Israel Matzav

Arrow missile failure leaves Israel exposed

A trial of Israel's Arrow II missile off the West coast of the United States failed on Wednesday night, leaving Israel exposed to potential weapons of mass destruction that may be shot at it from Iran or Syria.

The missile that was to destroy an oncoming missile was not launched because of “interceptor problems” resulting from failures in the communications system.

The Pentagon, which is working with Israel to develop the program, stated that "not all test conditions to launch the Arrow Interceptor were met and it was not launched.” It added that other undefined objectives were achieved.

The Arrow system is designed to intercept missiles launched from as far away as 680 miles (1,100 kilometers).

It successfully tracked a target missile dropped from an American airplane over the Pacific Ocean, but the failure to launch the interceptor missile left the Arrow defense system unproven.

Last April, the Israeli Air force successfully carried out its 17th test of the upgraded system in an exercise over the Mediterranean Sea. The Arrow tracked, located and identified an oncoming missile, but the interceptor missile was not fired, and this is exactly what Thursday’s exercise was designed to test.

JPost adds:

The test, officials said, was cancelled after the "enemy missile" - launched from a C-17 transport aircraft from 80,000 feet - was in the air. The cancellation was due to communication problems between the control room located on the coast and the missile launcher, deployed hundreds of kilometers away on an island opposite Los Angeles.

The test was initially scheduled for last Tuesday but was cancelled due to bad weather and hurricane warnings. Subsequent tests planned for Monday as well as last Friday were also cancelled due to technical problems.

Israeli defense officials said that had the test been conducted in Israel, the Air Force likely would have gone ahead with it despite the technical difficulties. The test, the officials said, would likely be held again in the near future.

"The Americans want everything to work 100 percent," one official said. "It could be that the distance between the control room and the launcher was the problem."

It 'could be' a lot of things, but the bottom line is that this doesn't sound good at all.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:05 AM