U.S. looks set to offer Israel powerful new radar

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration appears set to offer Israel a powerful radar system that could greatly boost Israeli defenses against enemy ballistic missiles while tying them directly into a growing U.S. missile shield.

President George W. Bush is expected to discuss the matter during a visit to Israel starting on Wednesday to mark the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state amid mounting U.S. concern over perceived threats from Iran, people familiar with the matter said.

This is "probably the No. 2 issue" on Bush's agenda for the visit, second only to the Middle East peace process, said Rep. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican who has spearheaded calls in Congress for tighter U.S. missile-defense ties with Israel.

Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said in an e-mail, "While the U.S. and Israel cooperate closely on defense matters, there will not be any announcements during next week's visit." Bush is also to visit Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, which is developing the multibillion-dollar layered shield, said questions about a new radar system for Israel were a "policy issue" outside the agency's purview.

Riki Ellison, a prominent missile-defense advocate with close ties to the Pentagon and companies involved in building the hardware, said he understood giving Israel the missile-tracking system was "on the table right now."

The system Bush may offer is known as a forward-based X-band radar. Transportable by air, it uses high-powered pulsed beams for extremely high-resolution tracking of objects in space such as a missile that could be tipped with a chemical, germ or nuclear warhead.

Built by Raytheon Co, the system has been described by U.S. officials as capable of tracking an object the size of a baseball from about 2,900 miles away.