The Arrow 2 is a theater anti-ballistic missile funded and produced in unison by the U.S. and Israel.
The Jerusalem Post article added that "The Defense Ministry is preparing for the possibility that the United States will decide to leave missile defense systems in Israel following a joint missile defense exercise the two countries will hold next month," and that "the possibility is strong...particularly in light of reports that the Pentagon was conducting a review of its European missile shield and was leaning towards deploying the systems in Turkey.
"According to various European news reports, Turkey, Israel and the Balkans are under evaluation as alternative sites for the systems....." [20]
The already existing American missile tracking facility is in the Negev Desert near Dimona where Israel is presumed to store its nuclear weapons.
Almost a year ago a major Russian news source reported that "Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, [then] director of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), has said more than once that Turkey, Georgia and even Ukraine could be future locations for ballistic missile defense systems.
"[T]he Pentagon will most likely choose Turkey or, some Western analysts say, Israel or Japan." [21]
A Turkish report of March of 2008 had already indicated what the Pentagon was planning: "Last March Pentagon chief Robert Gates visited Turkey to hold consultations on missile shield plans.
"A powerful, 'forward based' X-band radar station could go in southeastern Europe, possibly in Turkey, the Caucasus or the Caspian Sea region, Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, head of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, told a defense conference in Washington on Feb. 12." [22]
In May of 2008 a Russian newspaper revealed that "the United States may deploy a high-frequency X-band radar in Georgia." [23]
More recently, last November the Turkish daily Hurriyet wrote that "Israel and the United States have...declared their desire to establish a one-billion-dollar missile system in Turkey." [24]
The deployment of advanced missile tracking and interceptor missile facilities in Israel and Turkey along with others in the South Caucasus - the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan, currently used by Russia but coveted by Washington, is another possible addition - would nearly complete the stationing of a missile shield ring around Russia.
The third site of the expansion of U.S. and NATO missile interception plans is the Balkans.
Russian political analyst Pyotr Iskenderov wrote on September 3 that a possible location for such a deployment could be in the international no man's land that is Kosovo.
"In spring of 2009, Albanian Prime-Minister Sali Berisha proposed to the US to locate an anti-missile system in his country if US-Polish talks failed. In Serbia Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac, who is close to Serbian president
Boris Tadic, made scandalous statements in favor of Serbia's entry to NATO. In this respect the location of a US military base in Serbia could be regarded as a compensation to Belgrade for losing Kosovo. This will also help to drive Russia away from Serbia." [25]
Iskenderov theorized that American missiles could be stationed in Camp Bondsteel, the largest overseas U.S. military installation built since the war in Vietnam. The author, in reference to the use of the base for so-called "extraordinary renditions," said "the main object of the military infrastructure of Kosovo will be the US base of Camp Bondsteel, which is subordinate neither to NATO, nor the UN nor the EU....Here we should recall an unsavory role of Kosovo in the scandal liked with the secret jails of the CIA in Europe.
"If earlier the US managed to hide one of their CIA secret prisons in Kosovo, then it won't be a problem to install radar and interceptor missiles in Camp Bondsteel." [26]
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