Iron Dome Funding

Inside Missile Defense reports this week that House appropriators, in their version of the fiscal year 2015 spending bill marked up on June 10, proposed nearly doubling the Missile Defense Agency's request for the Iron Dome rocket-defense program in FY-15, but with caveats:

In its report accompanying the bill, the committee states it "understands that there is a signed agreement between the Israeli and United States governments concerning the procurement of the Iron Dome system and the necessity for producing various components of the system in the United States. The Committee is also aware that the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the Israeli Missile Defense Organization (IMDO) formerly agreed to the United States providing $680 million between fiscal years 2012 and 2015 for the Iron Dome program."

The appropriators state they are "concerned that the agreement does not cover the full amount that is recommended for fiscal year 2015. Given the significant American investment in this system, the Committee believes that co-production of parts and components should be accomplished in a way that will maximize American industry participation in interceptor and battery deliveries for Israel's defense needs."

Consequently, the appropriators' bill would prohibit the MDA director from spending $175 million of the appropriated amount until the Israeli government "submits a sufficiently detailed cost and schedule justification" to the agency director for his approval. That justification needs to "include a detailed timeline for obligation and expenditure of program funds received above the budget request for each fiscal year for which funds were appropriated; copies of signed and ratified contracts, sub-contracts, and teaming arrangements between Israeli and American industry for all Iron Dome co-production efforts; delivery to MDA of all technical data packages as accepted by American industry suppliers for co-production; and a common cost model of Iron Dome components, to be jointly developed and agreed upon by MDA and IMDO that includes recurring and non-recurring engineering costs, estimates for future buys, and actual costs beginning with fiscal year 2013, the required quantities for all components through fiscal year 2019, and component lead-times and delivery schedules," according to the legislation.

During a June 11 hearing on MDA's FY-15 budget request, Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) asked agency Director Vice Adm. James Syring about Iron Dome:

DURBIN: The program has been very successful against rockets launched from Gaza toward Israel and was developed and fielded in record time.

Can you give us an update on the production timeline for additional batteries and interceptors? And what role is there for U.S. industry to contribute to this program?

SYRING: Sir, I'm very pleased -- I know you know this -- that we've signed a coproduction agreement with Israel back in March, which would give 30 percent of the stated Iron Dome production in the first year to the United States and 55 percent in the second year.

The request this year is for $175 million so there would be a significant amount of U.S. work shared to help our Israeli partners produce and field the Iron Dome interceptors. I would defer on the number of batteries and the number of interceptors to a classified forum as they protect that information. But with the coproduction agreement and with the ongoing contract negotiations that are going on between the U.S. company and the Israeli company, we will work through those details together to come up with the right cost model and the right -- the overall price to the government of Israel.