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No Missiles Will Fall on Israel Again

(Jerusalem Post) - Yehuda Avner Col. John Caldwell served with the 82nd Airborne Division during the 1991 Gulf War, and had commanded squads of Scud-hunting commandos to scour Iraq's western desert in search of the mobile missile batteries. "The Great Scud Hunt" turned out to be a fiasco due, largely, to abysmal intelligence. Apart from knocking out a few cunningly fabricated decoys, the 2,493 missions dedicated to the anti-Scud operation failed to score a single confirmable kill. When asked to explain his pledge that no Scud missiles will rain down again on Israel, he replied, "Schwarzkopf [the then commander-in-chief] made the greatest mistake of that war by refusing to invest the necessary assets to neutralize the Scud threat from the start. This time, before the Iraqis will know what has hit them, our commandos will be swarming all over western Iraq. With the help of Israeli special forces we have already mapped out their likely launching sites, hiding places, and elevations. We can call in air strikes instantly. We also have vastly improved reconnaissance systems. And if, by chance, one of Saddam's few remaining Scuds is launched, the chances of their penetrating our Patriot shield and your Arrow shield are virtually nil."
2003-01-30 00:00:00
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