>The US Army said it was curbing its plans to adopt the Iron Dome missile defense system due to concerns about its compatibility with existing US technologies, scrapping its plans to buy two more batteries and explore long-term integration of the Israel-developed system.
>A central problem was Israel’s refusal to provide the US military with Iron Dome’s source code, hampering the Americans’ ability to integrate the system into their air defenses.
>“It took us longer to acquire those [first] two batteries than we would have liked,” Murray told the House Armed Service tactical air and land forces subcommittee on Thursday. “We believe we cannot integrate them into our air defense system based on some interoperability challenges, some cyber challenges and some other challenges.”
>The Israeli Missile Defense Organization and the Army last August inked a deal for two Iron Dome batteries. Soon thereafter, according to sources, Army officials repeatedly requested Iron Dome “source code” — proprietary information detailing how the system works.
>Israel supplied engineering information but ultimately declined to provide the source code the Army said it needed to integrate Iron Dome components with US systems.
