The Missile Defense Agency head spoke publicly Tuesday for the first time about progress in the Poland missile defense talks. While General Obering urged progress has been made, others remain skeptical, as Megan Scully of CongressDailyAM reported on July 16th.

The MDA head stated that Poland and the Czech Republic have agreed to host US missile defense systems. Obering continued that the two governments are reviewing the agreement and negotiating what they want in return. It’s this last part that has skeptics buzzing. Polish officials are bargaining for military aid to boost their air defenses, including patriot missiles. It’s not clear what the Czechs want. What is clear is that neither country looks willing to ratify the agreements until they get what they want.

Perennial missile defense skeptic and Chair of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee doesn’t think the two countries will ratify the agreements until after the U.S. elections in November. Further House hostilities are reflected in the FY09 $372 million defense cuts for the European sites. The Senate seems slightly more optimistic, fully funding the project in principal, but refusing to fund actual building of the sites until the interceptors have been “field tested.”

More bad news came from the MDA this week as they announced the “altering” of their plans to test the ground-based interceptors on July 18. Due to technical reasons, this Friday’s test will be a simulation rather than an actual test-fire. While the simulation will likely yield important results, “simulations” are not going to bring the MDA closer to convincing Congress the interceptors really work.

Representative Tauscher said that the latest agreement with the Poles and Czechs is “barely one leg” of a three-legged stool stand. Not really. It’s more like 2 legs. The third leg is the ratification of the agreements and the seat is Congress giving the “go-ahead.” The experts at The Heritage Foundation discuss the importance of ratifying these agreements.