The United States plans to offer Israel an expanded missile defense cooperation relationship.

The cooperation is meant to follow the model of the current U.S.-Israeli Arrow-2 joint program.

"The kind of cooperation that we have on Arrow can be a hallmark of what we do in the future," U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said. "We are in constant discussion with Israel."

On Dec. 17, Ms. Rice addressed the annual strategic Herzliya Conference via a satellite link from the White House.

The U.S. official said the Bush administration regards missile defense as a priority in the aftermath of the Cold War. She said Washington wants to include missile defense as part of an expanded strategic relationship with Israel that would include arms control issues.

"We will probably increase cooperation in non-proliferation, counter-proliferation and missile defense," Ms. Rice said.

Israel has been trying to capitalize on the administration's focus on missile defense. But Israeli officials said the Islamic suicide attacks on Sept. 11 and the subsequent war in Afghanistan have left little room for missile defense discussions.

Ms. Rice did not elaborate on future areas of missile defense. Israel and the United States have discussed the prospect of developing a mobile tactical laser weapon and an unmanned air vehicle capable of destroying missile launchers.

Israel and the United States plan to discuss the next step in any joint project to develop a tactical high energy laser. The U.S. Army has commissioned TRW Systems to issue an engineering trade study of prospective laser weapons systems. This would include the miniaturization of the system built under the Tactical High Energy Laser project.

The joint THEL began in 1995 and was meant to destroy short-range rockets and mortars by a laser weapon. It was later modified to include targets such as helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.

Both countries have spent a total of $250 million on the project.

The TRW study, believed to have been relayed to the U.S. Army, has not been released. But a previous study that involved TRW listed a range of prospects, including an airborne tactical laser.

Israel has sought to steer the direction of research and development to a system that could be deployed on a flatbed truck. This would involve a five-fold reduction in the size of the THEL prototype, regarded as too bulky for operational use.

The U.S. Army has expressed interest in a laser weapon small enough to be transported in a C-130 Hercules transport plane. This would involve a 10-fold reduction of the THEL prototype.

The U.S. Army's vision of the tactical laser is regarded as far more expensive than Israel's conception. The army wants both Israel and the United States to commit $175 million for the development of a mobile variant until 2007.

A mobile THEL demonstrator is expected to be completed between 2006-2008. The U.S.

Army is also pursuing development of a Solid-State High-Capacity Laser. A prototype is not expected to be completed before 2012.

The United States has asked Israel to provide aid to Afghanistan. Israeli officials said the U.S. request was for help in the agricultural field. They said this would include aid in refurbishing Afghanistan's water system. "We had an alert to prepare aid for Afghanistan in the agricultural field," Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon said. "This would be in knowledge, technology and experts."

Simhon said he has formed a panel to study ways Israel can help Afghanistan. Simhon, however, ruled out financial aid to the Central Asian country. The minister urged Washington to provide Israel with the funding required to launch a significant aid effort to help Afghanistan's agriculture and water system. He did not elaborate. Officials said Israel has not been asked to provide military help to Afghanistan. But they said the Pentagon has relied on Israel-designed systems as well as intelligence provided by the Jewish state. [MiddleEast News OnLine - 21 Dec]

Today MER Publisher Mark Bruzonsky received a phone call from an old acquaintance, Fadi Ghandour in Amman, Jordan, where he is head of the international delivery company Aramex. Mr. Ghandour was calling to indicate that the reference to himself and persons in the Ghandour family in an article earlier this week was not correct. We awaited a promised email about this but as it hasn't come so we want to correct the record right away today..

In the article dealing with the growing campaign to remove and replace the Bathist regime in Baghdad, a major goal of the Americans, Israelis and asscociated Arab client regimes in the neighborhood including the Hashemite one in Amman no matter what is said in public, a concluding sentence mentioned the Ghandour family and related connections that had been brought to our attention and which like so many other things relating to the Middle East these days are oftentimes so interconnected and confusing. In view of the unequivocal comments from Mr. Ghandour, however, we now believe that information to be inaccurate and we appologize for having published the sentence relating to the Ghandours, especially in today's very difficult circumstances. That said, it was interesting that with so many important and historic things happening, things which MER has been writing and commenting about for some time, Mr. Ghandour did not feel that anything else in all the extensive coverage in recent years relating to Jordan, the Hashemite Regime, the Palestinians, or the Israeli plot to turn Jordan into "the Palestinian State", needed to be corrected. Must be that our tract record on these rather difficult and convoluted matters is considerably on the mark -- and believe us that's not always easy! Even so we definitely do appologize for it appears getting this one wrong; and in fact in quick retrospect should not have included it at the last moment in the last sentense as we did. It may in fact have been a little disinformation purposefully sent our way; very hard to know for sure these days. But if and when such things occasionally happen -- which is part of the "realities" of what is going on these days, especially on matters relating to the Middle East -- we will let everyone quickly know.