60 Minutes - GHWB (Carlyle group) lied about the Patriot Missile's success

:D

...and like the war on drugs and terrorism...it's just an easy way to launder money to defense/energy contractors and campaign supporters via executive order and legislation.

they just interviewed the father of a Navy pilot who was SHOT DOWN by two Patriots on his way back to the Kitty Hawk.

mistakenly painting our own aircraft appears to be a systemic problem.

Joseph Cirinicione (same Carnegie guy), who studied the Patriot, said of the 44 engagements during GWI, "maybe two to four" of the claimed 40+ hits were actually successful

they discussed how, during the 90s, it was very difficult to get Patriots from locking onto friendly aircraft during testing designed to work out the bugs

problem has never been fixed, and we're selling them to other countries

Maybe this is what actually happened to flight 800. That crash was studied for a very long time and the "experts" came up with some cock and bull story about the gas tank and electrical wiring although nothing had ever gone wrong with that section of that particular model before and we've never heard of such a thing since.

Also, remember when a CNN "news" broadcast showed the Patriot "succeding" during the first Gulf War but the film turned out to be a Pentagon production that showed the army's tests. Well, they were always lying then too.

And maybe Gadaffi is just taking the blame for Lockerbie to get sanctions off his country when it was really a Patriot missile.

Never did buy the fuel tank story, read "First Strike" there seems to be a lot of coverup.

The Navy was out in the Long Island sound playing war games. That has been confirmed too. Interesting.

It seems that 49 Patriots were fired by US forces in the Persian Gulf and 39 were fired from Israel by the Israelis. At the time, we were were told that the Patriots were 99% effective. HAHA!

The 60 Minutes piece was good overall, but I noticed they carefully conditioned their claim that 2 to 4 were "succesful."

In Persian Gulf War II, the Patriot also shot down a British Tornado fighter-bomber, killing the 2 pilots. (It was mentioned in the 60 Minutes piece).

they get the tax cuts and the income.

get some serious time for their criminal acts. I have NEVER been so disgusted in my life!

He ought to get a big "I told you so" out of this news. And perhaps a big apology from rightwingers questioning his national security credentials? Nah!

on the woman put in lawsuit with bush raping her.

interesting to say the least

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

been talking a lot lol, so not feeling too too newbie. ah what a wonderful place this is and obsessive i am becoming, wink.

:toast:

Gillispeepee said they would assault _____'s record, he could slam it right back in their faces.

this report disgusted me. i hadn't thought about hating poppy recently, but he was the sperm donor for Bab's toxic spawn.

LIES and DEATH: The Business of "America's Family"

Was even in Newsweek back during King George I's reign.

and I have seen more than enough home made videos of the system working, and the debris on the ground afterwards. This, coupled with trusting him as a friend (he has complained about alot of other equipment in the military he's used in the past) is just a good re-enforcing lesson for me to not believe everything I read on the internet, or watch on TV for that matter.

Those friendly fire incidents were unfortunate, but whether someone has their finger on the trigger of a rifle, or fire button for a missile system, friendly fire is a part of every conflict.

Patriot System is effective in combat and only kills a few of our guys.

WOW. I was almost believing the 60 minutes investigative report. Thanks for the tip.

bush* was not AWOL, so stop saying that!

Patriot operators as well, and they're also tired of this system being harped on by people who don't know what the hell they're talking about.

people who know some people who know some people who swear that the Bradley fighting vehicle is the best piece of military hardware to come down the pike since, well, the Osprey (OK, it preceded it, but you get the point)

I trust them MUCH more than I do the report by Ciricincione

and spare us the BS about the IFF not functioning properly......they dealt with that in the story. Radar operators were apparently helpless to unlock the patriots once they started painting targets incorrectly

and tell that to the father whose son was shot down on his way BACK from the mission

those who mentioned this as an old story are correct, but the current propping up of this boondoggle, as well as the sales of another FUBARed weapons system is just another instance of the MI complex fattening itself up on the public dole

talk about welfare queens

and for you defenders of the system, PLEASE provide proof of the system's accuracy during the first Gulf War

I have two Army buddies of mine that work in Air Defense Artillery and who've been with the Patriot system for several years. And they're getting tired of bullshit reporting like this.

