Expert: Anti-missile rocket cache needs to be bulked up
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is working to solve problems with its most advanced anti-missile rockets and increase production so the newest Patriots will succeed where their predecessors didn't in destroying Iraqi Scuds, the Missile Defense Agency chief said Thursday.
Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish said the United States has only about 40 of its most advanced Patriot missiles to defend against short-range ballistic and cruise missiles. Experts suspect Iraq alone has several times that many Scud and other short-range missiles, which could be topped with chemical or biological warheads.
Earlier versions of the Patriot missile failed to stop deadly Iraqi Scud attacks against Israel and U.S. positions in Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War. The latest Patriot is meant to overcome those shortcomings, but a round of operational tests this year ended with many of the rockets failing to fire or missing their targets.
Kadish said the problems have been fixed and the Pentagon needs many more of the advanced Patriots to counter threats from North Korea, Iran and Libya as well as Iraq.
The main contractors on the latest Patriot, known as Patriot Advanced Capability 3, can make two of the rockets per month, Kadish said. The Pentagon hopes to speed up that process, but doing so will take time, he said.
"My recommendation is to buy PAC-3s as fast as we are able to buy them," Kadish told reporters. Outside experts estimate each rocket costs about $2.7 million, although that cost drops as the production increases.
Congress already has approved increasing PAC-3 production, adding $50 million to the $622 million the Pentagon originally requested for the program for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. Pentagon officials have told Congress they plan to shift another $120 million from other missile defense programs to the PAC-3.
Kadish called this year's PAC-3 test problems "extremely annoying" and said they included improper soldering of electronic components.
"I am very confident we have those problems fixed," Kadish said. The PAC-3 missiles already manufactured have been retrofitted to fix the problems, he said.
The PAC-3 missile is designed to shoot down cruise missiles and ballistic missiles with a range of 620 miles or less.
Those include the Scud missiles that Iraq used a decade ago during the Gulf War. The United States believes Saddam Hussein still has up to two dozen of them. Iraq also has an unknown number of missiles with ranges of 95 miles or less. Iraq was allowed to continue making them under U.N. sanctions imposed after the Gulf War.
Iraq's shortest-range missiles can easily hit Kuwait, where thousands of U.S. troops are massing in preparation for a possible invasion.
The United States has batteries of Patriot II missiles in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region, but some Pentagon planners worry there aren't enough Patriots stationed there to shoot down all the missiles Iraq has. The United States has nearly 500 Patriot batteries and thousands of the missiles but they are spread widely around the globe.
Israel, hit by 39 Iraqi Scuds during the Gulf War, also has Patriot missile batteries, plus stocks of the Arrow anti-missile system developed with the United States. The United States has pledged to help defend Israel against Iraqi missile strikes in case of a war to topple Saddam, possibly including supplying more anti-missile weapons to Israel.
