U.S., Israel set 'major' missile defense exercise next month
TEL AVIV — Israel and the United States have scheduled a major
missile defense exercise in October 2009.
Officials said the two militaries would conduct a missile defense
exercise in Israel. They said the exercise would include such systems as
Israel's Arrow, the U.S.-origin PAC-3, Aegis and the Terminal High Altitude
Area Defense.
"This will be a major and extremely important exercise to demonstrate
interoperability between Israeli and U.S. systems," an official said.
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The exercise, titled Juniper Cobra, would be conducted by the U.S.
Missile Defense Agency and European Command. Juniper Cobra has been an
annual exercise held since 2005.
In September, the U.S. Navy sent an Aegis-class cruiser to Israel as
part of the first tour of the Mediterranean Sea by the USS Higgins. The
Higgins contains the Aegis missile defense system as well as the Tomahawk
cruise missile.
Officials said MDA was examining the prospect of maintaining advanced
U.S. missile defense systems in Israel or Turkey.
"The [U.S.] administration doesn't want to deploy missile defense assets
in Europe, and Israel was regarded as an alternative," the official said.
In 2008, Eucom transferred the advanced X-band radar to an Israel Air
Force base outside Dimona. The radar was meant to detect missile attacks
from Iran.
