Funding Iron Dome

Looks like proponents of the Israeli Iron Dome rocket defense program, recently said to have proved itself in combat, can rest easy. House lawmakers, in their version of the bill that will fund the Defense Department during the final six months of fiscal year 2011, included the full $205 million for Iron Dome requested by the Obama administration.

According to the FY-11 appropriations bill, released early this morning by the House Rules Committee, lawmakers have allocated slightly more than $415 million for Israeli cooperative programs. Other than the $205 million for Iron Dome, $84.7 million "shall be for the Short Range Ballistic Missile Defense (SRBMD) program, including cruise missile defense research and development under the SRBMD program." Further, nearly $59 million "shall be available for an upper-tier component to the Israeli Missile Defense Architecture," the bill states.

Additionally, $66.4 million "shall be for the Arrow System Improvement Program including development of a long range, ground and airborne, detection suite, of which $12 million shall be for producing Arrow missile components in the United States and Arrow missile components in Israel to meet Israel’s defense requirements, consistent with each nation's laws, regulations and procedures: Provided further, That funds made available under this provision for production of missiles and missile components may be transferred to appropriations available for the procurement of weapons and equipment, to be merged with and to be available for the same time period and the same purposes as the appropriation to which transferred: Provided further, That the transfer authority provided under this provision is in addition to any other transfer authority contained in this Act."