I just went thru the whole story again, in case I missed it the first time, and IFF isn't mentioned once. So I don't know what you're talking about there. If a proper IFF signal had been received then those targets wouldn't have been painted as possible hostiles. Period. I think the problem is reflected in this statement:

“There was no way that Patriot system should have still been up and running, targeting aircraft. They should have stood down, knowing that they had a fatal problem on their hands,” says former Congressional investigator Joseph Cirincione.

You don't have the OPTION of standing down a weapons system like that when you're actively engaging targets. And the Patriot batteries were shooting down missiles, something no other system in the world can do. Statements like these show a disconnect with the realities of the situation. "Well, I think we've got a problem with the Patriot, let's take it offline and leave ourselves with absolutely no air defense."

The system is automatic for a reason. Often there's very little time to track and engage targets, and that problem is multiplied if you've got several inbound missiles or aircraft. The system is designed to be the most effective air defense possible. And like any other system designed by human beings, it's going to fail sometimes.

I don't think there is any evidence as to there accuracy in the GWI because nobody really knows. The Army released all those statements claiming kills because they thought it had worked. But the missile intercept technology was new and the Scud was a bastard missile design. Conventional SAMS explode a distance away from a target, which is good enough to kill something as fragile as an aircraft. Missile warheads are a different story. The Scud was so inaccurate that you couldn't tell whether the missile had gotten thru or if the Patriot had hit it without destroying the warhead. It's just not that black and white.

As far as the Bradleys and Ospreys go, I haven't seen much in the way of complaints about the Bradleys. I have, however, seen several 40 year old Sea Knights go down, which makes a pretty good case that a replacement is needed.

and that's GREAT about its lack of human input....why don't we get Dr. Strangelove to do a little work on it?

btw, your cred has hit a HUGE wall there, regarding the Bradley

Bradley is a gigantic boondoggle, a joke so widespread they made a fricking MOVIE about it, a case study in DOD venality

you're such an expert, ask some friends of your friends, or better yet, do a bit of reading

I remember when it was still in development, it was sent back time after time for retooling, each "improvement" making it more worthless

there was a thread about this nonfighting deathtrap vehicle right here at DU, in which some people who knew of what they spoke were VERY familiar with the myriad complaints regarding this POS, including its malfuncioning door, its inability to cross water, its underpowered gun, its SEVERE lack of armor, just name a few off the top of my head.

and they're not complaining about the Bradleys.

I think you'll recall hearing what a boondoggle the M-16 was, and the M-9, and how the Abrams was way too heavy and ate way too much gas to ever be an effective MBT, and how the Strykers are a piece of crap, and how vulnerable the underarmored AH-64's are, yatta yatta ad infinitum....we must have the biggest POS equipped Army in the world! Good God, it's amazing that anyone who operates any of those weapons systems is even alive, much less part of the most powerful military the world has ever seen!

AAR from Task Force 1-64 Armor:

"Tanks and Bradleys repeatedly sustained hits from RPG's and ground directed anti aircraft fire that dismounted infantrymen, HMMWVs and other light skinned vehicles could not sustain. Bradleys successfully protected the infantrymen inside while at the same time delivering a massive volume of fire against dismounted enemy, trucks, tanks, and armored vehicles. The firepower and shock generated by tanks and Bradleys could never have been matched by dismounted infantry. Without the use of these systems initially, the enemy would have caused many more casualties."

Another AAR:

"In early april my Troop, A TRP 3-7CAV, seized OBJ Montgomery. My scout platoon combined with a tank platoon seized the intersection of HWY 1 and 10. At around 3am we came in contact with 10 T-72 and 20 BMP-1 and 2s, 3 MTLBs and approx. 150 dismounts. We destroyed all the enemy vehicles as they attacked us in 2 waves. My Bradley's are responsable for 90% of the vehicles destroyed. The Brad's killed all the T-72s and every single one of the M919 rounds pentrated the frontal armor. The Brads had such a higher kill ratio due to rate of fire, location on the battlefield, and faster target acquisition."

Yessir, looks like a gigantic boondoggle to me.

Unlike my trusted firsthand reference.

The Bradley had problems early on, but like Patriot, has had alot of improvements over the years. No weapon is perfect, but I'm glad we have Patriots and Bradleys, not Scuds and T-72's.

I guess the x-perts on 60 minutes didn't know what they were talking about. A missile in every pot...that's the American promise!

re the two obvious factual errors in the first three paras. "Experts", they ain't.

that there are two factual errors in the first three paras, one of which is directly contradicted by the article itself, I wouldn't take this report too seriously.

