Mid-1991: Reports of Patriot Missile System’s Spectacular Success Found to Be False

Joseph Cirincione. [Source: Takoma / Silver Spring Voice]Joseph Cirincione, an expert on proliferation issues and national security, is detailed by Congress to find out just how well the Patriot missile performed in combat during the Gulf War. George H.W. Bush told a group of Raytheon employees, who helped manufacture the Patriot missile system, that the system had performed admirably during the war: “Forty-two [Iraqi] SCUD [missiles] engaged, 41 intercepted.” (Some sources later cite Bush as claiming that the figures were 43 of 45.) Television viewers around the globe were familiar with video footage of Patriot batteries blazing away at the sky during the middle of the night; such images became icons of the technological success of the war. However, Cirincione finds a very different story for the Patriot. His investigations of Defense Department records shows that the Patriot actually only brought down two to four SCUDs in 44 intercept attempts, or about a 10 percent success rate. The video footage rerun so often by American news broadcasters was of Patriots exploding in midflight. Nevertheless, Congressional funding for the Patriot and other missile defense systems rose dramatically after the war.
Pentagon Experts Knew System Faulty - Experts in the Pentagon admitted to Cirincione that they knew the Patriot system didn’t work as early as 1991, when it was deployed to Iraq. Cirincione tells a reporter, “Everybody thought that missile defense could work” after the erroneous reports of the Patriot’s success. “So it gave the whole program, theater and strategic missile defense, a new lease on life, and cost us billions of dollars more in research and programs that still haven’t proved to be viable.… The power of that television image, the power of that myth of the Patriot success, proved to be very powerful indeed. Studies and scientific inquiries alone can’t overcome the popular misperception.”
Army Incensed with Findings - The Army is incensed by Cirincione’s findings, he will recall in 2004. “The Army insisted that they knew they had some problems with the Patriot, but it didn’t serve any purpose to make these public. We would just be aiding the enemy. And that they would take care of it in the course of normal product improvement.” Why did the Army so adamantly oppose Cirincione’s findings? “The Patriot is a multi-billion dollar system. There’s a lotta money involved. There’s a lotta careers involved.” Cirincione will say that the Army continued to claim that the Patriot was a success even after he presented them with his findings until 2001, when it finally admitted the Patriot’s poor performance. [PBS Frontline, 10/10/2002; Carter, 2004, pp. 52; CBS News, 6/27/2004]