U.S. Attaches Strings to Israeli Iron Dome Funds
Washington Seeks Rights to Short-Range Interceptor System
Apr. 30, 2012 - 10:39AM By BARBARA OPALL-ROME
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120430/DEFREG04/304300003/U-S-Attaches-Strings-Israeli-Iron-Dome-Funds

TEL AVIV — Defense and industry leaders here are discovering that even in a
U.S. election year — when bipartisan and bicameral support for Israel is at
its peak — some American gift packages still come tied with strings.

In exchange for $680 million for Israel’s Iron Dome short-range rocket
defense system, Washington wants “appropriate rights” to the
Israeli-developed technology and U.S.-based coproduction of the system’s
high-speed intercepting missiles.

According to language included in the House Armed Services strategic forces
subcommittee’s markup for the 2013 defense authorization bill, Defense
Secretary Leon Panetta may provide up to $680 million to Israel for Iron
Dome procurement over the next 29 months.

The proposed funding, when combined with the $205 million authorized and
appropriated under 2011 legislation, brings U.S. taxpayer investment in the
operationally proven Israeli system to nearly $900 million. “Yet the United
States has no rights to the technology involved,” the committee noted.

As a means of leveraging this investment, House authorizers require the
director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) to establish a joint
Iron Dome program office to formalize long-term cooperation.

“The committee believes the Director should ensure, prior to disbursing
additional funds on Iron Dome, that the United States has appropriate rights
to this technology, as is consistent with prior U.S.-Israel missile defenses
cooperation,” according to the panel’s authorization bill markup.

House authorizers also want MDA “to explore any opportunity to enter into
co-production of the Iron Dome system with Israel, in light of the
significant U.S. investment in this system.”

In interviews here and in Washington, government sources say the Pentagon is
pushing for similar caveats in markups to come from Senate authorizers as
well as appropriators from both houses of Congress. The House defense
appropriations markup is expected in the first half of May while the Senate
version is expected at the end of June.

Israel has deployed three Iron Dome batteries and a fourth is in final
stages of acceptance testing with the Israel Air Force’s Air Defense
Command. The first two batteries were funded by Israel’s shekel-based
defense budget while the $205 million appropriated by Congress last year
were used to fund the third and fourth batteries as well as two additional
batteries now being produced by an Israeli industrial team led by
state-owned Rafael.

Israeli sources say the proposed $680 million in additional funding will
cover another four complete Iron Dome batteries, which include an
Eltamultimission radar, Iron Dome launchers, Tamir interceptors and the
system’s command-and-control unit.

In an Israeli Independence Day address on April 26, Defense Minister Ehud
Barak raised “the initiative of the Pentagon, with the approval of the White
House and with bipartisan support in Congress, to legislate additional aid
to enable Israel to deploy 10 batteries and thousands of interceptors of the
Iron Dome.”

Barak did not make reference to the stings that Washington is attaching to
its support of Iron Dome, a system which he has repeatedly referred to as
“the fruit of Israel’s indigenous defense industry.”