Reply #4: Sorry But You Are Incorrect.

[jayfish]

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/docops/pl920908.htm

<SNIP>
Congressman John Conyers Jr, Chairman
Committee on Government Relations
House of Representatives
Washington. D.C. 20515

September 8, 1992

Dear Mr. Chairman:

I am writing to report the results of the review you requested of the U.S. Army study Analysis of Video Tapes to Assess Patriot Effectiveness. In order to perform the requested review, my colleage, Dr. George M. Lewis, and I conducted a comprehensive study of all the currently available video evidence related to Patriot's performance. To our knowledge, this is the most complete review of available Desert Storm video done to date.

Our review included all 140 videocassettes made available to your committee and the U.S. Army by the Raytheon Company and a substantial body of additional video we obtained from ABC News and from WETA-TV in Washington D.C. In addition, we supplemented our analysis of video tapes with information from press, television, CENTCOM and Pentagon reports about Scud attacks. We believe that this effort has resulted in a new level of understanding of Patriot's Desert Storm performance.

All of the relevant video data we studied has been assembled on a single 45 minute video cassette. Enclosed are copies of our report and video cassettes for each member of the National Security and Legislation Subcommittee.

The body of video assembled on the enclosed video cassettes appears to contain data on at least 22 to 23 out of roughly 47 Desert Storm engagements. Of even greater significance, the video appears to include 17 to 18 out of roughly 30 engagements in Saudi Arabia. This indicates that there is a very substantial base of video information from which an assessment of Patriot's performance can be made. Our studies also suggest that there is likely a substantial body of unreviewed video that contains still more information about Patriot's Desert Storm performance.

We urge you to ask the Department of Defense to obtain and study this additional video for evidence of Patriot's Desert Storm performance. In our opinion, such a review is essential to responsible program management of Patriot and other follow-on Theater Missile Defense systems.

We found no convincing evidence in the video that any Scud warhead was destroyed by a Patriot. We have strong evidence that Patriots hit Scuds on two occasions, but in both cases the videos also show that the Scud warheads fell to the ground and exploded. These clips provide strong evidence that even when Patriots could hit Scuds they were still not able to destroy Scud warheads.
</SNIP>


http://www.ceip.org/programs/npp/brief27.htm

<SNIP>
The Patriot Experience

In the United States, confusion over the Patriot’s performance in the Gulf War still fuels overly optimistic estimates of the effectiveness of new, proposed defensive systems. During the war, many believed that the Patriot had achieved a near-perfect intercept rate, as was reported initially from the battlefield and Washington. After a congressional investigation, the Army revised its claims down from 96 percent to 52 percent, though noting that their data gave them high confidence in the destruction of only 25 percent of the Scud warheads.

Independent evaluations are more pessimistic, concluding that the Patriot hit few if any Scuds during the war. These include assessments conducted by the Israeli Defense Force, the Congressional Research Service, the General Accounting Office, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and staff of the Government Operations Committee.

The General Accounting Office review concluded that the strongest evidence supported a claim that Patriots hit only 9 percent of the 45 Scud warheads engaged. The speed of the Scuds, the limitations of the Patriot missile system, and the confusion and targeting difficulties caused by the break-up of the Scud missile as it re-entered the atmosphere contributed to the high failure rate.
<SNIP>


Jay

EDIT: Adding Info As I Find It.