(Defense News ) Jen Judson - The U.S. House Armed Services Committee would boost funding for Israeli missile defense programs by nearly $200 million above the level requested in the president's defense budget, according to the chairman's mark-up of the fiscal 2017 defense bill. The committee would bump the funding for Tamir interceptors for the Iron Dome air defense system from $42 million requested in the president's budget to $62 million. The committee would also plus up funding for procurement and co-production of the David's Sling medium- and long-range air defense system from $37.21 million to $150 million and the Arrow 3 Upper Tier Missile Defense System from $55.8 million to $120 million. Israel traditionally receives significant congressional plus-ups from the administration's budget request for cooperative missile defense programs. Over the past 10 years, Congress has appropriated $1.9 billion more than was originally requested by the administration. In 2016, the president requested roughly $150 million and Congress enacted $488 million for Israeli missile defense funding. Lawmakers said that Israeli and U.S. national security are strongly linked and that Israel's missile defense innovations are significant to the U.S. The additional funds directly bolster U.S. industry, said U.S. Missile Defense Agency director Adm. James Syring. The Israeli-U.S. partnership on Iron Dome includes an agreement for co-production of the system that, in fiscal 2015, brought 55% of the work to the U.S., and a similar agreement to produce David's Sling is being negotiated.
2016-05-04 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive