Missile system's £10bn price tag, by Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, 28 February 2002.

A missile defence system of the kind the US is pressing on its allies would cost British taxpayers up to £10bn, more than 40% of the entire defence budget, officials disclosed yesterday.

The estimate assumes Britain would have access to American technology and facilities at Menwith Hill, the US intelligence gathering base in North Yorkshire, as well as the early warning station at Fylingdales on the North Yorkshire moors, they said.

Ministry of Defence officials appeared sceptical about the Bush administration's plans for missile defence, not least because terrorists were unlikely to use missiles to attack the US or American interests abroad.

They said there was no evidence of any existing threat to Britain from "rogue states" such as Iran, Iraq, and Libya, which are acquiring long-range missile technology.

However, they admitted the US would want to use British bases for its own national missile defence system.

"The facilities feature very large in their calculations", Brian Hawtin, the ministry's director general for international security policy, told the Commons defence committee.

He insisted that the US had yet to decide what kind of missile defence technology to invest in - whether land, sea, airborne, or space based.

Though he said the government had yet to receive a specific request from Washington about the use of bases here, he was clearly expecting one. The government was "thinking through the implications of such a request".

Paul Roper, director of strategic technologies at the MoD, described Fylingdales as a "very attractive option", for the US as part of its project designed to protect itself from missile attacks from the Middle East. Upgrading the soft ware there would enable the US to track incoming missiles. A new x-band radar built nearby would be able to identify decoys as well as warheads.

The officials disclosed that the government had already given permission for the US to install a new space-based infra-red system ground relay station at Menwith Hill to monitor missile launches around the world.

However, Mr Hawtin said: "If the US wanted to use this for missile defence purposes, it would need to request approval".

The officials repeatedly told MPs that it was too early to be specific about the implications for Britain of America's missile defence plans since the technology was still being developed.

Though a decision by Britain to join a system could cost as much as £10bn it could be half as much, Mr Roper said.

Mr Hawtin said he "could not see the risk of terrorists acquiring ballistic missiles".

The problem about firing long range missiles, Marcus Fitzgerald, the MoD's director of nuclear policy, told the committee, was that it was possible for others to see very quickly where they were launched.

He added: "It is not a terrorist priority to acquire ballistic missiles as much as weapons of mass destruction" ˆ a reference to chemical, biological, and radiological substances.

Despite MoD scepticism about missile defence, there is little doubt the government will accede to Washington's request to use Fylingdales and Menwith Hill for its project.

And despite the squeeze on the defence budget, the ministry is also likely to come under increasing pressure from the US to devote more.