The House-Senate Conference Report on the Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Bill supports U.S-Israeli missile defense efforts and continues support for the successful Iron Dome program that has been successfully protecting Israeli citizens from Palestinian Hamas rocket attacks.
The conference said it authorizes $211 million for Israel to procure additional Iron Dome short range rocket defense systems. The report also contains a provision supporting the need for the United States to get data rights on the system for U.S. purposes.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Nov. 29 expressed support for the Iron Dome system during a visit by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
“No nation should have to live in fear of these kinds of attacks,” Panetta said at a Pentagon briefing. “And that’s why I’m very proud that our two countries cooperated so closely to field the Iron Dome anti-rocket system. Iron Dome performed–I think it’s fair to say–remarkably well during the recent escalation. It intercepted more than 400 rockets bound for Israeli population centers, or a roughly 85 percent success rate overall.”
Panetta visited the Iron Dome battery in southern Israel in August, and said he assured Barak that “our strong commitment to Iron Dome will continue into the future.”
Israeli’s Rafael led the team designing and producing the system, which is supported by the United States.
This the spring, DoD announced it would provide $70 million in fiscal 2012 on top of the $205 million previously appropriated to meet Israel’s needs for that fiscal year, Panetta said. The two nations will continue working together toward additional funding so Israel can “boost Iron Dome’s capacity further and to help prevent the kind of escalation and violence that we’ve seen.”
In the defense-authorization report, the House-Senate conferees inserted a provision expressing the sense of Congress is in support of the Iron Dome system.
The conference bill also noted that in a Sept. 11 letter to the House Armed Services Committee Frank Kendall, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics agreed with the committee that the Defense Department “needs to obtain appropriate data rights to the Iron Dome technology to ensure us the ability to use that data for U.S. defense purposes and to explore potential co-production opportunities.”
The conferees support this policy and expect DoD to keep the congressional defense committees informed of developments and progress on this issue.
Additionally, the report authorizes a $168 million increase to accelerate and improve joint U.S. Israeli cooperative missile defense programs. That includes improving the Arrow Weapon System, developing the Arrow-3 upper-tier interceptor and developing David’s Sling, a short range missile defense system.