WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- Israel's hard-driving Defense Minister Ehud Barak Tuesday publicly pledged to protect the country from the ballistic missile threats that assail it on every front.
The Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz cited Galei Zahal -- Israel Army Radio -- as reporting that Barak made the pledge in testimony before the State Control Committee to discuss the state comptroller's report on domestic defense and security. The Israeli Defense Forces' recently appointed chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, appeared at the same meeting.
Barak went further than any previous Israeli defense minister or chief of staff in promising that within a few years, Israel would have ballistic missile defense, or BMD, assets in place to defend itself from no less than 90 percent of missiles fired against it.
Israel already has its own advanced Arrow system and the lower-altitude U.S. Patriot PAC-3, widely regarded as the best anti-ballistic missile interceptors of their kinds in the world, to defend itself from Iran's intermediate-range Shahid-3 missiles, or IRBMs. But the Jewish state also faces the threat of Syria's recently acquired, Russian-made Iskander-M ballistic missiles.
Israeli forces are also beset on different fronts by inaccurate but numerous very-short-range systems. Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite Party of God in Lebanon, has Russian-made BM-21 122mm multiple launch rocket systems, or MLRS, the descendants of the legendary World War II BM-13 Katyusha multiple rocket mortars. Hezbollah used these weapons widely during its brief mini-war with Israel in southern Lebanon last summer.
Since the Israeli withdrawal of its military presence and settlers from Gaza in summer 2005, Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, which runs the densely populated territory, has continually bombarded nearby villages, towns and cities in Israel with low-tech and inaccurate but potentially lethal Qassam rockets.
Israel is pushing ahead with what it calls an Iron Dome program to develop defenses against these very-short-range Katyusha and Qassam threats.
The combined numbers and variety of the various ballistic missile threats that Israel simultaneously faces is arguably more complex than that facing any other democratic nation in the world. However, according to the Haaretz report, Barak told the State Control Committee that when current BMD programs were completed and fully deployed, the country would be able to protect itself from nearly all of them.
Blackwater guards BMD radar in Japan
Blackwater is currently mired in controversy over alleged shootings of civilians in Baghdad, but is also involved in protecting ballistic missile defense assets in Japan, Noah Shachtman reported on the Wired blog network Sunday.
Shachtman cited a report in the U.S. armed forces newspaper Stars & Stripes that around 100 Blackwater employees were currently deployed in Shariki, a village close to the Sea of Japan, in order to protect an AN/TPY-2 radar installation there that would track hostile ballistic missile launches.
Shachtman wrote that the contractors "work for Raytheon and Chenega Blackwater Solutions, who, respectively, run the missile radar and provide security at the base."
He cited a Blackwater job description that said the qualifications for the job included being "at least 21 years old, with a high school diploma (or GED equivalent), and some experience with 'a civilian police force, military police force, or civilian security guard organization.'"
Lavrov hopeful on BMD talks
A top Russian official sounded a hopeful note Tuesday, three days before new BMD tasks are to start in Moscow between Russia and the United States on the Kremlin's proposals for cooperation against threats from so-called rogue states.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed the wish that the U.S. delegation, to be headed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, would give a constructive response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposals, RIA Novosti reported.
The talks are to be held on Friday and Saturday. Russia has suggested that Washington rely on Russian radar facilities for early warning and interception data against the possible threat of Iranian or North Korean missiles that may be fired in the future against the United States or Western Europe.
Russia fiercely opposes the current Bush administration plan to build a base for 10 Ground-based Mid-course Interceptors in Poland and another one in the Czech Republic for radar tracking facilities to guide them over the next few years.
"Consultations that we have held as part of preparations for a bilateral ministerial meeting showed that we have good arguments in support of this (missile defense) initiative," Lavrov said, according to the RIA Novosti report.
"We expect that this response will help us strengthen strategic stability instead of creating new risks in this sphere," he said.
"President Putin has proposed a constructive alternative (to the U.S. bases plan), which if implemented could bring our relations in the sphere of strategic stability to a new level -- a level of strategic partnership," Lavrov said.
However, Lavrov said the talks would cover a wider range of strategic and ballistic missile issues. He said the two sides would also explore possible further cuts in their respective nuclear arsenals -- still by far the largest in the world -- after the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty -- START-1 -- runs out on Dec. 5, 2009.
