Last update - 00:00 22/10/2007
Ex-Pentagon official: Missile defense need be only 80% effective
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
If Israel and the United States achieve an interceptor that is 80 percent effective against ballistic threats, they will be sufficiently prepared to deal with such threats, a former secretary of the U.S. Air Force told Haaretz this week.
James Roche, who is visiting Israel for the newly-formed Israel Missile Defense Association's first convention, added that one lesson of the Second Lebanon War is the need for preliminary intelligence gathering on ballistic threats, including missiles like the short-range Katyushas that Hezbollah fired at Israel by the thousands.
The former Pentagon official, who quit his post in 2005, said he thought that allowing Hezbollah to hoard the missiles in the first place was a mistake on Israel's part.
Roche was planning to attend the convention's opening session Monday along with former officials of the Israel Air Force, the Israel Defense Forces' Military Intelligence and other experts invited by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the veteran Jerusalem-based nonprofit organization that helped organize the event.
In a conversation with Haaretz, Roche said that Washington pulled the plug on the Tactical High Energy Laser project - known as Nautilus or Skyguard in Israel - because no military organization wanted to promote the short-range interceptor. Had either the army or the air force pushed it forward and sought funding for the project's completion, things would have been different, Roche said.
According to Roche, Israel abandoned the project after defense officials realized that the Americans had no intention of investing further resources.
Short-range missile defense systems, Roche noted, are always tremendously expensive. But he said the state must take into account the possibility of relatively simple missiles being fitted with more devastating warheads in the future, which would enable them to inflict greater damage on the civilian population and infrastructure.
If Iran gain nuclear capabilities, Roche continued, the U.S. will have to change the deployment of its Middle East forces. Specifically, it will have to break up its mammoth army bases, which house 30,000 troops, as they would be easy targets for Iranian missiles.
Avi Schnurr, who heads the Israel Missile Defense Association, said that the organization was formed to encourage a public debate about the "fundamental change" that the Second Lebanon War triggered.
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