The Bush administration has agreed to a key demand in its push for a European missile shield. This weekend, the White House said it backs Poland’s call for increased US military aid in return for its cooperation on hosting the site. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke after meeting Polish officials in Washington.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: “There is no way that a few interceptors in Poland and radars in the Czech Republic can degrade the thousands of nuclear warheads that the Russians have, and there is no intent to do so. Indeed, we are having discussions with the Russians that President Putin and President Bush have wanted to go ahead about how we can cooperate in missile defense, because the Russians face some of the same threats. How can we talk about joint threat assessment? How can we talk about a system that would take advantage of the full geography so that we could have a way to counter these twenty-first century threats?”

The administration calls the shield a defense measure against a potential attack from Iran, but it’s widely seen as a first-strike weapon. The US wants to install at least ten missiles in Poland along with a radar site in the Czech Republic. Public opinion polls continue to show majority opposition to the missile shield in both countries.