Israel's 'Iron Dome' Anti-Missile 'Shield' Is Another Israeli Super MYTH: Stops Only 5% of Incoming Missiles, Says MIT Researcher

"In all fairness, there are reasons that could be justified in warfare for lying. First of all you could lie because it calms your population to think that they're being defended. Now there's a double-edge sword here though. Because if people think they are being defended they may not take shelter. And in November of 2012 three people were killed on a porch because they were out looking at the Iron Dome supposedly intercepting a missile."—Theodore Postal

Israel's 'Iron Dome' missile defense system at Paris Air Show, 2013. (Photo from Wikimedia
Commons)

Israel's 'Iron Dome' missile defense system is merely an expensive "light show," says MIT physicist Theodore Postol. The system is stopping only five percent or less of the missiles fired from Gaza by Hamas. The key to the low number of Israeli casualties from incoming missiles is fourfold: 1) Low accuracy of the incoming missiles, 2) Low lethality of the incoming missiles (contain only 5-10 pounds of explosive), 3) Early warning of incoming missiles, and 4) Widespread availability of bomb shelters. 

RELATED STORY: An Explanation of the Evidence of Weaknesses in the Iron Dome Defense System by Professor Theodore Postol

Israel's alleged 'Iron Dome' is paid for by hundreds of millions of American tax payer dollars, and results in a cost of over $100,000 per 'Iron Dome' missile versus just $500-$1000 per Hamas missile:

"The interceptor probably costs well in excess of $100,000 per interceptor and it's may be achieving a five percent rate [of interception], may be - it could be lower - against rockets that maybe cost $1000 each or $500 dollars each. So the cost exchange ratio is fine, if you're Israeli and the dollars are not coming out of your pocket."—Theodore Postol

Physicist Theodore Postol is a professor of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert in missiles and missile defenses.

Watch the entire interview and download a transcript HERE.

The US Military and Arms Industry Sucking American Dry: $40-Billion Missile Defense System is Basically Useless — While Cities Declare Bankruptcy

If only the Missile Defense System worked as well as depicted in
cartoons (like the one below) published by the US military.

Illustration by US Missile Defense Agency.

By David Willman
With a convulsive rumble, followed by billowing flames and exhaust, a sleek 60-foot rocket emerged from its silo at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base.

It was a test of the backbone of the nation's missile defense system. If North Korea or Iran ever launched nuclear weapons against the United States, the interceptors at Vandenberg and remote Ft. Greely, Alaska, would be called on to destroy the incoming warheads.

Scientists conducting the test at Vandenberg on Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010, had left little to chance. They knew exactly when the target missile would be launched from an atoll in the Marshall Islands 4,900 miles away. They knew its precise dimensions, expected trajectory and speed.

Based on this and other data, they had estimated the route the interceptor's heat-seeking "kill vehicle" would have to follow to destroy the target.

Within minutes, the interceptor's three boosters had burned out and fallen away, and the kill vehicle was hurtling through space at 4 miles per second. It was supposed to crash into the mock enemy warhead and obliterate it.

It missed.

At a cost of about $200 million, the mission had failed.

Eleven months later, when the U.S. Missile Defense Agency staged a repeat of the test, it failed, too.

The next attempted intercept, launched from Vandenberg on July 5, 2013, also ended in failure.

The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, or GMD, was supposed to protect Americans against a chilling new threat from "rogue states" such as North Korea and Iran. But a decade after it was declared operational, and after $40 billion in spending, the missile shield cannot be relied on, even in carefully scripted tests that are much less challenging than an actual attack would be, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found.

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