The arithmetic of Iraqi ballistic missiles i.e. the Scud-Bs and their Iraqi variants makes a somewhat enigmatic and heavy reading. The short presentation brings out the relevant open press figures. As it is, since the opening up of the current US ‘Op Iraqi Freedom’, there has been reports of four Scud engagements, two of which have been reported neutralised by US Patriot, anti-missile missiles, and other two never hit any significant US asset in Kuwait. Where are the rest of the Iraqi Scuds requires some investigation, if at all there are some still left with Iraq for use.

Scud is a somewhat older missile and it had entered Soviet service in 1950, and its variant known as Scud-B was purchased by Iraq from the USSR and subsequently from Libya and North Korea. It is being claimed that even now North Korea is in the business of modifying Scuds, and producing their ‘No-Dong’ missile. Some more of these missiles (Scuds) may have been produced by Iraq itself by reverse engineering and through other dubious means.

According to ‘Survival May/June 1991’ (The Gulf War, Special) “Iraq modified the Scuds by increasing the size of its fuel tanks reducing the warhead to 500 pounds of high explosives (almost half of original), and extending its range to approximately 400 miles (650 Km.) As a result of its lengthy operational life and its use by Iraq in the war against Iran, the capabilities of Scud missile were well-known to the Allies. Nevertheless, three Allied miscalculations were to cause problems: about the numbers possessed by Iraq; the difficulties in locating and eliminating their launchers (TEL); and their political and psychological impact.”

According to the prestigious Military Ballanc IISS- London 1995/96, “A total of 819 missiles were delivered of which 300 were modified to the ‘al-Hussein’ variant with a 600 Km range compared to the range of 280 Km of the basic Scud, and ten were modified to the ‘al-Abbas’ (or
al-Hiajara) variant with a range of 900 Km. All 819 missiles have been accounted for to the UN Special Committee (UNSCOM) and all are considered to have been destroyed.”

CRS, The Library of Congress Code No IB92117 Updated December 10, 2002 while discussing the Iraqi Scuds/Scud variants says “...UN Security Council Resolution 687 requires the destruction of all Iraqi Ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 Km. UNSCOM accounted for 817 of 819 Soviet-supplied Scud missiles, 130 of which survived the Gulf War, as well as all 14 declared mobile launchers and 60 fixed launch pads. US analysts believe Iraq might be concealing as many as 12-Scud like missiles....”

It was reported in December 1995 by Jordan that 115 Russian made guidance components for missiles bound for Iraq were seized, whence UNSCOM said that Iraq had procured some missile since 1991 which is a violation of sanctions. That month UNSCOM retrieved prohibited missile guidance gyroscope suitable for a 2000 mile range missile, from Iraq’s Tigris River, apparently procured from Russia. UNSCOM had evidence that after the Gulf War, Iraq conducted secret flight tests and research on missiles of prohibited ranges of the ‘Ababil’ and ‘Samoud’ programmes.

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, brochure ‘Iraq, What Next’ of January 2003 lists the Iraqi missile capabilities as below:

Discrepancies in Baghdad’s declaration suggest that Iraq retains several Scud-variant short-range ballistic missiles. British intelligence sources believe that Iraq has retained upto 20 ‘al-Hussein’ missiles from the Gulf War. See British Govt, ‘Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of British Govt-September 2002’, page 27.

Iraqi facilities may have expanded since 1998 for the purpose of developing of longer range missiles than are permitted by the UN. There is a considerable concern about a production plant for ammonium percolate (an ingredient in rocket fuel) and other research development and testing facilities conducive to the production of long range missiles.

Iraq has disclosed manufacturing new energetic fuels suited only to a class of missile to which it does not admit. (See State Dept fact sheet at www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/20002/ 16118.htm)

In his recent presentation to the Security Council UNMOVIC Executive Chairman Hans Blix reported that Iraq in fact declared to UNSCOM that its missiles exceeded the mandated 150-Km range by a maximum of 33 Km in 13 flight tests.

With this rather short calculus of missiles it is easy to assume that this time Saddam may not be in a position to launch Scuds duly modified to Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as he did on the Day-2 of the Gulf War 1991. He had fired a total of 88 with 42 at Israel, 43 at KSA and three at Bahrain. The damage which these Scuds caused and how these were negated has been narrated with great relish by HRH, Gen Khaled bin Sultan in his scintillating book ‘Desert Warrior’ which is presented in the paragraphs that follow:

The General says (about Gulf War 1991) that of all the weapons in Saddam’s arsenal, the only one to give the coalition a headache was the Scud, an inaccurate (perhaps wayward), Soviet built SSM (Surface to Surface Missile). It was ironical that the Coalition’s high-tech wizardry was unable fully to suppress this old-fashioned weapon. The Iraqi versions of the Scud with stretched ranges and a smaller payload had a CEP (Circular Error Probability) of over 3000 yards. It was more of a terror weapon and not a precision military tool.

