The proposal, which comes amid rising concerns about Iran's suspected program to developed nuclear weapons, calls for installing 10 anti-missile interceptors at a European sit by 2011.

Poland and the Czech Republic are among the nations under consideration.

A recommendation on a European site is expected to be made this summer to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Pentagon officials were quoted as saying.

The Pentagon has Congress for 56 million U.S. dollars to begin initial work on the long-envisioned antimissile site, a request that has run into some opposition in Congress, the report said.

The final cost, including the interceptors themselves, is estimated at 1.6 billion dollars.

The establishment of an antimissile base in Eastern Europe would have enormous political implications. The deployment of interceptors in Poland, for example, would create the first permanent American military presence on that nation's soil and further solidify the close ties between the defense establishments of the two countries.

The plan, which has received relatively little attention in the United States, is a subject of lively discussion in Poland and has prompted Russian charges that Washington's hidden agenda is to expand the Americans presence in the former Warsaw Pact nation, according to the report.

The proposed antimissile site is the latest development in the U.S. missile defense program, which began with former President Ronald Reagan's expansive vision of a space-based anti-missile shield.

President George W. Bush made the program a top priority after taking office in 2001 and cleared the way for antimissile deployments by withdrawing from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.

Nine interceptors have already been installed at Fort Greely, Alaska, and two at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, as part of a broader, multilayered system planned by the Pentagon.