U.S. Scraps Missile Defense Shield Plans

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/09/17/united.states.missile.shield/index.html

The Obama administration will scrap the controversial missile defense shield program in Eastern Europe, a senior administration official confirmed to CNN Thursday.

But he [Vice President Joe Biden] did explain the logic of doing so, saying Iran -- a key concern for the United States -- was not a threat.

Poland and the Czech Republic had based much of their future security policy on getting the missile defenses from the United States. The countries share deep concerns of a future military threat from the east -- namely, Russia -- and may now look for other defense assurances from their NATO allies.