The $158 million U.S.-Israeli Arrow anti-tactical ballistic missile research program — part of the Strategic Defense Initiative — will apparently continue next year, although cuts are still possible.
Lt. Gen. George Monahan, director of the Pentagon’s SDI Organization, recently warned that the Arrow and other “Star Wars” projects would have to be slowed down if Congress approves a 1990 Pentagon SDI budget lower than $4.1 billion.
The greater threat to the U.S.-Israeli program has been cancellation, which Monahan said would occur if Congress does not set aside at least $3.2 billion for the Pentagon’s SDI program for the 1990 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
In approving the 1990 Department of Defense authorization bill, the House cut the Pentagon’s SDI program to $2.8 billion, while the Senate approved a funding level of $4.2 billion. Both houses set aside additional SDI funds for the Department of Energy.
When a House-Senate conference committee meets in September to strike a compromise between the two bills, it is expected to agree on a figure halfway between $2.8 billion and $4.2 billion, which would be high enough to save the program.
Israel, which was one of the first countries to join the United States in Star Wars research, wants to develop the Arrow for protection against Soviet SS-21 missiles in Syria and Chinese surface-to-surface missiles sold to Saudi Arabia.
Since 1986, Israel has received nearly $86 million from the Pentagon to conduct research on the feasibility of building the Arrow.
Under an agreement Israel signed in 1987, it is to receive another $72 million next year, but that portion of the contract has to be renegotiated. Israel is financing 20 percent of the research effort.
Unlike other funds that Israel receives from the United States, money from the SDI program is designated by the Pentagon, and not by Congress. If the Arrow program were eliminated, then Congress would likely try to set aside specific funds for it.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
