CBS News February 08, 2004
How Accurate Is The Patriot Missile?
Did chronic problems with the Army's newly-upgraded three billion-dollar patriot missile system contribute to shooting down the only U.S. Navy pilot lost during the war in Iraq? Robert Riggs from our sister station KTVT in Dallas reports.
The family of 30-year-old Lieutenant Nathan White has waited ten months for a military investigation to explain what happened. "I know from Nathan, he emailed the family, and he had talked about steering clear of the Patriot army batteries," says Nathan's father Dennis, who is a former Air Force pilot.
At his home in Abilene, Texas, Dennis White wants to make sure a Patriot fratricide never happens again. "The young soldiers involved in our son's friendly fire incident do find themselves second guessing all their actions and some have had deep emotional problems as a result," Dennis White tells CBS.
"I wish I could talk to them. I don't know that I could put their heart at rest or at ease but again I know that they were doing their level best under a very, very trying condition," he adds.
Last February, a KTVT news crew embedded with a Patriot missile battalion deployed to Kuwait from Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.
The news crew first witnessed problems when an employee of Raytheon, the defense contractor for the Patriot system yelled 'don't shoot, don't shoot.'
The Patriot radars were showing friendly aircraft as enemy tactical ballistic missiles and more often creating false missile tracks.
Soldiers said they had come close to shooting down a Navy F-18.
John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org says complex computer systems can behave in mysterious ways. "The problem was not that there was not a single ghost in the machine but that it was a haunted house. They had lots of ghosts. Every radar was reporting a separate track and if you get enough data input the computer is going to get awfully confused."
False missile tracks raised the level of anxiety. Echo's soldiers inside this nerve center called an engagement control station would have only a few minutes, if not seconds, to shoot down Iraq's missiles.
Soldiers and their leaders struggled with how to tell the difference between false missile tracks and the real thing. But according to a confidential 'lessons learned' report by the Army, a Patriot unit in Jordan had experienced the problem for months prior to operation Iraqi Freedom.
"This organization has a long history of failing to fix problems, failing to acknowledge problems," says MIT Professor Ted Postol.
Postol testified before Congress about problems he found with the Patriot missile's performance in the 1991 Gulf War.
"Can you imagine that the Army would not have told one other arm of the Army we've got a problem here?," Postol says, adding "the fact that they know or knew that this problem was going on raises questions of negligence."
Echo Battery became the first Patriot unit to invade Iraq. Despite weeks of false missile track problems, the KTVT news crew never saw any change in the rules of engagement.
The Patriots were on "weapons free," meaning they didn't have to get higher approval to shoot at enemy missiles.
Back in Kuwait, army sources say another Patriot missile radar showed a British Tornado bomber as a cruise missile. It's two member crew was killed while returning to base.
At Camp Doha in Kuwait, the 32nd Army Air And Missile Defense Commander, General Howard Bromberg, continued to express confidence in the patriot. "We're very pleased with the weapons system. I's engaging early. It's engaging on time. It's been outstanding."
Three days later, Army sources say Echo's Patriot radar showed Lt. White's Navy F-18 as an Iraqi missile and shot it down seven seconds later.
And another Patriot battery came close to shooting at a second Navy F-18 leading White's mission. Army sources also say the Patriot radar did not display a coded IFF signal indicating the targets were friendly.
The Army's official report about the Patriot's war record does not reveal that false missile tracks occurred hundreds of times.
"To pretend that it doesn't exist. That worries me because I can see we are going to have some other mom and dad out there who are sitting comfortably in their home and they do not know who they are yet but they are going to understand exactly how we feel," Dennis White said.
If you have any information on the Patriot missile, KTVT CBS 11 would like to hear from you. Call them at (817) 496-7711.
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