The Patriot Flawed?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
The Patriot Flawed?
6
Tue, 02-24-2004 - 9:39am

Lies, reporting only the accomplishments, ignoring the 'accidents'.


>"In the Pentagon's multi-billion dollar arsenal of weapons, one weapon the government has already spent more than $6 billion on has not only had trouble doing what it was designed to do --bring down enemy missiles -- it also does something it was not designed to do.

That weapon is the Patriot missile system. And the thing it’s not supposed to do is bring down friendly aircraft.

The Patriot was originally built nearly 40 years ago to shoot down aircraft. But just before the 1991 Gulf War, its manufacturer, Raytheon, modified the Patriot to shoot down tactical ballistic missiles.

When the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq again last year, the U.S. Army deployed Patriot crews across the battlefield. And it wasn't long before those crews knew they had a problem.


On March 23, a British Tornado fighter jet with two men aboard took off from Kuwait. It was the third day of the war, and there was no Iraqi opposition flying.

Their flight should have gone off without a hitch, according to retired Air Vice Marshall Tony Mason, who is advising a British Parliamentary inquiry into what happened next: “They had fulfilled their mission and they were returning without weapons back to base.”

Mason says the aircraft was in friendly airspace when it was destroyed by a Patriot missile.

The explosion lit up the sky over Kuwait and killed the two airmen aboard the Tornado. The next morning, soldiers recovered their bodies, and what was left of their plane. U.S. Army commanders explained the Patriot had mistaken the Tornado for an enemy missile, and said the cause might be a computer "glitch."


“If the system is confusing missiles with planes, that is just not just a minor glitch,” says Mason. “The two are so different, that it’s difficult really to imagine a system could do that.” "<


>"“They were seeing what were called spurious targets that were identified as incoming tactical ballistic missiles. Sometimes, they didn't exist at all in time and space. Other times, they were identifying friendly U.S. aircraft as incoming TBMs.”

And it wasn't only Riggs' battery that had this problem. A U.S. Army report says "various Patriot locations throughout the theater" were identifying "spurious TBMs" -- tactical ballistic missiles that didn't exist. "<


>"On March 25, a U.S. Air Force pilot flying an F-16 fighter jet got a signal that he was being targeted by radar he believed was coming from an enemy missile system. He fired one of his own missiles in self-defense and hit the system that was tracking him -- not an enemy, but the Patriot battery where Riggs was reporting.

“Suddenly, my whole field of vision is just-becomes white light. We all thought we were under Iraqi mortar attack,” says Riggs. “We had no idea this is the good guys shooting at us.”

“There was no way that Patriot system should have still been up and running, targeting aircraft. They should have stood down, knowing that they had a fatal problem on their hands,” says former Congressional investigator Joseph Cirincione.

Cirincione says the Army has known the Patriot had serious problems since at least 1991, when Congress appointed him to lead an investigation of the Patriot's performance in the first Gulf War, a performance that had looked spectacular on network news programs. "<


>"On April 2, U.S. Navy Pilot Lt. Nathan White took on his 14th mission of the war. It had been 11 days since the Patriot had shot down a British Tornado fighter jet, and nine days since it had threatened an F-16.

Lt. White took off from the deck of the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk into skies being scanned by Patriots. Navy officials told his father, Dennis White, what happened that night.

“They had finished their mission and had climbed out and were flying back to the Kitty Hawk,” says White.

Lt. White’s mission was finished and he was on the way home when a Patriot system, on the ground below, identified his plane as an enemy missile and fired two missiles.

“He radioed the lead that he saw them. And as he turned he said they're tracking,” recalls White. “He turned. They turned. They followed him … They told me it was probably within four seconds when it was all over with.”

It was a direct hit. Lt. White's body was recovered 10 days later.

The Patriot had 12 engagements in this war -- three of them with our own planes. Since then, U.S. military commanders have often claimed the Patriot hit "nine for nine" of the enemy missiles it targeted. But they still haven't produced a report explaining the incidents of friendly fire."<


>"“You don't get promoted for reporting bad news,” says Cirincione. “What that means is people turn aside -- and I mean just about everybody in the program will turn aside from the bad news in order to keep the program going, keep the appearance of success.”

This year alone, the Pentagon will spend more than a billion dollars on the Patriot program. And Raytheon is selling more and more Patriots to countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. "<


Quotes from this horrorfying article.................


 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/19/60minutes/main601241.shtml



cl-Libraone~



Edited 2/24/2004 9:45:54 AM ET by cl-libraone

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Tue, 02-24-2004 - 11:07am
I saw this report on 60 Minutes Sunday night and was sickened.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-29-2004
Tue, 02-24-2004 - 3:19pm
Oh I think we should suspend all military equipment that has ever been flawed in some design area. Not really.

