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Anti-Rocket Laser Weapon Test Successful

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JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: A successful test of a new anti- rocket laser weapon in the United States has far-reaching implications for Israel.

CNN military affairs correspondent Jamie McIntyre joins us now with details -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Judy, that successful test in the New Mexico desert yesterday may mean that Israel soon will have a potent new weapon to defend against rocket and missile attacks. For the first time ever, a laser weapon has destroyed a rocket armed with a live warhead in flight.

In yesterday's test, a Katusha rocket was fired from New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range. Seconds later, a powerful chemical laser several miles down-range successfully tracked and destroyed the rocket with an invisible beam.

While this is a joint U.S.-Israeli project, the tactical high- energy laser, or THEL, was specifically developed for Israel to defend against one of its biggest security headaches: Katusha rocket attacks from Hezbollah guerrillas, which continued in the weeks before Israel's sudden troop withdrawal from southern Lebanon last month.

Israel had hoped to have the anti-Katusha laser fully deployed before giving up its buffer zone in Lebanon, but the $190 million project is slightly behind schedule and over budget. It could be deployed as soon as early next year if further testing shows the laser can destroy multiple rockets at once.

And despite the fact the United States has picked up part of the tab and has nothing like the rocket-killing laser in its arsenal, it has no plan to field the revolutionary system.

With no threat from its neighbors, the Pentagon and the United States wants a system that's more mobile and has more capability to defeat a wider range of missiles -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: All right, Jamie McIntyre. You answered my question about why the United States is not using this system it's providing to Israel.

Thanks very much.

Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon.

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