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U.S. Plans: Officials, Analysts Disagree on Patriot Missile The U.S. military does not plan to use the Patriot missile system as a primary defense in the event of war with Iraq because the system is unreliable, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. Military officials, however, said that the Patriot is improved and has destroyed Scud missile targets in tests (see GSN, Oct. 15). The Pentagon is focusing on finding Iraqi Scud missiles before they are launched and destroying them on the ground, analysts said. Defense officials acknowledged that the Patriot Advance Capability 2 — which is currently in use — has limited worth, and the new model is having trouble in development (see GSN, Sept. 19; Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 2). An official from the Missile Defense Agency said, however, that the Patriot has been successful against Scuds since the 1991 Gulf War. “Since Desert Storm, the Missile Defense Agency has researched, developed and turned over to the Army more than 300 Patriot PAC-2 Guidance Enhanced Missiles, which have destroyed Scud missile targets in tests,” the official said. The Army reportedly has 38 of the latest Patriot missiles, known as PAC-3, and Army officials said that it is ready to use (see GSN, Oct. 31). “We have an operational capacity in PAC-3,” Army Secretary Thomas White said Thursday. The U.S. Army has made “fairly remarkable” progress in addressing the ballistic missile threat as a whole, according to Army Space and Missile Defense Command chief, Lt. Gen. Joseph Cosumano (Ann Roosevelt, Defense Week, Nov. 4). Other Pentagon officials have also defended the Patriot system. “It’s been tested pretty rigorously, we’ve been at it a long time, and we’re ready to declare it’s a useful military system,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, head of the Missile Defense Agency (see GSN, Nov. 1). Israel, which codevelops the Arrow missile defense system with the United States, has expressed skepticism of the Patriot’s reliability. Some private analysts also said they are less confident. “The military is hopeful for what Patriot could do, but they clearly don’t intend to rely on it solely,” Brookings Institution scholar James Lindsay said. The Patriot “is going to play only a supporting role” and the missile defense program as a whole “has been long on promises and short on products,” he said (Richter, Los Angeles Times).
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