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The Arrow-2 anti-ballistic missile would be ineffective against chemical, biological or nuclear warheads, or even a large number of simple Scuds fired almost simultaneously at the country, according to a leading U.S. defense expert.

Furthermore, Angelo M. Codevilla, professor of international relations at Boston University, said the technology exists to produce anti-ballistic missiles, but their development is restricted by the 1972 ABM treaty.

Codevilla is the author of numerous works on strategy, most recently "Missiles, Defense, and Israel."

In it, Codevilla released details about the Homa (Hebrew for "Wall") defense system never before revealed in Israel. He said the system's L-band radar, called "Green Pine," is able to detect missiles launched from as far as 310 miles away.

"It is powerful and accurate enough to help distinguish between warheads, debris, and decoys," Codevilla wrote.

He also revealed that its fire-control system, called "Citron Tree," is capable of managing up to 14 intercepts at a time.

According to Codevilla, the Arrow-2 flies at just under 1.9 miles a second, twice as fast as the Patriot, and is therefore capable of making intercepts farther away. This should occur about 31 to 56 miles from Israeli cities, Codevilla wrote.

"Should Israel be attacked by Scuds, as it was in 1991, Israeli cities would be hit only by scattered debris. The Arrow would succeed where Patriot failed," he wrote.

But Codevilla warned that a future missile attack will be very unlike the Iraqi attack. He said developments in "submunitions" — warheads that break up into small 55-lb. bombs — would render the Arrow-2 useless because it could only hope to hit one or two of them. He also wrote that the system would be overloaded and incapable of coping with a great number of incoming missiles.

He cited the proliferation in the Middle East of faster missiles, like the Russian SS-4, which travels at twice the speed the Arrow-2 is designed to handle.

According to defense officials, the first battery of the Arrow-2 missile should be deployed by 1999. So far, the project has cost about $1.6 billion, with the United States providing about two-thirds of this.