ISRAEL / FILE: U.S. naval ship brings sophisticated Aegis anti-missile system to Israeli port

Record ID: 395349

  • Title: ISRAEL / FILE: U.S. naval ship brings sophisticated Aegis anti-missile system to Israeli port
  • Date: 9th September 2009
  • Summary: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (SEPTEMBER 6, 2009) (REUTERS) ARROW MISSILE SYSTEM DESIGNER, UZI RUBIN, LOOKING AT VIDEO OF A MISSILE TEST ON COMPUTER
  • Embargoed: 24th September 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVAS3TGXSG27UECQPRAA0JF489W
  • Story Text: He is trained to hunt submarines or pirates, launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at coastal targets and shoot down attacking planes. He can also enforce naval blockades and rescue vessels in distress.
    Yet, on his first Mediterranean tour, U.S. Navy Commander Carl Meuser may have another mission in mind, the kind the U.S. Navy has long performed off North Korea and Japan -- strategic air defence.
    Iran has girded its disputed nuclear project with long-range missiles. Israel and Washington's Arab allies are nervous. The Obama administration wants talks with Tehran, but is quietly shoring up the diplomacy with means for military containment.
    So Meuser cites no specific Middle Eastern adversaries when showing a Reuters crew his destroyer, the USS Higgins, one of 18 American ships deployed globally with Aegis interceptor systems capable of blowing up ballistic missiles above the atmosphere. Meuser only says that his ship can help defend larger area than the Patriot anti-missile system, which was used to defend Israel during the Gulf War.
    "Well, I'm not going to say the entire Middle East, but it does allow you to cover a wider area because you are going into the exo-atmosphere and you're catching the missile earlier in its trajectory. It's a longer range missile and you're going into the exo-atmosphere, so you're catching it mid-course as opposed to waiting for it, like you saw with the Patriots whether in 1991 or 2003, after it comes down out of the exo-atmosphere," Meuser told Reuters.
    According to a regional map issued last month by the U.S. Missile Defence Agency, a Mediterranean-based Aegis could cover southern Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories and north Egypt in the event of a missile war. Another ship, deployed in the Gulf, would similarly protect local Arab states.
    "Being ship based, it also gives us more flexibility and gives our leadership more flexibility in that we can go places a lot simpler and the folks at the embassies don't have to spend as much time getting clearance," Meuser says.
    According to the commander, the ship and its weapons systems can be deployed in international waters, as close as 12 miles (19 kilometres) off a coastline.
    And the USS Higgins is bristling with weapons, which include 90 missile launch tubes.
    "A Tomahawk (missile) can fit in here, and you can fit your SM-3 in here as well. So, our Standard Missiles - our Standard surface to air missiles - can also be used against surface targets. So, you get a wide variety of weapons that can come out of this launcher," Meuser said.
    For Israel, where Higgins docked this week, Aegis is an especially close asset. Israel already hosts a U.S. strategic radar, X-band, and its Arrow II missile interceptor, which is partly underwritten by Washington, is inter-operable with Aegis.
    Arrow designer Uzi Rubin said Aegis could be brought into line with Israel's air defences "at the flick of a switch".
    "I think it's very important that Aegis ships are available and the United States is an ally we hope will allow - will deploy those ships, based on intelligence, in case of an exchange with Iran, an attack by Iran - and their firepower will join our firepower to respond to this supposedly overwhelming Iranian attack. So, I think it's very important - very very important. Very crucial," Rubin said, echoing fears that Iranian nuclear warheads could one day be used against the Jewish state, although Tehran denies having hostile designs for it's nuclear programme.
    Assumed to have the region's only atomic arsenal, Israel has hinted it might strike Iran pre-emptively in an effort to stop Iran's nuclear development.
    Analysts say Israel is also reluctant to rely too heavily on Aegis ships, which are unlikely to carry more than two dozen of the costly SM-3 interceptor missiles and could thus, in theory, be stumped by a big salvo from Iran or its ally Syria.
    Thrift is one selling point behind the Israeli-U.S. plan to develop an upgraded Arrow III missile defence system by the middle of next decade, with a projected price of $2.4 million U.S. dollars for its interceptor missiles.
    The Pentagon has also shown interest in a land-based version of SM-3, which could be offered to Israel either as a stop-gap or an alternative to Arrow, with the added domestic boon of diverting funds to its American manufacturer, Raytheon.
    Raytheon says the "ashore" SM-3, due out in 2013, may also be considered by the Pentagon for Europe, where it could play a role with or without the missile defence deployment that former U.S. President George W. Bush had proposed in Poland and the Czech Republic and which has been fiercely opposed by Russia.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: Audio restrictions: This clip's Audio includes copyrighted material. User is responsible for obtaining additional clearances before publishing the audio contained in this clip.
Register