A quiet but determined effort to develop the joint American-Israeli Arrow antiballistic missile is a worrying reminder of the growing military and strategic collaboration between Washington and Tel Aviv, writes Galal Nassar While the world was distracted by events in the Middle East -- the escalating violence in Darfur, Iraq and the occupied Palestinian territories -- the US and Israel secretly tested the Arrow antiballistic missile. Conducted in California, away from the eyes of the media, the test proved a success in that it downed a Scud, although it failed to down another missile. As a result of this success, there has been a fundamental change in the balance of power in the Middle East, especially between Israel and its immediate neighbours, which have relied on successive generations of ballistic missiles as a deterrent to Israel's conventional and nuclear weaponry. This article discusses the various dimensions of the Arrow project as a model for US-Israeli cooperation. It also analyses the capacities and strategic uses of this missile in confronting the new generation of advanced ballistic missilery developed in the Middle East region, such as the Iranian Shihab. Over the Pacific, off the California coast, the US- Israeli Arrow anti-ballistic missile had its first encounter with the Scud missile, which features frequently in the arsenals of the Arab and Islamic world. The Arrow was the subject of two joint US- Israeli tests. The first was conducted on 29 July 2004 and declared successful by the Israeli and US departments of defense. In the second, held on 26 August, the Arrow failed to down a Scud-D. These were the first times the Arrow's interceptive capacities were tested against real Scuds fired from the ground as opposed to other missiles generally fired from aircraft. Israel had long been urging the US to conduct such a simulation and two years ago Washington finally acquiesced and began planning for these tests, the results of which still hover between success and failure. Relative to the first test, we can note a couple of interesting facts. Firstly, the Scud used came from Iraq, or, as the news agencies put it, it was "confiscated" from Iraq during the arms inspection processes either before or after the last war on Iraq. It is still uncertain how the missile ended up in US and Israeli hands. Secondly, the US insisted that the test take place in the US, ostensibly for security reasons. Perhaps because of its small size, Israel was reluctant to fire off a Scud missile from a land base in close proximity to residential areas. The US, by contrast, has vast open spaces permitting the firing of a Scud at full range and its interception under conditions closely approximating those likely were Syria or Iran to let loose a ballistic missile against Israel. The Iraqi Scud was fired out towards the Pacific from a land-based launcher (located in the US Navy's Aerial War Centre in Los Angeles). When the Scud appeared on the Arrow system's radar screen, the Arrow was released to intercept and destroy it. Operators on the ground continued to transmit guiding signals to the Arrow enabling it to approach and then detonate the Scud. Israel, shocked by the failure of US Patriot missiles to intercept 39 Iraqi Scuds that Baghdad had fired against Israel during the 1991 Gulf War, was desperate to develop the Arrow. It allocated $2.2 billion towards this end, much of its budget coming from US aid. After the first test, the Israeli director of the Arrow project told Israel's Channel 1, "The test went perfectly and we will continue to develop the missile so that in can handle any future threats, such as the threat from Iran." Independent experts give the Arrow a 95 per cent success rate at intercepting its target. However, there are some reservations over its capacity to confront a barrage of state-of-the-art Shihab-3s from the Iranian arsenal. According to the Jerusalem Post 's military correspondent, the Shihab-3 has a speed of 6 kilometres per second, or more than four times the speed of a Scud and twice the speed of the targets the Arrow missile was designed to intercept. A spokesman for the Israeli aeronautics industry in Washington said that the US funded about 70 per cent of the costs of the Arrow development project. It put up 80 per cent of the costs of developing the first generation, but since 1991 the Americans and Israelis have divided the costs equally. The Boeing Company is supervising the production of half of the components of the missile on the basis of a contract signed with the Israeli Aeronautics Institute, which began final assembly of the missile in Israel in February. Former Israeli Air Force Commander Hertzl Budinger was euphoric at the successful test. "Enemy states had better fear the consequences of targeting Israel. Our possession of this capacity will make them think very carefully before firing missiles against us, because our response will be far more drastic," he proclaimed. Shlomo Brom, analyst for the Jaffa Centre for Strategic Studies, issued similar threats. He