- PALMACHIM AIR BASE,
Israel (Reuters) - Israel put its $2.2 billion Arrow anti-ballistic missile
system on rare display on Thursday in an apparent warning to Iraq should
it target the Jewish state again in retaliation for any U.S. attack.
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- Shocked by the failure of U.S. Patriot missiles to intercept
39 Iraqi Scuds fired at it during the 1991 Gulf War, Israel has conceived
the first custom-designed anti-ballistic missile in time for a possible
U.S. winter campaign to disarm Iraq.
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- "It is like a bullet able to hit a bullet,"
Arrow chief engineer Boaz Zevi told reporters given a tour of Palmachim
Air Base where four mobile launchers containing six missiles each point
at the sky from desert near the Mediterranean coast.
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- Aside from a steering defect since corrected, the 23-foot-long
Arrow has passed seven tests showing it can detect, track and destroy a
missile in under three minutes at altitudes of more than 30 miles, a senior
military briefer said.
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- He said the Arrow's Green Pine radar -- a 50-by-17-foot
dish at Palmachim -- had enabled Israel to slash the time between the launch
and detection of a hostile missile by 70 percent since 1991.
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- An Iraqi Scud would take about eight minutes to slam
into Israel from launch pads Israeli and U.S. officials believe are in
western Iraq, around 400 miles from the Jewish state.
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- Briefers said the Arrow marks a quantum advance from
the Patriot, an anti-aircraft system imperfectly adapted to down missiles
traveling at far higher speeds than planes and unable to reach space, the
flight path of ballistic weapons like Scuds.
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- "We have reached huge capability in the past year,
building up the very unique Arrow and a lower layer of air defense provided
by upgraded Patriots," said Brigadier General Yair Dori, commander
of Israel's air defense system.
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- "In 1991, we had almost nothing. We'd only begun
building air defenses. After just 10 years, we have a very robust, active
air defense. We can give Israeli civilians a safe feeling about the next
conflict," he told reporters.
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- ARROW YET TO FACE 'SALVO' TEST
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- Military sources said the Arrow had not yet been tested
against a "salvo" of missiles fired at once -- the stiffest challenge
for any missile defense system and a possible scenario if Iraq targets
Israel again -- but would be soon.
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- Independent Israeli air defense experts estimate the
Arrow's success rate at 95 percent.
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- The other five percent unsettles Israelis because they
fear Iraq might tip missiles with lethal anthrax spores or sarin and VX
gases, weapons Baghdad denies it possesses.
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- But the Arrow was geared to wipe out threats at outer-space
altitudes, reducing the risk of chemical or biological residue falling
to Earth, the senior military official said.
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- Iraq, its military clout eroded by defeat in 1991 and
international trade sanctions since, is thought to have no more than a
few dozen ready missiles in contrast with its 1991 arsenal.
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- Military sources said Israel could answer with more than
200 Arrows -- costing $3 million apiece -- based at Palmachim and at a
recently established second base in central Israel.
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- "I'm sure (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein has the
motivation to bring Israel into the next conflict. I think he will try.
But I'm sure less missiles will fall into Israel, and I want to believe
none will," Dori said.
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- Half the Arrow's research, development and production
costs from the project's inception in 1988 have been borne by the United
States, Israel's guardian ally. State-owned Israel Aircraft Industries
Ltd. developed the Arrow.
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- Soldiers demonstrated hoisting an Arrow launcher from
horizontal transport mode to battle-ready upright. Four launch pads, each
with six tubes, stood on trailers a few hundred yards from the coastline.
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- In the Fire Control Room nearby, air defense officers
simulated a response to an attack on monitors showing green maps of the
Middle East with Iraq at one end and Israel the other.
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- Like a war game, black blips depicting Scuds streaked
westward over Jordan or Syria and blue blips denoting Arrows beelined eastward
from the Mediterranean coast. "Kill" impacts sparkled over northern
Israel's Galilee region or the West Bank.
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- Officials said the Arrow network covered not just Israel
but the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where Palestinians are fighting Israeli
occupation and where 200,000 Jews live in 145 settlements.
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