Iran finances and arms Hamas. The Iranians are very keen to observe and study Iron Dome in action.
One thing that wasn’t made clear in the article is that the Iron Dome doesn’t try to shoot down all the rockets. It lets a lot of rockets go to their destination. If the destination is not anything important, the Iron Dome will leave it alone.
a direct offshoot of SDI and Ronald Reagan
Go, Iron Dome!!!!!!!
Anyone that STILL THINKS that Fox News is conservative, or even moderate, needs to read this article.
First, The $100,000 per interceptor is the highest I’ve seen, anywhere. More like $20,000 is the working number.
Second, as someone above posted, they only engage rockets that are threatening people or other high-value targets. That comes out to something like 20% of incoming, at most.
Third, even using their numbers, to protect against 1500 rockets, Israel would need to fire 300 interceptors, at a total cost of $30M. To protect against 10,000 rockets - the entire Hamas arsenal, Israel would need to fire 2,000 interceptors, at a cost of $200M. Not chump change, but for a country that spends $18B per year on its military - a few days worth of spending. And that pretty much ends the entire threat from that enemy.
Forth, it’s not easy or cheap to replace the rockets that are fired. Israel controls access into Gaza and now that Egypt has done away with their terrorist government, they want nothing to do with Hamas. It took Hamas years to build up their stockpile, it will take years to replace it.
Fifth, how much does it cost to NOT have Iron Dome? How much does it cost the economy to basically have everything shut down while people are forced to spend days or weeks in bomb shelters? Doesn’t sound quite as “expensive” now.
Sixth, US aid to Israel is from a totally separate part of the budget than US military spending. Cutting aid to Israel will not free up a dime for our military - the money is more likely to be spent on Obama phones.
Seventh, if Mr. Postol is correct in his claim that Iron Dome is, essentially, useless, why aren’t A LOT MORE Israelis being killed and injured from those rockets and why isn’t there much more damage? Why isn’t that happening? Why does this guy get ANY air time, considering the facts on the ground?
Fair and Balanced. Right.