To counter Scud, the Coalition had Raytheon’s ‘Patriot’ which was readied somewhat late and reached the Kingdom sometime between August and December 1990. Saddam had used some 200 Scuds against Iran and Iran too had hit back with the same weapon but with standard Scud range. Earlier on the Egyptians had some Scuds only to add a footnote to the military history and these were fired five minutes after the ceasefire by Sadat in the Deversion area.

The General has thought that the ‘Scud Hunt’ operations were rightly considered as wasteful by Gen Horner the US Air Commander who thought Scuds as mere nuisance. Some 25 to 30 per cent air effort was devoted to ‘great Scud hunt’ which disrupted Horner’s strategic air missions. The General remarks “Thus a handful of primitive Scuds, more of an irritant than a significant threat, managed to precipitate a political and military crisis and caused considerable tension between Washington and American field commanders on the ground.”

As far as dealing with the Scuds in flight, the US had arranged for twenty one, US Patriot batteries comprising no less than 132 launchers deployed at key sites in the Kingdom.

All the Scuds were fired at night, and many a Saudi rather eagerly watched the duels between the Scuds and the Patriots. In Riyadh the site was the Hyatt Regency Hotel which was the home of the international press and many a pressman and cameraman camped out at night on the flat roof of the hotel. These duels were really colourful. The Patriot had been developed as an anti-aircraft defence system against fast hostile aircraft, and anti-ballistic missile capability, was later added to the Patriot PAC-2 missiles.

There is much controversy, and even there had been an official US inquest about the real efficacy of Patriots in the Gulf War, 1991, but I suppose for pure promotional reasons much more potency than it really deserves has been attributed to the missile. The Israeli Chief of Staff during the Gulf War 1991 thought that Patriot’s success was ‘a myth’. Surprisingly Patriot in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proved comparatively more lethal than the batteries deployed in Israel.

Of course, there were casualties due to Scud attacks and it was towards the end of the war on 25 February 1991 that a Scud landed on US barracks in Dhahran killing 28 persons and wounding 100 more. The 26 men and 2 women were American reserve logisticians called up to staff water purification units. They had arrived in the Kingdom just a week earlier. “By a grisly coincidence, all 28 of the dead were from a small town in Pennsylvania, very near to Chareroi, home town of General Pagonis, the US logistic chief.

Finally to sum up just as the Scud was a weapon of terror, so the Patriot proved to be a weapon of comfort.

From the technical point of view the ‘Patriot’ Air Defence System is an important topic needing some more space and discussion. In fact other than the Israeli ‘Arrow’, about which is known but little much is available about ‘Patriot’. I had the good fortune of knowing one Dr Warren Donneley, a specialist in energy matters in the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and when I contacted him after the Gulf War 1991 about the performance of the ‘Patriot’ against Scud, he referred my request to Stevens A Hildreth, specialist in national defence who has co-authored with Paul C Zinmeister an appropriate CRS Report for the Congress (Revised June 18, 1991). Some of the more important details provided in this report regarding the ‘Patriot’ system may be found in the paragraphs that follow:

The US Army developed the ‘Patriot’ missile system to defend against high performance aircraft. In mid to-late 1980s the Army developed a modified version (‘Patriot’ ATM) to defend against tactical missiles including short range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and air to surface missiles. PAC-I mods involved software changes and PAC-2, hardware changes (new fuze and larger fragments for the warhead). The Patriot was used during the Gulf War in early 1991 to defend cities and sites in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Patriot’s success against Iraqi Scuds spawned conflicting claims who supported ‘Patriots’ and who didn’t, and the legislative history of Patriot ATM is not that simple. The ‘Patriot’ ATM has always been on the Army programme and has proved that BMD (Ballistic Missile Defence) can work although ‘Patriot’ has no connection with the famous SDI. It also sharpened Congress’s interest in the TBMD (Theatre Ballistic Missile Systems) being considered currently.

The ‘Patriot’ is an Army surface to air, mobile air defence missile system. It has been evolved since the mid-1960s to defend against medium to high altitude aircraft threat and cruise missiles, as well as more recently against short range ballistic missiles. The system is called Patriot PAC-I and Patriot PAC-2 (Patriot Anti-Tactical Missile Capability).

Raytheon Company, Lexington, MA designs and produces the ‘Patriot’. Martin Marietta, Orlando, FL is the principal subcontractor, assembling the missile for Raytheon from components produced by other subcontractors. A ‘Patriot’ fire unit is a configuration of the following parts:

8 missile launchers (typically), each of which has 4 missiles (factory sealed in canisters), and 4 reload missiles, for each launcher, for a total of 64 missiles.

A ground based phased array radar for surveillance, target detection, tracking and target engagement;

An Engagement Control Station, manned by Army personnel to provide either manual or automated command and control of the system; and,

Communications equipment and an electrical power generator.

