U.S. To Deploy Radar, Troops in Israel

[Lex]

Move Called Safeguard Against Iran Missile Threat

Tel Aviv - As part of extensive, bilateral preparations against the growing threat from Iran, the Pentagon wants to deploy one of its powerful X-Band radars in Israel, along with personnel from U.S. European Command to operate the long-range early warning system.
U.S. and Israeli sources said the ground-based radar and supporting troops could arrive here early next year, perhaps even sooner if they are to participate in a late autumn milestone test of the Arrow weapon system, as some here have proposed.
Moreover, sources here said the Pentagon has agreed to link the radar - the same AN-TPY-2 system now in Japan - into the U.S. Joint Tactical Ground Station (JTAGS) to improve cueing of defending interceptors.
According to officials and experts here, the JTAGS will remain in Europe, where they receive direct downlinks from the U.S. constellation of Defense Support Program satellites. However, the two governments are arranging for the near instantaneous feed of JTAGS cueing data back to the U.S.-operated radar in Israel.
In parallel, U.S. data will stream into Israel's Citron Tree battle management system, a key element linking Israel's Super Green Pine early warning radar with U.S.-Israel anti-missile interceptors.
"The X-Band will be transferred not as an organic part of the Israeli homeland defense, but as a permanent deployment of U.S. capabilities and personnel to a site within Israel, which then connects to the homeland defense network via an interoperability node," an Israeli defense expert here said.
U.S. and Israeli officials warned that ongoing preparations are extremely sensitive, and that myriad details of the U.S. deployment and how it will tie into the Israeli network have not yet been finalized.
Nevertheless, they acknowledged that the basic plan was approved last month, first by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his Israeli counterpart, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, and then by the two countries' civilian defense leaders.
A joint statement released following a July 28 Pentagon meeting between U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was deliberately vague, yet noted that the two sides discussed "defensive capability options that could enhance Israel's security."
Among the options, the statement cited "ballistic missile early warning launch data" and "a forward-based X-Band radar system."
A few days later, when asked at a Pentagon press conference about the outcome of talks with Barak and whether bilateral plans indicate a worsening of the Iranian threat, Gates replied, "We are looking at greater cooperation with them in terms of providing some additional capability. And I think at this point, I'll just leave it general like that."
When asked to confirm the expedited target date for the planned U.S. deployment, a senior Israeli defense official said, "We're now into details, and we're moving forward to make this happen as soon as possible."
According to the official, the two sides have not yet finalized, for example, the precise chain of command or operational concept to which the U.S. team will be committed.
Meanwhile, another Israeli defense official said a team of experts has already identified potential sites in the country's southern Negev desert region where the X-Band radar and U.S. personnel could be deployed.
"There's no way we'll be able to do this in two or three months; [there are] too many logistics, legal and other issues to be worked out," he said.
He noted that it took nearly two years for Israel's MoD to extract all the appropriate approvals with which to deploy an Arrow battery in Ein Shemer, in northern Israel.
"We found ourselves fighting not only City Hall, but the greens and everyone else who were afraid of radiation poisoning," the official said.
The official acknowledged, however, that potential sites in the Negev are far less populated than the site selected for Israel's second Arrow battery.

EXTENDED DETECTION TIME

Once deployed and fully integrated, the combined U.S. and Israeli system is expected to double or even triple the range at which Israel can detect, track and ultimately defend against Iranian missiles, U.S. and Israeli officials said.
In an Aug. 7 interview here, Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency (MDA), declined comment on the ultimate timetable or policy and operational issues not yet finalized by the two governments. Nevertheless, from MDA's perspective, he said, "We're moving ahead as quickly as we can."
On a technical level, Obering said that depending on the interceptor selected for Israel's upper-tier defense, the X-Band transportable radar, like the United State now has in Japan, could double or triple detection range.
"We've been studying architectures to provide an integrated layered defense that will plug into various architectures for the region for many years," he said. "And having an X-Band radar, like the one we have in Japan, has always been part of our calculation."
The MDA chief praised the radar's capabilities demonstrated in the successful U.S. intercept of a runaway satellite earlier this year, and said lessons learned from the exercise are extremely relevant for Israel.
"We took data from the radar and fed it into the ship, and this allowed the ship to fire the interceptor way before its own radar ever saw it. ... In the context of Israel, if we can take the radar out here and tie it into the Arrow weapon system, they'll be able to launch that interceptor way before they could with an autonomous system," he said.
"The missile threat from Iran is very real, and we must stay ahead of the threat. It's critical to the defense of the United States, critical to the defense of Europe, and obviously critical to Israel. And that's why we're working so hard with all our allies to put the most optimized, effective, anti-missile capability in place."
An Israeli defense expert doubted that the X-Band radar on its own could significantly enhance detection range. However, once the United States agreed to provide cueing from JTAGS, the radar would, indeed, add precious minutes with which to track and intercept incoming threats.
"The X-Band is a welcome enhancement to target tracking, guidance and discrimination and could very well enhance the very capable detection ranges we already have in our Green Pine radar.
"Once X-Band locks on a target, its tracking is more precise and its resolution is greater than our own radar, and this will give us invaluable discrimination information and significantly enhanced kill probability," he said.
The Israeli expert noted that the U.S. government had denied earlier Israeli requests for JTAGS, primarily due to security classification objections by the U.S. Air Force.
"Since they threw in JTAGS, it's become a whole new ballgame. We're looking at a very generous gift from the United States, even if it means we have to compromise on sovereignty by having U.S. troops deployed here," he said.
The deployment of the X-Band radar enjoys broad support in both houses of the U.S. Congress, where Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., and Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., have co-sponsored initiatives to improve Israel's ability to defend against Iranian Shihab- and Ashura-class ballistic missiles.
"Given the Iranian president's threat to 'wipe Israel off the map,' we should put the full weight of the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense system behind our democratic ally," the two lawmakers wrote in a letter to President George W. Bush in May.

Defense News, published: 18 August 2008