Iron Dome protecing Israel

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- There's a new distinction in the strife between Israel and Gaza-based armed groups -- Israel's portable anti-rocket system called the Iron Dome.
With the ability to effectively take down mid-range rockets targeted at Israeli cities, and with a success rate of over 90%, the system is helping Israel offset the most widespread threat to its citizens in recent years, according to Israeli officials.

Thirty-seven rockets fired out of Gaza towards Israeli cities have been intercepted since Friday, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces said Sunday.
"I must point out that the Iron Dome system has proven itself very well and we will, of course, see to its expansion in the months and years ahead. We will do everything in our power to expand the deployment of this system," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday at his cabinet meeting.

Casualties mount in attacks between Gaza, Israel
First deployed in April 2011, the Iron Dome system targets incoming rockets it identifies as possible threats to city centers and fires an interceptor missile to destroy them in mid-air. Each battery is equipped with an interception management center to calculate the expected location of impact, and to prioritize targets according to pre-defined targets. The battery also has firing-control radar used to identify targets, and a portable missile launcher.

The makers of the system praise its mobility, with just a few hours required to relocate and set up, thereby enabling the Israeli military to adjust itself on multiple fronts. Israeli officials say although the system currently is deployed near three major cities in the south of Israel, it is capable of handling missile threats in other fronts if needed.

But such protection comes at a price.
Developed by Israel's defense technology company Rafael, the system carries an the estimated cost for each battery of tens of millions of dollars. Each "Tamir" interception missile used by the system comes at a price of no less than $62,000.

While the initial development of the system was a sole Israeli enterprise, the system is now heavily sponsored by the United States. In May of 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a plan to allocate $205 million for Israel's Iron Dome system.

Israel currently has three Iron Dome batteries and is scheduled to receive a fourth in the coming months. According to Israeli media, Israel plans to deploy a total of nine batteries by 2013.

A defense ministry official told CNN that Israel would need up to 13 batteries to completely cover all its borders.
But how important is the Iron Dome for Israel? According to former Israeli ambassador to the United States Dore Gold, the Iron Dome system could potentially be a real game-changer.

"The most important question is how would the Iron Dome affect the decisions of Hamas leaders and their Iranian supporters? While Hamas rockets are aimed primarily to target civilians and terrorize the Israeli home front, a secondary and just important aim is to hit strategic sites in the future. Eliminating the ability to hit strategic targets may lead Hamas to rethink the efficiency of acquiring the rockets it has used in the past," Gold said.

Visiting an Iron Dome battery Saturday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave an insight into the broader advantages of defensive skills.
"This system is part of a wider multi-layer interception system, which not only protects our citizens but also allows freedom of activity for the IDF and political leadership. This is crucial as we face threats from all around us," Barak said.

Contract pilot/retired Top-gun/blogger flying Israeli F-21 Kfir - dies in crash.

LAS VEGAS — Authorities say a contract pilot killed in the crash of an Israeli-made military jet in Nevada was a retired Navy captain, former Top Gun fighter school instructor and military blogger originally from Alexandria, Va.

The Navy Times reported that Carroll LeFon was killed in the 9:15 a.m. Tuesday crash of the Airborne Tactical Advantage Co. F-21 Kfir (kuh-FEER) aircraft at Fallon Naval Air Station east of Reno.

The 51-year-old LeFon's death was marked Thursday by memorial entries on a Web page where he blogged under the name Neptunus Lex.

An official with ATAC in Newport News, Va., declined comment pending the release of a company statement.

The cause of the crash is being investigated.

A base spokesman in Fallon had reported snow and fog at the time.

War with China would start with a cyber-attack.

By Ellen Nakashima
For a decade or more, Chinese military officials have talked about conducting warfare in cyberspace, but in recent years they have progressed to testing attack capabilities during exercises, according to a congressional report to be released Thursday.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) probably would target transportation and logistics networks before an actual conflict to try to delay or disrupt the United States’ ability to fight, according to the report prepared by Northrop Grumman for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.


The Chinese military conducted an exercise in October involving “joint information offensive and defensive operations” and another in 2010 featuring attacks on communications command-and-control systems, according to the commission, which was set up by Congress.

Such exercises, combined with evidence that China is streamlining its forces to integrate cyber and electronic warfare and is financing research in the two areas, show that “Chinese capabilities in computer network operations have advanced sufficiently to pose genuine risk to U.S. military operations in the event of a conflict,” the report asserted.

Although the report provides no evidence that China can launch destructive attacks on U.S. targets, it serves as yet another warning to policymakers and the public that the United States has adversaries intent on catching up to, or surpassing, it in cyber capabilities. The report comes as Congress considers major cybersecurity legislation.

“The United States suffers from continual cyber operations sanctioned or tolerated by the Chinese government,” Dennis Shea, the commission chairman, said in a news release.

“Our nation’s national and economic security are threatened, and as the Chinese government funds research to improve its advanced cyber capabilities these threats will continue to grow,” he added.

The exercises are an indication that the Chinese “are beginning to practice a capability that some senior U.S. officials say makes them near-peers,” said James A. Lewis, a cyber-policy expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

What that suggests, he said, is that because the United States’ war-fighting capability depends heavily on information technology, “if we get into any kind of a conflict with the PLA, cyber will be their opening move.”

The report was researched in the United States and drew largely on published materials.

American officials have stated that the Chinese have penetrated the U.S. electric grid and that they have gained access to U.S. government and corporate networks.

Leveraging such access, “the PLA may target a combination of networks” in the Pacific Command area, including those focused on logistics and, potentially, transportation, the report asserted.

The report states that the United States lacks a policy to determine appropriate responses to a large-scale cyberattack on U.S. military or civilian networks in the event that the attacker’s identity cannot be conclusively determined.

“Beijing, understanding this, may seek to exploit this gray area in U.S. policymaking and legal frameworks to create delays in U.S. command decision-making,” the report said.

WIRED: Pentagon helped F-35 cheat on exam?

WIRED: It seemed like a promising step for America’s next stealth fighter: The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter passed a key Pentagon test of its combat capability. But it turns out that the family of jets cleared the mid-February exam only because its proctor agreed to inflate its grade. In essence, the military helped the F-35 cheat on its midterms.

The collusion between the Pentagon testing body, known as the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC), and the F-35 program — first reported by Inside Defense — confirmed that the U.S.’ most expensive warplane met previously established performance criteria. Specifically, the review was meant to show that the jet can fly as far and take off as quickly as combat commanders say they need it to.

But the review council, which includes the vice chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, eased the standard flying profile of the Air Force’s F-35A model — thereby giving it a range boost of 30 miles. And it tacked an additional 50 feet onto the required takeoff distance for the Marines’ F-35B version, which Defense Secretary Leon Panetta just took off budgetary probation.

The grade inflation comes at a critical time for the new warplane. The military’s new five-year budgeting blueprint, also released in February, cut more than 100 existing Air Force fighters while leaving intact plans to produce nearly 2,500 F-35s — essentially doubling down on the new plane despite a recent report listing 13 serious design flaws. The total cost to buy and fly the full fleet of F-35s over 50 years is estimated at around $1 trillion, once inflation is factored in, making it the costliest defense program in human history.


In fairness, it’s not unknown for capability standards, also known as “Key Performance Parameters,” to shift during a weapon’s development. But the shifts usually reflect the evolving needs of the military or some change in the operational environment, such as a likely enemy tweaking its own defense plans. In this case, the JROC gave the F-35 a pass that was apparently designed so the over-weight, over-budget, long-delayed stealth fighter could avoid yet another embarrassing scandal.

Citing earlier efforts to boost the Joint Strike Fighter’s image, defense analyst Winslow Wheeler accused the Pentagon of “putting lipstick on the pig.” That’s an apt characterization of recent moves by the Pentagon’s F-35 boosters

Anonymous: leaked e-mails suggest bin Laden was not buried at sea.

Huffington Post:

Osama Bin Laden was reportedly buried in the waters of the north Arabian sea, but internal emails from intelligence service Stratfor, obtained by hacker group Anonymous and posted by WikiLeaks suggest otherwise.

According to official accounts, he was wrapped in a sheet and “eased” off the decks of the U.S.S Carl Vinson just hours after he was killed on May 2 in a United States-led operation, in accordance with Muslim tradition.

But a leaked email from Stratfor vice president for intelligence Fred Burton, sent on 2 May 2011, at 5.26am states: “Reportedly, we took the body with us. Thank goodness.”

A subsequent email on the same day at 5.51am states: “Body bound for Dover, DE on CIA plane. Than (sic) onward to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Bethesda.”

US forces said Bin Laden was killed in a siege at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on 2 May 2011, just after 1am local time.

At 6.26am Burton wrote: “If body dumped at sea, which I doubt, the touch is very Adolph Eichman like. The Tribe did the same thing with the Nazi's ashes. We would want to photograph, DNA, fingerprint, etc.

“His body is a crime scene and I don't see the FBI nor DOJ letting that happen.”

The reference to Eichmann regards the cremation of the Nazi’s body following his capture, trial and execution, in order to prevent any memorial or shrine being built.

Stratfor CEO George Friedman appears to agree, noting: “Eichmann was seen alive for many months on trial before being sentenced to death and executed. No comparison with suddenly burying him at sea without any chance to view him which I doubt happened.”

By 1.36pm Burton writes again: “Body is Dover bound, should be here by now.”

The conversation takes a puzzling turn at 3.11pm, with Burton stating: “Down and dirty done, He already sleeps with the fish…”

A note adds: “It seems to me that by dropping the corpse in the ocean, the body will come back to haunt us… gotta be violating some sort of obscure heathen religious rule that will inflame islam?

"The US Govt needs to make body pics available like the MX’s do, with OBL’s pants pulled down, to shout down the lunatics like Alex Jones and Glenn Beck.”

The exchange casts a mystery over just what happened to the body of the Al Qaeda leader.

The thread of emails - under the heading The Global Intelligence Files - was published by WikiLeaks on 27 February 2012 and contains correspondence dated between July 2004 and late December 2011.

The site states: "They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency.

"The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods."

The New American reports: “The release of the Stratfor emails will likely revive the debate over just what happened to bin Laden’s body and consequently, whether or not US forces actually killed the terrorist mastermind in the first place.

“Secrecy prior to the raid is understandable; a refusal to produce the key piece of evidence that the raid was successful, on the other hand, is quite curious indeed."

According to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, a member of the military “read prepared religious remarks” that were translated into Arabic at the burial ceremony.

The lair where Bin Laden lived in secrecy before the alleged final stand off with US Commandoes was razed to the ground last month.

Bin Laden moved into the three-storey house in 2005 and lived there until it was stormed by Navy Seals in May 2011.

The house was located just half a mile from one of Pakistan’s top army training academies, which caused embarrassment for the country’s intelligence services, AP reported.

US officials say there was no evidence senior Pakistan officials were aware of Bin Laden’s location.

Residents living nearby told the Independent they had thought the building would be turned into a mosque, school or clinic.

Shah Mohammad said: “I think they should build a mosque. If you build a school there, people will just associate it with Bin Laden.”

A source had told the paper demolition was on the cards ahead of the event, adding: “There is an issue, in our culture, of such places becoming shrines.”