On November 4 the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza reported extensively on Eagle Guardian. The paper has a history of breaking crucial, and accurate, information earlier than other sources.
In February of this year it featured an article by Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich in which he spoke of arranging for NATO Response Force exercises in his country, employing a "scenario [which] would involve the allies in a defense exercise against attack from the east." The Drawsko Pomorskie Training Area, used by NATO since 1996 - three years before Poland became a member of the military bloc - was suggested as a site for the war games by Klich.
The NATO Response Force is a 25,000-troop "highly ready and technologically advanced multinational force made up of land, air, maritime and special forces components that the Alliance can deploy quickly to wherever it is needed." [6]
In the summer of 2009 Gazeta Wyborcza disclosed, three weeks before announcements by President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Gates on the subject [7] and "citing officials and lobbyists in Washington," that Washington was expanding interceptor missile plans from new NATO member states in Eastern Europe to other "locations including in the Balkans, Israel and Turkey." [8] Just that has transpired in the interim as, in addition to stationing a missile radar site in the Negev Desert, the U.S. conducted the largest-ever missile interception exercises with Israel in October and November of last year [9], announced plans to deploy Standard Missile-3 and anti-missile radar installations in Romania and Bulgaria, and is currently pressuring Turkey to also host missile shield facilities.
Over a month ago, more than two weeks before the NATO summit in Portugal, the Polish newspaper revealed:
"NATO already has new plans ready for the defense of Poland and the Baltic countries....The Alliance has identified the specific divisions and ports which would serve in a potential operation.
"Such contingency plans guarantee a country not only armed assistance from the Allies. They also constitute an outline of the combat operation that could be carried out on that country's territory in the event of an attack."
The paper quoted Defense Minister Klich, who refused to disclose details, "which are NATO secrets":
"After two years, contingency plans have been successfully prepared for Poland."
An unnamed source at NATO's Military Command was also quoted as saying:
"Plans for Poland were prepared this September, after consultations with the defense ministers of the Baltic countries and Poland. They encompass actions during the first phase of an operation. The plans for Poland are already quite detailed, for the Baltic countries this is a preliminary version."
Operations to intervene not only in Poland but also in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which "NATO member states are [expected] to approve...at the Lisbon summit two weeks from now," will be under the command of the NATO Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum in the Netherlands, "which is responsible for the security of Central and Eastern Europe.
"Brunssum will establish what is known as a high-readiness headquarters to directly run the operation in Poland." The plans will be overseen from NATO's main military headquarters in Europe, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.
Providing the details that the Guardian stated were unavailable, the Polish source added:
"In the event of aggression against Poland, NATO plans to deploy as many as nine divisions into battle. Four of them Polish, the remainder from Western countries, including British, German, and American ones. They will be transported by all possible routes: by land, by rail, by airplane, and by sea.
"The ports meant to receive large assault units have already been named. The most important among them is Swinoujscie. This port is currently carrying out a thorough modernization using NATO money, so that it can receive large warships longer than 200 m and submerged more than 10 m.
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