The system typically operates as a battalion, with each battalion of six fire units (or batteries), which operate together and share target information. Each fire unit can by itself defend area upto 50 square miles. A battalion operates, like normal artillery under the control of a FDC (Fire Distribution Centre.)
The largest subcontractors included such names as Morton Thiokol Inc; Oshkosh Truck Corps, Allied Bendix Aerospace, Hewlett Packard Co and Kaiser Aerospace Electronics. Siemens AG is the principal German Contractor, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan is a licensed producer of the missile.

Notionally, see diagramme the Patriot intercepts an attacking (hostile) missile in the manner as shown in the diagramme. The Phased Array radar sees the hostile missile and tracks it. The Computer system sets priorities for ‘Patriot’ intercepts during the latter part of the attacking missile’s flight. News accounts of the Persian Gulf War, 1991 indicate that US early warning satellites and possibly early warning aircraft alerted ‘Patriot’ fire units of a possible Iraqi Scud attack. The ‘Patriot’ System cannot track and target the incoming missile, until it comes within the system’s radar’s line of sight about 100 miles out. The ground computers update the ‘Patriot’ missile’s guidance towards the end of the flight. The Patriot’s Proximity fuze explodes when an attacking missile comes in close to the ‘Patriot’ missile, resulting in damage or destruction of the intended target.

I suppose the ultimate evaluation of the performance of ‘Patriot’ system against Iraqi Scuds during the Gulf War, 1991 has yet to be done. Although efforts have been made in this direction, there appears to be a real conflict between the sales i.e. promotional aspects of the ‘Patriot’, and its real efficacy. Some of the more pertinent points are discussed here. Two major conclusions can be reached without much fuss:

First, during the war, while Israel, Saudi Arabia and US forces were under attack by Iraqi Scuds, there was widespread enthusiasm over ‘Patriot’s tactical and strategical successes and,

Second, after the war, there has been greater circumspection over ‘Patriot’s’ tactical successes.
A brief analysis of the above points will be found in the paragraphs that follow. There has been some searching inquiries but their proceedings are a bit too lengthy for a short presentation like this.

The Iraqis reportedly launched some 85 Scuds towards military and civilian targets in Saudi Arabia and Israel. ‘Patriot’ missiles deployed to defend these targets intercepted 45 of the 47 Scuds they engaged. One Scud successfully penetrated Patriot defences, hitting a US military barrack in Dhahran and killed 28 US service personnel. 13 were fired at Israel before ‘Patriot’ fire units were in place, and ready for operation. The remaining were not attacked by ‘Patriots’ because they were heading towards open unpopulated or undefended areas.

On the whole it appeared that ‘Patriot’ had served to “save numerous lives. Although the Iraqi missile attacks were considered ‘militarily ineffective’ by the senior US Military Command, the potential for large civilian casualties was great ... In addition, ‘Patriot’ seemed to contribute significantly to keeping Israel out of the war, and keeping the Allied coalition together....”

With the end of the war, more facts have filtered and the story of ‘Patriot’s’ tactical success has become very complicated, though there has been virtually no debate over ‘Patriot’s’ successful strategic contribution in keeping Israel out of war.

It is being claimed and reported that while 89 per cent of Iraqi Scuds directed against Saudi Arabia were intercepted, only 44 per cent of the warheads were intercepted in Israel. See Rep. Aspin, Les Understanding Technology on the Battlefield: Lessons of Desert Storm for a defence that works. Speech before the American Institute of Aeronautics. May 1, 1992 p-2.

US Congress in addition has heard testimony that the use of ‘Patriots’ to intercept Scuds coming into Israel resulted in more damage than would have occurred from the Scuds alone, See Aspinp-I (above para.)

Apparently, there are several reasons for poor performance of ‘Patriots’ in Israel. Although the decision to transfer two ‘Patriot’ fire units had been taken by the end of September 1990, these units were not in place until after Iraq had fired 11 Scuds into Israel. See ‘Washington Post’ January 25, 1991 p A29. Apparently the delay was due to Israeli insistence that these units be manned by Israeli military personnel, despite the US offers to provide American military support in the interim period while Israeli crew were trained.

And then again, Israel apparently decided it wanted fewer ‘Patriot’ fire units than was deemed necessary by some US analysts prior to the war. Surely, the Israeli crew were definitely undertrained on the new equipment to reap its full tactical benefits. Yet, another aspect is that only a limited number of PAC-2 missiles were available, and the two fire units could only cover limited area.

It is also pertinent to note that the Israelis adopted the manual operation rather than the automatic mode. And “in some cases, delays from firing manually may have caused a few ‘Patriots’ missiles to intercept Scuds close to the ground or to follow Scuds into the ground, perhaps increasing the level of damage. In other cases, Israeli operators used the manual override to attack Scuds headed towards areas beyond the ‘Patriots’ zone of high kill probability.”

It is also brought out that the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) criteria for a successful intercept is somewhat different than the US and Saudi criteria. And also when the Scuds were fired towards dense population areas, as was the case in Israel, the debris from ‘Patriot’ intercept may have also caused real damage.

So here we are, in one sense the missile defence could possibly work and on the other hand the analysis indicates that the missile defences may well leak.