further stressed the need to employ Arrow as a deterrent against Iran and Syria. As the foregoing suggests, Israel's primary aim in owning antiballistic missiles such as the Arrow is to counter the threat of Iranian and Syrian missiles and other missiles in the Arab and Islamic countries. It is generally understood that these missiles are the only weapon available to the Arabs capable of overcoming or neutralising Israel's nuclear capacities, especially if fitted out with unconventional biological or chemical warheads. But as soon as Israeli deploys Arrow missile batteries it will obviously drive Arab states to develop counter measures. One would be to deploy a greater number of offensive ballistic missile batteries and to produce more missiles, which would enable them to fire a larger barrage of missiles than the Arrow missile system can handle. A second would be to equip assault missiles with decoy devices to throw the Arrow missile guidance system off track. The irony is that Israel is unable, even with American help, to find a workable remedy against missile attacks from much closer to home -- not from the highly sophisticated missiles in the arsenals of Tehran or Damascus, but the rudimentary Qassams that Palestinians cobble together in backrooms and workshops. Mid- and long-range ballistic missiles are a relatively recent factor in the strategic equations of the Middle East. Israel and some Arab countries began to procure them in the 1960s and early 1970s, after which they proliferated exponentially over subsequent decades. Not only did these countries import these weapons, they developed the technologies and industries to operate, repair and upgrade their range and accuracy. For example, Israel, which possesses the most advanced military technology complexes in the region, succeeded in co- producing, with France, very advanced models of the long- range Jericho missile. Now in their third generation, Jerichos have a range of 1,500 kilometres, and are therefore capable of reaching targets in Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Libya and even southern Russia and the Balkans. Then, of course, we have the upgrades being made jointly with the US on the Arrow antiballistic missile. Among Arab countries, Iraq under Saddam Hussein introduced several improvements on the Scud-B and also produced two types of advanced missiles, dubbed Hussein and Abbas. Iran followed Iraq's lead and produced its range of Shihabs, mid- and long-range missiles that are also modifications on the Russian Scud. In addition, there have been reports that Libya and Syria are in the process of producing a 1,000- kilometre range missile with technical assistance from North Korea and China. As the arms race grew more feverish, Israel began tests on an anti-ballistic missile laser system. Developed with considerable assistance from the US, its purpose is to neutralise and destroy short-range missiles, such as the Katusha, which Arab countries possess in abundance. Can all these missiles, which can be fitted out with conventional or non-conventional warheads, achieve their owners' strategic aims? During the second Gulf War, it became palpably clear that heavy population concentrations in Middle East countries render them highly vulnerable to ballistic missile attacks. In order for a country to protect itself from such a threat, it has the pre-emptive option, which is to strike the missiles before they are launched, or the defensive option, which is to intercept them after they are fired and before they reach their target. The first option is more costly, plus there is the considerable difficulty of pinpointing missile platforms under battle conditions. Israel, located in the midst of the Arab world, low in population on land lacking geographic depth, has a particular mania about security, propelling it to develop an advanced anti- missile missile shield. We can only remind ourselves of Yitzhak Rabin's remark, when he was minister of defense, that Israel must determine the means that best enables it to reach hostile missiles before they leave the ground. Getting closer to that capability is what the Arrow missile is about. In order to better put this missile defence system in perspective, we must understand that the US was and remains its prime supporter. Washington has been unwavering in its embrace of Israeli military might and indefatigable in furnishing Tel Aviv with every possible means of military, moral and technical assistance to enable it to attain qualitative military superiority over all other countries in the region, which, as the war on Iraq has demonstrated, has become the principal frontier of the ambitions of both the East and the West. One cannot help but to recall that Moshe Erens, minister of defense under Yitzhak Shamir, said that America's support for Israel was an important deterrent and that he hoped the US would finance the Arrow missile project until its end. As early as 1988, Israel began to act in response to Iraqi long-range missiles capable of being fitted out with chemical warheads and reaching targets inside Israel. In July of that year, the general-director of the Ministry of Defense signed an agreement with James Abrahamson, director of the Pentagon's Strategic Initiative Programme, in accordance with which the US and Israel would cooperate in the manufacture of mid-range missiles. The programme would cost some $3 billion. Not long afterwards, Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense under Bush Sr, announced that the US would press ahead in its support of the Arrow missile that Israel had designed to intercept Arab ground-to-ground tactical missiles. But why the Arrow so long as there is the Patriot? The answer is quite simple: there is a vast discrepancy between their specifications and capacities. The Patriot is only capable of intercepting offensive missiles at elevations up to 15 kilometres above sea level. In other words, the defender would have to wait until the approaching enemy missile was making its downward descent and strike it within the few seconds remaining of its flight. Patriot missile batteries would therefore be highly vulnerable targets. The Arrow, on the other hand, can intercept its targets at heights between 50 and 90 kilometres, and thus destroy incoming missiles long before they reach military or urban zones and, often, before the enter the target country's air space. A second difference is that while Patriots attain the speed of Mach 3.5, Arrows fly at Mach 9, or just over twice the speed of most ballistic missiles, enabling them to intercept offensive missiles virtually seconds after they were launched. In the first phase of the development of the Arrow missile (1988-1992), $158 billion was earmarked for the project, of which the US contributed 70 per cent. Most of the funding went to research and experimentation. The second phase (1992-1996) received a budget of $240 million, of which the US shouldered $190 million. This was the design and early production phase for the missiles and their launching batteries. During this period, Israel conducted a number of tests, of which the three conducted in 1990-1991 failed. Amos Samuel, the director of the programme urgently pleaded with Lockhead Martin -- aeronautics research and missile manufacturing company -- to step in and save the project. It was discovered that a glitch in the missile's steering mechanism was distorting communications with central control with the result that the missile would swerve off course. Eventually, technicians at Lockhead Martin identified the source of the problem: the heat generated by friction caused by the missile's incredible speed. Speed was a factor that Israeli strategists were unwilling to sacrifice. According to Israeli experts, a ballistic missile fired from Iraq would reach Israel in only 7 minutes and similar missiles fired from Egypt and Syria would reach their targets in a third of that time or less. It was determined that maintaining the Arrow's indispensable velocity capacity required an auto-pilot to enable it to accelerate within seconds and there would have to be a complex space-borne electronic monitoring system to help the missile accomplish its mission as quickly as possible. It was not until 1997, after many other flops, that the Arrow had its first successful test, striking its target in four minutes. The focus of attention in this test was on the radar, steering and control mechanisms. Not all the bugs had been ironed out, for in a subsequent test in 1997 the missile veered off course again. The following year, however, brought another breakthrough. This time, in a test conducted in the vicinity of Tel Aviv, the Arrow hit its target in 97 seconds. Also being tested on this occasion was the new "Green Pine" radar monitoring system, designed by the Israeli firm Elta Electronics, and the steering and guidance system, designed by the Israel's Tadiran Electronics firm. The Israelis, it appeared, now had a weapon with which they could intercept and destroy hostile missiles virtually within seconds after take off. In November 2000, Ha'aretz reported that Tel Aviv had chosen Boeing to manufacture the Arrow missile, in cooperation with Israeli aerospace agencies. It was eventually agreed that the missiles would be produced in the US and funded from Washington's annual aid package to Israel. According to the same source, Turkey, Britain and South Korea also expressed an interest in the missile. Israel's minister of science and energy, Professor Yovael Neman, declared jubilantly: "We hope that in the future the Arrow will become an important factor for determining our future, for then we will have the most effective defence capacities in the history of warfare." Equally sobering, General Mitan Falnai, head of the political and security team in the office of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, said, "The IDF's military theory, based on deterrent factors and absolute victory in the field, is severely flawed and not commensurate with recent developments. The theory is no longer capable of furnishing the necessary response to the continued threats facing Israel." The disclosure of the Arrow missile tests at this time is no accident, and it is clear whom the signal is directed against. President Bush has declared that Iran will be topping his agenda if he is reelected. Also, in a closed congressional hearing a few days ago, Assistant Secretary of State for Armament Affairs John Bulton, a prominent White House hawk, said that Iran would be the Bush administration's prime priority, adding that this administration plans to fund Iranian opposition groups seeking to overturn the regime in Iran. In fact, Congress has already paved Bush's path for mounting a military operation against Iran, just as it had with Iraq. In the case of Iraq, Congress passed an act stating that the US must support efforts to overturn the regime of Saddam Hussein and promote the creation of a democratic government to replace it. The legislature is halfway there in the case of Iran, against which it passed Act 4081 demanding that Iran immediately cease all attempts to obtain sensitive nuclear materials, especially enriched uranium, whether manufactured locally or imported. The act was inspired by a State Department report confirming that Iran is seeking to develop its nuclear arms programme. Last week, Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that there is a growing likelihood that the Iranian nuclear case will be turned over to the Security Council, for consideration of possible sanctions. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts believe that Iran has removed the seals IAEA experts had placed on sensitive equipment and that it has secretly set into motion again its uranium refinement operation in order to produce nuclear weapons. The IAEA is to produce a report in the coming days on the level of cooperation of Iranian authorities. This development follows futile attempts of European powers, notably France, Britain and Germany, to persuade Iranian officials not to retract on their earlier commitment to halt their nuclear arms programme. Many European observers believe that Iran is determined to possess nuclear capability. Not surprisingly, the Zionist lobby is busily fuelling anti-Iranian hostility among the fundamentalist Christian right upon which Bush bases his popular support. Several days ago, Mossad officials informed the Knesset that Iran will have the ability to produce nuclear arms by 2007 -- in less than three years -- and that Israel must act quickly to take advantage of current international circumstances to neutralise this potential. Israel believes that Iran poses a direct threat to its security, especially now that it has succeeded in producing its range of Shihab missiles capable of delivering nuclear, chemical or biological warheads deep into Israel. It was perhaps because of such apprehensions that Israel was euphoric at the success of the first live test of its Arrow-2, which downed an Iraqi Scud off California's Pacific coast. The importance of the test is not that it represented a qualitative transformation in Israel's military technological capacities, but rather that it will fill a major gap in the Israeli air defence network. Israel has long held back from striking Iranian nuclear installations because of its fear of possible Iranian retaliation with its long-range Shihab missiles, fitted out, potentially, with biological or chemical warheads, or perhaps even nuclear warheads if Israel turns a blind eye to that looming peril. Once the Arrows are in place, Israel will no longer have to worry about such an Iranian reaction if it decides to mount a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. But perhaps it will not be so easy for Israel to obtain Washington's green light for this. Some rational voices in Washington caution that an Israeli strike against Iran would set off an uncontainable cycle of violence in the region. Indeed, a US Foreign Relations Council report advised the Bush administration to prevent Israel from taking any military actions against Iranian nuclear facilities. It predicted that Washington would be held responsible for failing to curb Israeli warmongering and retaliation would be taken out against America's vital interests. Therefore, Washington must make it explicit to Tel Aviv that any such action would have a severe impact on Israeli-US relations. According to the report, an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities would claim a high civilian death toll, because most of these facilities are located in heavily populated areas. The authors of the report further believe that such a strike would only strengthen the determination of Iranian leaders to acquire nuclear arms and that it might also drive them to intervene in Iraq and Afghanistan to unleash an even greater hell on American forces in those countries than that which currently exists. Will Israel heed the voice of reason? Or will it forge ahead along a path that is guaranteed to wreak grave damage to American interests in the region and to fuel the forces of hatred and instability?
