THE U.S. general who was today visiting a North Yorkshire military base says the Son of Star Wars project should be in place within five years.

Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish was expected to call in this afternoon at RAF Fylingdales on the North York Moors, destined to form part of America's planned defensive missile shield.

Peace protesters were due to mount a vigil outside the base in an attempt to demonstrate that the United Kingdom will not lie down and accept missile defence.

Neil Kingsnorth, development worker for Yorkshire CND, said: "Lt Gen Kadish is one of the major driving forces behind missile defence.

"His visit to Fylingdales is a very bad sign and we'll be there

to show him that we oppose any UK involvement in this crazy system."

In a speech last night to the Royal United Services Institute in London, the general said the United States had demonstrated that the technology behind the so-called "Son of Star Wars" system worked.

It was now looking to move forward on an "aggressive development and potential deployment programme". He said: "We no longer need to experiment, to demonstrate or to prevaricate. We need to get on with this and I am confident that we will."

The Government has insisted that it has yet to receive any formal American request to use Fylingdales and has also played down today's visit, saying it was an "informal familiarisation visit".

Updated: 11:41 Wednesday, November 20, 2002