WarSclerotic

‘Planned number of Iron Domes can’t offer full… JPost – Defense.

By Ariel Jerozolimski/The Jerusalem Post)

Former defense minister Amir Peretz said on Saturday that the number of Iron Dome rocket-defense batteries Israel plans to purchase will not enough to fully protect the country.

While it is reasonable to acquire a total of only 13 batteries, as Israel currently plans to do, Peretz said, “If we want complete coverage we will need to get to between 20-26 batteries.”

Peretz also warned against using the Iron Dome system to defend military and strategic sites instead of population centers.

“With all due respect, the bases were not meant to be covered by the Iron Dome,” Peretz said. “There’s no way that bases will be preferred over civilians.”

Last year, the United States warned Israel that it would have to review funding for the anti-rocket system if it were deployed to protect bases instead of civilians.

Turning to the Iranian nuclear threat, Peretz said that a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities would be better if an outside actor such as the US carried it out instead of Israel.

“We should prefer an outside actor does it because Israel doesn’t need to be confronted by the whole Muslim world,” Peretz said.

“We know that a minute after an attack, it will be comfortable for the Western countries to point a blaming finger at Israel. If it’s an American actor, the crisis will be smaller. We need to think about the day after.”

This entry was posted on March 24, 2012 at 6:41 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.