The planned US anti-missile system is inefficient and ineffective, a US military expert was reported as saying by the Czech News Agency on Monday.

Philip Coyle, an expert in military research, development and US defense policy, criticized the US plan while attending a meeting with mayors of a town situated in the Brdy military district, southwest of the Czech capital. The district is the proposed location for a planned radar base as part of the US anti-missile system.

He presented the results of a study which describes the US administration's assertions about the missile defense system's reliability as irresponsible exaggeration.

When asked to comment on Washington's plan to build the radar base close to a densely populated area, he said the US military has banned its own members from approaching not only the radar itself but also the areas nearby.

He said that in Alaska, where the Pentagon wants to set up a radar base similar to the one proposed to be set in the Brdy military district, there is a growing wave of resistance as local residents are afraid of the radar's impact on their health.

He said he personally prefers Azerbaijan, a locality proposed by Russia, as a better place for the radar base.

The meeting gathered mayors who oppose the planned US radar project. Jan Neoral, one of the participants, praised the meeting and said they will meet again on Sunday to outline further steps in their anti-radar efforts.

The United States initiated the plan to deploy an anti-missile radar base in the Czech Republic and a missile interceptor base in Poland.

Negotiations between the Czech Republic and the United States on the radar project are still underway, while the former is expected to give its final decision later this year.

Russia has expressed strong objections to the US missile defense program in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Some 70 percent of Czechs reject the planned US radar base intheir country, according to a survey conducted by the CVVM pollinginstitute and published last Tuesday.

(Xinhua News Agency January 15, 2008)