Polish president says US missile deployment a ‘mistake’

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski has described as “a political mistake” his country’s agreement to let the deployment of US missile system on its territory by 2018.

“Our mistake was that while accepting the US proposal, we have not taken into account a political risk related to the change of the US president. We have paid a too high political price for that,” Komorowski told the Wprost magazine, RIA Novosti reported on Monday.

“Spending large sums on military hardware is actually meaningless if it is not secured from… the missile attack and air raids,” Komorowski said.

The United States had scrapped plans in September of 2010 for a missile system in the Czech Republic and Poland.

Moscow welcomed the move, and Russia’s then-President Dmitry Medvedev said later that Russia would drop plans to deploy Iskander-M tactical missiles in its Kaliningrad Region, which borders NATO members, Poland and Lithuania.

Last year, however, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Washington’s plans to deploy the US new-generation ballistic missile system in Poland by 2018.