Barak: Enemies will be able to choose which building to hit within 5 years

Ex-defense minister warns of "unprecedented" chemical, biological and terrorism threat in near future.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Ehud Barak at Gaza security evaluation 370 (photo credit: IDF Spokesman)
Ehud Barak at Gaza security evaluation 370
(photo credit: IDF Spokesman)
Israel’s enemies will gain access in the coming years to precision guided missiles that will allow them to target individual buildings, former defense minister Ehud Barak warned on Wednesday.
Barak spoke in Tel Aviv at a conference held at the International Institute for National Security Studies to mark Israel Science Day, which was organized by the Science, Technology and Space Ministry.
Science is serving hostile enemy forces, Barak said.
“We will continue to see many more missiles, a lot more accuracy, and within five years the missile will reach a maximum level of accuracy that will allow them to choose which building in Israel to hit. These means will proliferate, and will be cheaper for terror organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza,” he added. “In the future we will see terrorism backed by science and technology.”
Threats from biological and chemical attacks by non-state actors also present growing dangers, Barak warned.
“Somewhere in a small lab, hostile elements sit planning the future weapon of mass destruction. This is an unprecedented terrorism potential,” he stated, adding, “We can’t wait until the threat is realized, as the gap will be difficult to close.”
Israeli scientific and technological advances allow it to receive intelligence alerts, achieve deterrence, and grant it the ability to win wars, he said.
Barak criticized senior IDF officials who for several years opposed the development of the Iron Dome rocket defense system, saying they lacked foresight.
“Opposition to the multilayered defense system was surprising. It came from the element that was supposed to activate [the system],” Barak said.
In January, Dr. Uzi Rubin, an architect of the Israeli missile defense program, told an Institute for National Security Studies conference that Israel’s enemies are seeking to arm themselves with precision-guided heavy rockets and missiles.
“The Iranians took the Zelzal 2 and turned it into a guided rocket.
The third generation of it contains a homing sensor and a GPS. The Syrians can have this capability, too, to create a fully guided M-600 rocket with a GPS,” Rubin said.
Hezbollah will seek to import such guided weapons, he added.