Israel's Domestic Missile Defenses Were Found To Be In A State Of Record Disrepair.

[Purveyor]

Israel's domestic missile defenses were found to be in a state of record disrepair.

Israel's Army Radio on Monday quoted a leaked report by the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee as saying that the home front's preparedness for a missile attack is "at a 20-year low."

The report also critcized a recent decision by the military to collect gas masks issued to Israelis during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as it would slow the public's response to any unconventional missile offensive by countries such as Iran or Syria.

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http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/103048.html

[Purveyor]

1. Also read: Knesset panel: Collecting gas masks eliminates public's protection against attacks

A Knesset security sub-committee said yesterday that the failure to collect and renovate gas masks could lead to a de facto collapse of national civil defense.

The sub-committee of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee asked the State Comptroller to probe suspicions that former defense minister Shaul Mofaz had misled the Knesset, and that commercial interests relating to the gas masks had influenced life and death decisions.

The sub-committee, headed by MK Yuval Steinitz (Likud), said that the home front's readiness and alertness to chemical threats has been in constant retreat over the last few years.

The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee approved in 2005 collecting the gas masks from people's homes. It did so after then defense minister Shaul Mofaz, his deputy Zeev Boim, Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon, and Home Front commanders assured the committee that the IDF could distribute the masks to the people within three to seven days.

However, experts for the National Security Council (NSC) contradicted that, and told the committee that the gas mask distribution would take a few weeks.

The committee decided that at a time of war "accompanied by intensive fire throughout Israel, the mask distribution could become an impossible mission."

The sub-committee said that accumulating the gas masks in the Home Front Command's storerooms instead of distributing them to people would render them useless.

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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/882533.html