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Meeting the "Depth Threat" from Iraq: The Origins of Israel's Arrow System

(Institute for Contemporary Affairs/Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) - Uzi Rubin During the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq's use of al-Hussein missiles, an upgraded Scud with a range of 600 km., meant they could reach not only Teheran but Tel Aviv - and we realized we had no way to stop them. The soul of any missile defense system is not the missile; it is the radar, its main sensor. It took us some time to appreciate that we needed to develop a system program rather than a missile program, based on the "Green Pine" early warning and fire control radar and the "Citron Tree" battle management system. In seven interception tests of the Arrow-2, six have been successful. Technically, we have every reason to believe it is going to work. If we can destroy the hostile warhead above the jet stream, which flows from west to east, everything that comes down from the destroyed warhead will enter the jet stream and be blown back to the sender.
2003-03-06 00:00:00
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