REMEMBER ALL THE WINGNUTS WHINING ABOUT POLAND?

(h/t Raw Story)

I recall that some of them thought that Pres. Obama's decision to rely on the AEGIS system instead of Bush's Star Wars system was close to treason. Now it seems that Pres. Obama made the correct decision:

U.S. nears key step in European defense shield against Iranian missiles
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 1, 2010

The U.S. military is on the verge of activating a partial missile shield over southern Europe, part of an intensifying global effort to build defenses against Iranian missiles amid a deepening impasse over the country's nuclear ambitions.

In September, Obama announced that he was changing Bush's approach. Instead of abandoning the idea, he directed the Pentagon to construct a far more extensive and flexible missile defense system in Europe that will be built in phases between now and 2020.

The first phase officially becomes operational next year. Aegis ships, armed with dozens of SM-3 missile interceptors, will patrol the Mediterranean and Black seas and link up with the high-power radar planned for southern Europe.

"If Iran were actually to launch a missile attack on Europe, it wouldn't be just one or two missiles, or a handful," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said at a congressional hearing in June. "It would more likely be a salvo kind of attack, where you would be dealing potentially with scores or even hundreds of missiles."

Such an attack could have "rapidly overwhelmed" the Bush missile defense shield for Europe, Army Lt. Gen. Patrick J. O'Reilly, director of the Defense Department's Missile Defense Agency, said in an interview.

As a result, the Obama administration has plans to nearly double its number of Aegis ships with ballistic missile defenses, to 38 by 2015. ... Until last year, the Pentagon had thought an arsenal of 147 SM-3s would be sufficient for its missile defenses worldwide. Now, the Obama administration is looking to nearly triple that number, to 436, by 2015.