of months. Otherwise, the U.S. Congress
might cite Polish inaction as a reason to reduce the budget
for the interceptor site. Grudzinski said the timing of
Obering's visit was helpful, since the parliamentary debate
on MD, long sought by the opposition Left Democratic Alliance
(SLD, a small party whose leadership is critical of MD) will
begin in the second half of the week of November 3-7.
Grudzinski said both the Foreign and Defense Ministers would
likely participate in the plenary session debate; Komorowski
added that he and Minister Klich had planned to be in India
at that time, but one of them would reschedule to participate
in the session.


5. (C) Noting the strong parliamentary majority for MD, and
the announced support of the President, Komorowski said that
ratification will be no problem, "once (the agreement) is
submitted." The challenge, in Komorowski's view, was
assembling the three parts of the package which had to be
ratified simultaneously: the BMDA, the supplemental SoFA,
and the bilateral Strategic Declaration that accompanied the
BMDA. (Separately, Komorowski had told media in Slupsk

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October 29 that the GoP would do its best to move forward
quickly, but he doubted it would be possible to conclude and
ratify the agreements by year end.) Komorowski complained
that the Declaration called for the stationing of a Patriot
Missile battery in Poland, but the U.S. had not acted on an
August Polish invitation to have a U.S. team visit the
proposed site as early as late September. (COMMENT: Post
has since learned that a U.S. Army Europe Site Survey Team
plans to visit Poland November 21.)


6. (C) Grudzinski said the MFA had proposed to the Russians
that he, Grudzinski meet with a Russian counterpart to
discuss Transparency and Confidence-Building Measures
(TCBM's); he hoped the Russians would agree to such
consultations. He said that during his visit to Washington
the previous week, he had met with Acting U/S Rood, who had
seemed optimistic about Russia's evolving views on MD and
their likely reaction to U.S.-proposed TCBMs. Grudzinski
asked Obering what the basis for such optimism might be,
particularly in light of the subsequent Russian cancellation
of a planned November 6 Rood meeting with Russia's Deputy
Foreign Minister Rybakov. Obering replied that the Russian
Government had put forward a series of objections in hopes of
killing the interceptor site in Poland, due to geopolitical
rather than military strategic reasons. However, now that
the Russians realize they cannot kill the MD project, they
are looking to make the best possible deal. Obering
suggested that the postponement of the Rybakov meeting was
likely due to Russian efforts to assess how the U.S.
presidential elections would affect MD talks.


7. (C) During a meeting with incoming MDA Director
O'Reilly, three Sejm deputies expressed concern about Russian
views regarding MD. Tadeusz Iwinski, a Left Democratic
Alliance (SLD) member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said
his party had demanded a parliamentary vote for over a year,
because of the need to assess whether MD would increase or
decrease Polish security, in light of a possible exacerbation
of Polish-Russian relations. Iwinski said that public
opinion on MD was much more supportive in Poland than in the
Czech Republic, but views here were still divided roughly
50/50 despite the GoP's newfound support for MD. General
O'Reilly noted that Russian officials had tried a number of
times to obstruct the MD project, offering new objections
when the old ones were addressed. For example, Putin had
suggested that the radar facility in Gabala, Azerbaijan be
incorporated into the Missile Defense system, and General
O'Reilly had visited the site. However, when O'Reilly
indicated that the radar site was an excellent one, and could
be incorporated into the MD system, the Russians were clearly
discomfited; they did not follow up with O'Reilly to arrange
a visit to a second radar site.


8. (C) Pawel Gras, a Civic Platform (PO) deputy on the Sejm
Defense Committee, indicated that parliamentarians would
carefully assess BMDA provisions regarding liability for
damages caused by the use of the interceptor missiles. He
also said there would be renewed interest in the
applicability of Polish law to U.S. soldiers, in light of the
recent altercation in Sopot. (During a U.S. ship visit,
three servicemen allegedly beat up a taxi driver in a
disagreement over the fare and returned to their ship without
being detained by Polish police.) O'Reilly replied that
liability considerations were carefully negotiated during the
BMDA talks, and the sides settled on language that
parallelled a host of similar U.S. agreements with host
countries. As for criminal acts by U.S. military in Poland,
O'Reilly noted that there is a common misperception that host
government law enforcement officials cannot apprehend U.S.
military suspected of crimes. On the contrary, the General
said, host government police can make the arrests, but trial
jurisdiction rests with U.S. military courts.


9. (U) On the evening of October 29, General Obering was
the featured speaker at a dinner with 28 members of the
"American Lodge," a group of Poland's leading intellectuals
and opinion-makers who focus on American affairs. Joining
the dinner -- and engaging in an off-the-record confrontation
about policies and practices of the current and past (PiS)
governments -- were former MD negotiator Witold Waszczykowski
and Deputy Defense Minister Komorowski. General Obering
presented U.S. efforts to engage the Russians and noted
increased Gulf state interest in MD technology due to their
concerns about Iranian efforts to develop missiile
technology. Obering also spoke at a public forum at the
Warsaw School of Economics before an audience of more than

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100 that included U.S., British and Polish media. Incoming
Director O'Reilly gave several interviews for Polish
television and press when Director Obering was called away
for urgent consultations in Prague.


10. (C) COMMENT: Given the support for MD by Poland's
largest political parties, and the unusual degree of
consensus between the government and the President on this
issue, Embassy contacts do not anticipate problems for
ratification. The visit of Generals Obering and O'Reilly to
the Slupsk area helped show the neighbors of the planned
interceptor site that far from being an obstacle to local
activities and investment, the construction and operation of
the base could produce significant economic benefits.


11. (C) COMMENT, CONTINUED: Ratification challenges are
mainly related to timing: officials from the Sejm (REFTEL)
and government are increasingly pointing to the likelihood
that ratification will slip into 2009, given the task of
preparing a few agreements for simultaneous ratification.
The GoP intends to ratify simultaneously the BMDA and the
bilateral Strategic Declaration on Cooperation, as well as
two agreements yet to be concluded: the supplemental Status
of Forces Agreement, which will govern many of the conditions
under which the interceptor base is constructed and operated;
and a key BMDA implementing agreement, the Land Use
agreement. Post is consulting with DoS and DoD officials
about ways to move this package forward more quickly, such as
reducing the role of the Defense Ministry's Missile Defense
Office, which has become a chokepoint due to its insistence
on managing the discussions on all of the linked agreements.
ASHE