This was reported that the U.S. accidently shot down that jet. There were a lot of friendly fire accidents in Iraq. War is not an exact science and many of these systems had not been used in combat before. Please don't believe that this has not been corrected since. BUUUT, I guess this will end up as another way to try to say Iraq was a mistake...

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 02-24-2004 - 3:20pm
My son is with a Patriot battery--actually he's with the unit that brought down Lt. White's plane. There was a CNN reporter, Lisa Rose Weaver, who was embedded with that unit. When she posted the story about the plane being shot down, all I could think was "Oh God, please don't let my son have been responsible".

<<<52 ADA Distraught Over F/A-18 Shootdown

By Lisa Rose Weaver

Special for KFOXTV.com

By the fifth day in the desert protecting the Karbala Gap, Echo Battery's only action of note had been to shoot down what was thought to be a short-range Scud missile -- followed by the morale sapping news that in all probability, Echo had accidentally shot down a U.S. Navy jet instead.

In the aftermath came investigation teams -- one of which arrived hours before dawn and demanded that investigation work resume immediately. So when Saturday morning brought a hot and hazy sun, a little levity was called for.

The good news was, the troops had mail. Excitement that rivals Christmas spread through the monotone camp of sand-colored vehicles and missile launchers nestled in the desert. Soldiers tore open envelopes and packages, devouring news from home, tabloid magazines and Sports Illustrated (yes, the swimsuit edition), and homemade cookies.

Almost without exception, soldiers who had experienced war were anxious to tell their loved ones back home everything about what they'd been through.

"My mother would freak out if she knew I were here," said one man who represents a minority of soldiers who have not even told their loved ones that they're in Iraq, instead reassuring them that they remain on one of several U.S. military bases in Kuwait.

Others are not as disingenuous. They strike what they hope is the right balance of enough information to put minds at ease, but leave out "something that doesn't do them any good to know. You've got to walk kind of a fine line," said Robert Brackett, 20.

Another soldier who did wish to be named said that he preferred just letting his family know that he was all right. "They don't need to know that we've been mortared, they don't need to know we've been fired upon by RPG's They just don't need to know." Staff Sgt. Dockery Brandon, sitting inside a Bradley armored vehicle on the south end of camp, said he was particularly moved by scenes of children asking for food in southern Iraq in the first few days after driving across the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border.

"It made me reaffirm what I'm doing here. That's what pushed me a little further that night," he said.

With the supply line stretching south well-secured and the front line miles to the north just outside Baghdad, Echo Battery's daily existence consists of maintenance work, keeping cool in temperatures that have hit 115 degrees, and waiting for the next push north.

It provided time for reflection on the mission that had brought them so far, and for thoughts about family.

Corey Strader, 23, a specialist who assists in maintenance, said he had made two phone calls home in the past two months. Like most, he let his family know he's OK.

He, however, didn't mention long convoys through dangerous territory with minimal firepower for protection. Nor did he mention the day a U.S. Air Force jet fired a radar-seeking missile at Echo Battery, never thinking a Patriot unit would be deployed so close to Iraqi forces.

"I'll have plenty of time when I'm there, when I'm home, to tell them all the stories," he said.>>>>

It turns out that my son wasn't the soldier on duty in the Patriot's tracking and firing area, but he said that the guy who was in the control center felt horrible. The investigation supposedly exonerated the soldier and blamed system failure for the shootdown.

I lived around the military much of my life and can tell you that I'm not surprised that the Patriot system hasn't been put in "stand down" status until the problem of mis-identification has been rectified. Projects, budgets, systems, all take on a life of their own and changing the status quo is tough, to say the least. The people who procure the systems aren't the ones who use it so there's a disconnect there. One of the men interviewed on "60 Minutes" noted that bad news about an expensive, complicated, and manpower invested system like Patriot is not conducive to a flourishing career. And at least in the case of my son's unit, it isn't always possible to corroborate exactly what happened, especially a year later. Hank, the Raytheon tech who accompanied the unit, has since died of cancer. They pulled my son's Patriot unit out of Iraq in June of last year and they came home on the same plane with the rest of the 507th Maintenance Company (Jessica Lynch's unit). The 507th was one of the maintenance companies responsible for the upkeep of the Patriot Air Defense Artillery units. War is full of tragedies, both small and large.

There were more cases of friendly fire during the war than made the news--this is from a March 30, 2003 letter from my son:



Lisa Rose Weaver also posted a story about the time when the unit came under fire from a radar seeking missile from an Air Force jet, so the friendly fire went both ways--ground to air and air to ground.

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Tue, 02-24-2004 - 3:42pm

Thank you for posting this emotional story.

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Tue, 02-24-2004 - 3:44pm

The point is that the Pentagon (military) has been lieing about this system for over a decade.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Tue, 02-24-2004 - 3:51pm

Did you bother to read the original article?


I guess it's alright to knowingly use faulty equipment that kills young people.


Unbelievable!

cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs