U.S. Ditches Plan to Buy ‘Iron Dome’ After Test

Date: 27 August 2021 - 21:36

News ID: ۹۳۶۷۴

WASHINGTON (Dispatches) -- The U.S. military has decided not to purchase the occupying regime of Israel’s Iron Dome to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells after testing the purported all-weather aerial missile system earlier this summer.
According to Defense News website, Washington opted for Enduring Shield system developed by American company Dynetics after shoot-off and comparative tests between the two systems last month.
The Zionist war ministry and Rafael advanced defense systems – the primary developer and manufacturer of the Iron Dome system -- told Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post that they would not be commenting on the report.
The U.S. decision is expected to be a significant setback for the occupying regime’s military which has tried to sell off the alleged capabilities of the system despite failing repeatedly against projectiles fired from Gaza.
Under a 2019 agreement, the U.S. army purchased two off-the-shelf Iron Dome batteries from the Zionist regime.
The first battery was reportedly delivered in late 2020 and the second in January 2021 for a cost of $373 million.
Back in March this year, the U.S. army announced it was reconsidering plans to buy additional Iron Dome systems because they could not be integrated into American-made air missile systems.
“We believe we cannot integrate them into our air-defense system based upon some interoperability challenges, some cyber challenges and some other challenges,” U/S. General Mike Murray, commander of Army Futures Command, said at the time.
Washington is said to have contributed $1.6 billion in funding Israel’s Iron Dome system since 2011, and the American defense company Raytheon is a partner with Rafael in the production of Iron Dome subsystem parts that are produced throughout 15 states in the United States.

Nevertheless, one of the challenges cited in the U.S.’s procurement of more Iron Dome batteries was the Zionist regime’s reluctance to share the system’s source code, which would be necessary in order to integrate it with other American missile systems.
“What you’re probably - almost certainly - going to see is two standalone systems, and if the best we can do is standalone systems, we do not want to buy another two batteries,” U.S. General Mike Murray stated last year.
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told extremist Zionist prime minister Naftali Bennett that the Biden administration was working to fulfill Israel’s request for $1 billion in emergency funding to replenish the Iron Dome.