"In the Pentagon's multi-billion dollar arsenal of weapons, one weapon the government has already spent more than $6 billion on has not only had trouble doing what it was designed to do --bring down enemy missiles -- it also does something it was not designed to do.

That weapon is the Patriot missile system. And the thing it’s not supposed to do is bring down friendly aircraft.

The Patriot was originally built nearly 40 years ago to shoot down aircraft. But just before the 1991 Gulf War, its manufacturer, Raytheon, modified the Patriot to shoot down tactical ballistic missiles."

Firstly, the Patriot was not designed to shoot down cruise or ballistic missiles. It was designed to kill aircraft, which the story acknowledges in the third para. The anti missile features were a late modification prior to GWI. The PAC-3 version with it's hit-to-kill warhead WAS designed with the defeat of missiles in mind, and didn't have any trouble bringing down any missiles this time around.

The MIM-104 Patriot was built 40 years ago? Nonsense. The Patriot entered service in 1985.

http://www.army.mil/fact_files_site/patriot/

It replaced the Hawk. 40 years ago we're talking Nike Hercules systems; ancient.

And fracticide is a certainty of war. That doesn't mean that we don't do everything we can to reduce it, but it's still part of the landscape. IFF (Identify Friend/Foe) technology is still kinda spotty, and the article doesn't say anything about the IFF transceivers on the aircraft which were shot down. Sure, there were probably software problems. I'm sure it'll be addressed. But the article makes it sound like the whole system is a waste, and that's not at all true. If we actually had an air threat that would be obvious.

I don't doubt that there are aspects of the system which need improving. But this article is a piece of crap.

You can slay the messenger but the message is clear!

During the war in Iraq. You see a missile streaking overhead from the north, then you see the Patriots fire towards them and the explosion above. Quite a sight and you can bet we were thankful the Patriot batteries worked much better than during the first gulf war. The only problem is that they sometimes worked a little too well as documented by the blue-on-blue hits. :-(

is NOT a great system. Period.

And how many things did a Patriot hit that weren't real targets?

However, who knows how many lives were saved due to the 9 times that the Patriot system did intercept incoming enemy missiles. Location of coalition bases in Kuwait were well-known and were definitely dialed in and there were several near misses (notably a French Silkworm anti-ship missile that malfunctioned and did not explode when it landed a 100 ft from Camp Commando - if it had, half the camp would have been destroyed). I, for one, believe that despite the shortcomings of the system, it probably saved more lives than it took.

It was hysterical. I hate Andy but tonight he was right on. He said God talks to him too and God told him to tell Fallwell he was an idiot. I didn't hear all of the stuff about Gibson. Did anyone else hear it?

-snip

I hadn't wanted to say anything about this, because it seemed like a personal matter, but Pat Robertson isn't the only one who has heard from God.

I heard from God just the other night. God always seems to call at night.

"Andrew," God said to me. He always calls me "Andrew." I like that.

"Andrew, you have the eyes and ears of a lot of people. I wish you'd tell your viewers that both Pat Robertson and Mel Gibson strike me as wackos. I believe that's one of your current words. They're crazy as bedbugs, another earthly expression. I created bedbugs. I'll tell you, they're no crazier than people,” said God.

Here's the link to his whole monologue:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/19/60minutes/rooney/main601254.shtml

It was hilarious

no collateral damage occur, no civilians get killed/maimed nor their homes damaged/destroyed. We are the good guys and smart weapons are the zenith of our humanity and caring.

...you'd know that!

I remember them tracking the Patriots: going up, then pitching over and diving into the ground. Only the collossal ignorance of the press pool kept them from realizing that it's not supposed to do that! They even filmed debris in the streets that looked more like what was left of a Patriot than a scud. And GHWB went off to a Raytheon factory and said it's success rate was 100% HA!

As an anti-missile system, being a "SCUD-buster" isn't so much a badge of merit as it is a minimum requirement -- if it ain't a scud-buster, it's just expensive scrap metal.

And the Patriot isn't a scud-buster.

ON EDIT: I'm referring to the Patriot in its role as an anti-missile system, where it's accuracy and effectiveness were puffed up in the extreme. Can't speak as to its AA effectiveness.

We didn't know just how much the Busheviks lied back then. Now we know.

They lie about EVERYTHING.