Sky-High Hopes

by Anshel Pfeffer
Haaretz
August 27, 2009

http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/1394/sky-high-hopes

Until two months ago, Capt. Maor Gavriel was in charge of a battery of Patriot missiles. Now he is the first battery commander of the Iron Dome missile-interception system, which is supposed to be deployed next year to protect communities in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip from attacks by missiles and rockets launched from a range of 4-70 kilometers. In addition, Gavriel - who is all of 24 years old - also heads the founding "core" group that will introduce the new system to the army, by training both the teams that will operate the other batteries and the instructors who will pass on their knowledge to new generations of officers and combat soldiers. In addition, along with a team of officers and noncoms, Gavriel is accompanying the final stages of development at Rafael Advanced Systems Development of Iron Dome, which is due to be delivered to the Israel Defense Forces within six months and to be operational by mid-2010.

The pressure to provide protection to Sderot, Ashkelon and other communities in the so-called "Gaza envelope" has prompted a situation whereby all the usual stages of instituting a new and as-yet untested weapons system are being merged.

"We get in the way of the engineers," Gavriel reports, "getting involved in every aspect of the operational interface, including how symbols will appear on the screen." The first training sessions are even being conducted on the system while it is still in the factory. Three weeks ago the members of the founding group had their first simulation of responding to a missile barrage - inside control and monitoring systems that are still being assembled.

Iron Dome is the short-range component of the defense establishment's multilayered antimissile protection program, which also includes the David's Slingshot system, with a range of up to 250 kilometers, and the Arrow 2 and 3 systems intended to destroy long-range missiles such as the Scud and Iran's Shahab.

Members of the Israel Air Force antiaircraft units tasked with operating these systems prefer to think of the Iron Dome - which has involved an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars - as part of this multilayered program, rather than acknowledging that the system was forced on the government as a result of pressure from a public that seeks protection from Qassam rockets.

"The country and its citizens are incapable of accepting a situation in which the threats, however low-tech, will substantially affect their routine and their sense of security or impact their lives in any way," says Col. Zvika Haimovich, head of the Northern Command antiaircraft division, who will command the Iron Dome battalion. "Perhaps it is not an existential threat, but we are developing the capability to deal with a variety of scenarios."

Nor does Haimovich think the system will become unnecessary the moment Israel reaches an agreement with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip: "From intelligence reports I recognize that they have such capabilities and do not intend to give them up. I don't see the threats disappearing; they exist in the field and are even intensifying," Haimovich said.

Indeed, according to Military Intelligence, in the lull since Operation Cast Lead ended in January, Hamas has continued to improve the range and precision of its rockets.

The introduction of Iron Dome will enable the antiaircraft division - which in recent years had to do with aging Hawk and Patriot antimissile batteries - to assume a more central role.

The IAF is now formulating the operational doctrine for Iron Dome, spelling out the interception policy that is dictated from on high and is supposed to leave very little room for doubt. However, it is clear that when using a system intended to intercept rockets whose flight time is one minute at most, a substantial amount of responsibility will fall on the shoulders of junior officers on the ground who, according to Haimovich, will have to "make decisions that can mean dead and wounded civilians."

Sleeping peacefully

Among the questions being asked are how to protect the communities that are four kilometers or less from the army-patrolled Gaza border and thus too close for Iron Dome to cover. These include kibbutzim and the city of Sderot. Will the new system successfully thwart a barrage consisting of dozens of missiles and rockets, should Hamas and other Palestinian organizations exploit the current lull to enhance the performance and inventory of their weapons? And even if Iron Dome succeeds in providing some protection to the relatively limited Gaza area, will it also be effective in the far larger northern region that is vulnerable to Hezbollah, which has a bigger and more varied arsenal?

The defense establishment does not reveal precise data, but a single Iron Dome battery should be able to protect a medium-sized city. One battery includes three to six launchers, each containing 20 Tamir missiles that can be fired at a rate of one per second. Ashkelon's residents are thus supposed to be able to sleep more peacefully once the system is in place.

The IDF will, however, have to specify the "protected areas," the communities that will be covered by Iron Dome. The country's leaders, meanwhile, have already assigned first priority to the people living near Gaza. Roads and agricultural areas are less critical, for now. In accordance with IAF demands, all components of Iron Dome are mobile. Officers boast that an entire Iron Dome battalion and the system can be transported from Gaza to the northern border within hours.

But what if the nightmare scenario comes true - two fronts opening up simultaneously, against Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north? The defense establishment's solution to this scenario is clearly to pressure the Finance Ministry: Allocate funding for more batteries and we can protect more regions.

The forces that will operate Iron Dome, like those operating the Arrow and Patriot systems, sit at screens in air-conditioned rooms but their commanders insist on calling them "combat soldiers." This stems partly from the desire to attract what the IDF calls "quality" people to these units.

"It's true the job is done from a control and monitoring unit," says Gavriel, "but anyone doing it is a combat soldier, even if he doesn't see the enemy face-to-face. The character traits, education and mentality of a combat soldier are needed to be able to make a decision quickly and to cope with pressure," Gavriel says. And so the soldiers who will man the Iron Dome batteries undergo training that includes typical infantry treks and ground maneuvers, even though they will not be using the training directly in their jobs.

"It's all to get them accustomed to operating under pressure," Gavriel explains. "We realize that we don't know everything and that we don't have the privilege of learning passively. Therefore one of my goals is to try to minimize errors, although I am perfectly aware that as soon as we begin working we'll learn a lot."

Iron Dome offers the chance of a lifetime for the IAF officers who "grew up" in an antiaircraft battery and have never fired at a plane, Gavriel believes.

"We'll be carrying out continuous operational routine duties, in the knowledge that the switch from zero to one can come very quickly," he says. "There is a very high probability that we will have to fire."

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