Iron Dome defense system gets new backer: Barack Obama

U.S. agrees to fund anti-missile defense system, long delayed due to budgetary difficulties, beyond regular annual defense assistance afforded to Israel.

By Amos Harel

The budgetary difficulty that has been delaying Israel's armament with the anti-missile defense system Iron Dome has apparently been resolved. The Pentagon has issued a message to Israel's Defense Ministry that U.S. President Barack Obama has approved the transfer of special assistance totaling $205 million (just under NIS 800 million) for the purchase of more than ten Iron Dome batteries.

The Iron Dome missile defense system aced a test run in January, and event that convinced senior defense officials that the defense system was on its way to becoming operational and that it will be able to effectively protect against short-range missiles, such as Katyushas and Qassams, which often hit Israeli towns.

The project's first phase, which included development, test runs and the manufacture of two batteries, required a budget of NIS 800 million. The Israel Air Force has also trained a special new unit to operate the defense system.

However, the plan was not allotted an adequate budget. The Israel Defense Forces ducked away from funding the project with its budget, explaining that offensive readiness was a higher priority, and the Defense Ministry has been looking for other budgetary avenues. Among other things, Israel has struck a deal with an unnamed eastern Asian country (Singapore, according to a recent report in a French magazine) to participate in the funding of future phases in the project.

Israel has recently raised the possibility that the U.S. assist in the funding of the project by transferring a sum of money beyond the U.S.'s annual defense assistance. The request was reviewed closely during Defense Minister Ehud Barak's last visit to Washington earlier this month, and during talks between Barak and Obama and other senior American defense officials.

in full: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/iron-dome-defense-system-gets-new-backer-barack-obama-1.290226

either to improve their capabilities or negotiate.

Larger rockets are clearly there. Existence of missile systems (Scuds)has been heavily disputed.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/14/world/main6397011.shtml
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63Q5CO20100427

And, we get to pay for it. Cost-efficient. Brilliant



VERSUS

The basic hand grenade (M67) has 6.5 ounces of explosive fill. It is great for killing everyone in a pillbox or room. It can blow up cars. It has a lethal radius of 5 meters a casualty producing radius of 15 meters and fragments can disperse as far as 230 meters.

The Quassam III (current production) which you call a bottle rocket, carries 22 to 44 pounds/352-704 ounces of explosive in its warhead (depends on source quoted).

Mao, Bolivar and Guevara.

Guerrilla forces beat empires be using low-tech, low-cost and drawn-out tactics to bankrupt them. Guerrillas win because empires ignore the advice of Sun Tzu that no state ever benefited from a protracted war.

Maybe you would like more attacks into Lebanon and Gaza? Regular air strikes instead?

In the interests of the rich.

I want us, and those with whom we have formed entangling alliances, to stop creating "terrorists."

compare with not making enemies to begin with?

From an email from my son, currently serving in the Middle East: "Dad, this place stinks of oil and sewage and money. If I were these people, I'd be fighting us, too."

Recommended Reading: "The New American Militarism" by Andrew Bacevich and "War is a Racket" by Marine General Smedley Butler.

On edit: Fixed typo

The attacks on Israel from Gaza and Lebanon are one of the primary reasons that the IDF has attacked in recent years. By stopping the rockets from getting through, there will be less pressure on the Israeli government to attack. This is a defensive system and should be cost effective in terms of money and lives.

is a bad thing?

I can't BEGIN to fathom anyone being SERIOUS about hyping this unworkable "money pit" which will result, in the end, with "no delivery." :crazy:

p.s. Well, the delivery of our hard earned tax dollars to more MIC mega-corporations is the only plus for the already bloated and filthy rich contractors. :shrug:

There are some limitations at this point and cost effectiveness concerns, but the basic technology is proven at this point. the IDF is deploying it at this point. I like others think lasers are a better long term solution, but its further out in terms of being practical. Its not clear how much of the funding the Obama administration is committing is to the laser based approach or how much of it will be spent domestically.

Either way they are pure shields which makes them a better choice than current solutions which are bunkers combined with counter battery fire and/or air strikes. It would also dramatically lessen the internal pressure to take military action if people are not being shelled, one of the reasons cited in recent incursions.

Some criticize the shield concept, but I for one hope we have grown beyond MAD kind of thinking. It will take away a tool in the Hamas/Hezbollah terror arsenals, but IMO that is a good thing.

Wikipedia has a fairly balanced discussion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Dome

:evilgrin:

We need to take care of America and her people!

programs?

particular to an apartheid country like Israel, to a sponsor of terrorism like Saudi Arabia, and to tyrannies like Egypt, to name just a few.

'Iron Dome doesn’t answer threats'
By BEN HARTMAN
09/05/2010
Military analyst says claims of effectiveness are disingenuous.

Tel Aviv University professor and noted military analyst Reuven Pedatzur on Saturday strongly criticized a ballistic missile defense conference and exhibition held in Tel Aviv last week, calling the organizers’ and speakers’ claims that current defense systems can protect Israel from missile and rocket threats false and disingenuous.

<snip>

“The Iron Dome is all a scam, he said. “The flight-time of a Kassam rocket to Sderot is 14 seconds, while the time the Iron Dome needs to identify a target and fire is something like 15 seconds. This means it can’t defend against anything fired from fewer than five kilometers; but it probably couldn’t defend against anything fired from 15 km., either.”

Added Pedatzur: “Considering the fact that each Iron Dome missile costs about $100,000 and each Kassam $5, all the Palestinians would need to do is build and launch a ton of rockets and hit our pocketbook.

The David’s Sling is even worse, he said. “Each one of its missiles costs $1 million, and Hizbullah has well over 40,000 rockets. This issue has no logic to it whatsoever.”

<more>

http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=175042

The technology that's "tested" publicly in America ALWAYS turns out to be essentially fraudulent. For example, the Bush Administration's "test" in which a missile was shot down used a homing beacon attached to the "enemy" missile.

I don't know what Israel needs at this point, but we definitely will not benefit from throwing trillions of additional dollars into a missile shield to "protect" America. The military industrial complex, of course, differs in opinion. Thank goodness our politicians would never sell us out to the MIC.

Please nobody make me use the sarcasm icon here.