Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/042092/0420994.000

Text File | 1992-10-19 | 2KB | 41 lines

                                                                                THE WEEK, Page 23

NATION

Was Gulf War Hardware Oversold?


Pentagon reports raise questions about some weapons'
effectiveness


    Desert Storm General Norman Schwarzkopf once said its record
was 33 for 33. President Bush was nearly as upbeat, claiming it
was 41 out of 42. Last week a group of independent analysts saidf
nobody can determine how many of the 47 threatening Iraqi Scud
missiles were intercepted and destroyed by U.S. Patriot
missiles.

    Steven Hildreth, a Congressional Research Service defense
specialist, told the House Government Operations Committee that
the Army's 1991 data would support a claim of only "one warhead
kill." Under fire, Major General Jay Garner confirmed that the
Army, in a revised study, was dropping its kill claims from more
than 80% in Saudi Arabia to 70%, and from 50% in Israel to 40%.
The Army's about-face represented a victory for M.I.T.
professor Ted Postol, who triggered the inquiry by pointing out
that even such nonexperts as careful cnn watchers could tell
that some of the Patriots' alleged kills were clear misses.

    Meanwhile, the performance of other high-technology
weapons also came under fire. Classified internal Pentagon
reports suggested that the vaunted F-117A Stealth fighter scored
60% of the time, not 90%, and that only about half the 288
Tomahawk missiles fired actually hit their target, down from
85%. Even with these revised figures, the high-tech successes
made the Desert Storm air campaign the most accurate in history.