Europe hears missile shield plans

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- U.S. envoys are visiting Europe in the drive to promote President George W. Bush's plans for a global missile defence system.

The high-ranking team arrived at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday and is due to tour a number of European capitals selling the National Missile Defense (NMD) project.

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Other delegates are travelling to capitals around the world, including Beijing and New Delhi, to explain the Bush's ambitions for NMD.

Senior U.S. officials Marc Grossman, undersecretary of State, and Stephen Hadley, deputy assistant to Bush for national security affairs are in Europe, trying to win over European governments.

A number of European countries, including the UK, France and Russia, have expressed reservations about the U.S. plan. The European leg of the tour will include stops in the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy and Turkey.

The Bush government has proposed a system will be able to shoot down incoming missiles while they are in flight.

President Richard Nixon and Soviet Party leader Leonid Brezhnev sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 1972

A U.S. spokesmen said: "It's not by any means a completed project. It's not something that we're announcing to the allies, it's very much a consultation with other countries and an explanation of views."

But Bush has also called for replacing the 30-year-old Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty -- signed by the U.S and the Soviet Union in 1972 -- to allow the deployment of the missile defence system.

Bush views the treaty as a relic of the Cold War era and an unnecessary restriction on current defence needs.

The Associated Press reported that Russia and China remain opposed to the NMD plan as they view the 1972 treaty as an effective barrier to bigger defensive arsenals.

China, Russia and North Korea have all raised concerns about the missile shield, with Beijing warning the system might spark a fresh arms race with the U.S.

Many of the U.S. allies themselves are sceptical and publicly noncommittal.

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