CNN: PATRIOTS SAVED ALLIED HQ

“The Iraqi mil­i­tary came within sec­onds of pos­si­bly wip­ing out the head­quar­ters of the coali­tion ground forces with a mis­sile on March 27,” CNN reports. “The mis­sile was inter­cepted and destroyed by a U.S. Patriot mis­sile shortly before it could have hit its tar­get.“
The short range, rel­a­tively slow al-​​Samoud mis­sile was launched toward Camp Doha in Kuwait from just north of Basra.

An analy­sis of the Iraqi missile’s tra­jec­tory by the U.S. Army’s air defense unit showed it would have landed on or near the build­ing hous­ing the Coalition Forces Land Component Command oper­a­tions cen­ter and war room.
The mis­sile was launched dur­ing the mid­dle of the command’s morn­ing bat­tle­field update, a time when ground forces com­man­der Lt. Gen. David McKiernan and other top offi­cers were in the build­ing.
A U.S. mis­sile bat­tery crew based across the street from Camp Doha fired two Patriot mis­sile at the Iraqi al-​​Samoud. One inter­cepted it…
Just min­utes after the Iraqi attack, the air defense com­mand was able to plot the loca­tion of the Iraqi launch site and two A-​​10 Thunderbolts already in the Basra area destroyed the mis­sile battery. 

May 30th, 2003 | Uncategorized | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.