The Great Scud Hunt

By Mark Thompson/Washington

U.N. arms inspectors in their Toyota Land Cruisers paid a visit last week to a company called al-Nidaa in the Baghdad suburb of Zafaraniyah. This was the place where Iraq once manufactured its modified Scud missile, al-Hussein, one of the most potent tools in its arsenal. The weapon has been forbidden to Baghdad since the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire, and the Iraqis claim these days that al-Nidaa makes only metal molds and tools. But the inspectors, armed with 1,240 unrevealing pages on missile programs that were part of Baghdad's recent accounting to the U.N., made their own inquiries, snooping around al-Nidaa and five other missile-related facilities. At one, the inspectors were treated to a test launch of a short-range missile arranged by the Iraqis to prove the device fell within the U.N.-permitted limit of 93 miles. "Of course, we have no Scud missiles, absolutely," General Hussam Mohammed Amin, Iraqi disarmament chief, told reporters. "And this fact is valid since the summer of 1991, O.K.?"

Well, not really. U.S. intelligence believes that Iraq possessed some two dozen hidden Scuds when the previous team of U.N. inspectors left the country in 1998; missile experts say that with proper maintenance they should work fine. Since then, Baghdad may have bought or built more. Media attention has focused on the risks posed by Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear capacities, but those dangers are multiplied if Iraq can arm missiles with these weapons and strike its neighbors at arm's length. In the 1991 conflict, Iraq did not fire missiles tipped with chemical or biological agents. But if the U.S. battles Iraq again, this time with the stated aim of removing President Saddam Hussein from power, as President Bush has threatened, intelligence analysts fear that Saddam, with nothing left to lose, will unleash his most pernicious arms. If he's got missiles and the U.N. doesn't find them first, that could expose not only U.S. troops but also millions of civilians in the region to Saddam's vengeance.

No group is more vulnerable than the Israelis. Iraq lobbed 42 Scuds at Israel during the Gulf War. Only one Israeli was killed by a missile, though 15 died of heart attacks, suffocation in their gas masks or reaction to a chemical-weapon antidote that some took in a panic. Pentagon planners are worried that in a new war, if Saddam again hits Israel with missiles--wishing to ignite a wider conflict that would pit Muslim nations against the U.S. and Israel--Washington would be unable to convince the Israeli government, as it did in 1991, that it should refrain from retaliating. If Israel launched a counterstrike, U.S. officials fear, America's Arab allies would find it difficult to align with Washington.

Thus Pentagon officials, who have little confidence that U.N. inspectors will unearth any illicit Iraqi missiles, have poured energy into devising ways to neutralize the Scud threat. Their plans involve putting Scud-hunting commandos on the ground fast, deploying improved technologies for detecting and destroying Scud launchers and missiles--even after they are shot--and shortening the chain of command for anti-Scud operations. Still, a recent independent review concluded that these efforts would probably fall short, which suggests that Iraq's Scuds could again be a complicating factor in any new war.

The last time around, the U.S. military's inability to defeat the Scuds turned out to be its biggest failure in the war. In 1991 the U.S. dedicated 2,493 missions to what came to be called the "Great Scud Hunt." But it did not score one confirmable kill against a mobile missile or its launcher in Iraq--though it did destroy what turned out to be a few fuel trucks as well as some East German decoys that looked like the real thing. Scuds caused not only mayhem in Israel during the month the missiles rained down on Tel Aviv but also the deaths of 28 U.S. troops whose barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, were demolished by a Scud. Those 28 accounted for a fifth of all U.S. deaths in the war. Part of the problem was that in the beginning, Norman Schwarzkopf, the U.S. Army general who ran the war, underestimated the Scud. After all, the crude, 40-ft. Soviet-designed missile, which is in the arsenals of some 25 nations, has a bull's-eye a mile across. Schwarzkopf called it a "mosquito" that was "clumsy and obsolete." He resisted sending commandos into Iraq to hunt down the Scuds.

Schwarzkopf's intelligence about the missile was poor. Before the 1991 war, the U.S. believed that the crew of the 45-ton, Soviet-made truck that carries and launches the Scud would require half an hour to disassemble the launch gear and leave the scene after shooting. That would allow a fair amount of time for U.S. military satellites equipped with heat sensors to detect the flash of the launch and provide coordinates to allied aircraft that could move in for the kill. The Iraqi crews, however, were not following the Soviet owner's manual the U.S. was relying on; they had found ways to cut corners and were fleeing in as little as six minutes, scooting into caves or culverts where they could not be seen. Intensive U.S. bombing--including nightly B-52 strikes on suspected Scud routes--reduced but did not stop the launches.

This time the U.S. has some better ideas about where to find Scud launchers. Israeli special forces belonging to a unit called Shaldag (Hebrew for "Kingfisher") have been conducting reconnaissance missions in western Iraq, looking for likely launch sites that are near good hiding places. Israeli intelligence has identified for the U.S. these possible launch areas as well as the best elevated positions from which to keep track of them. Washington has promised Israel that U.S. commandos would be sent into western Iraq in the war's opening minutes to hunt down the Scud systems and call in air strikes to destroy them.

Those assurances are largely politically motivated because, in reality, there's a limited chance that commandos would come across Scud teams in the vastness of the Iraqi desert. Another resource for spotting Scud teams before they have shot a missile is the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (J-STARS) airplane, which was used experimentally in 1991. J-STARS scours the ground like an AWACS scours the skies, keeping track of things that move.

Still, the easiest way to catch a Scud launcher is after it has fired. Satellites help, but in a new conflict, the U.S. would also have new tools like the Battlefield Ordnance Awareness system, which detect the flash of missile firings on the ground from spy planes flying high above Iraq. Instead of funneling intelligence back to the U.S.--as had to be done in the Gulf War--new systems would give commanders in the region direct access to information, enabling them, for instance, to guide warplanes to any exposed Scuds. The idea is to shorten what the Pentagon calls the "kill chain"--the time taken between finding a target and destroying it. One novel option for eliminating Scud systems is the newly armed Predator drone. The Predator can loiter over the desert for a day, far longer than a manned warplane.

Would the new technologies give the U.S. all the edge it would need? General John Jumper, Air Force chief of staff, says he's "very" confident that the U.S. could do a better job of killing Scuds in a second Gulf War. But a study by the Rand Corp. earlier this year concluded that the U.S. Air Force still can't detect and destroy a Scud within 10 minutes, whereas the Iraqis can flee in six. Efforts to kill mobile Scuds "will continue to be relatively ineffective" until improved reconnaissance systems are developed, according to the Rand report. Myron Hura, one of its authors, says Saddam could erase any U.S. advantage from the past 11 years of technological improvement by deploying more decoys and hiding his real Scuds in populated areas or near mosques and schools. "It remains a tough challenge," says Hura.

If the U.S. can't destroy Scud systems before or after they launch, there is one more line of defense--intercepting the missiles as they come in. The technology for that mission has improved since 1991 too. With U.S. financial and technical help, the Israelis have built, at a cost of $2 billion, an antimissile system called the Arrow. Though it is new and untested in combat, the Israelis estimate that the Arrow could destroy 9 of every 10 incoming Scuds. It is designed to destroy missiles at a higher altitude (25 to 60 miles) than the system used in 1991, the U.S. Patriot (which can kill an incoming missile as close as two miles away). Plus, the explosion high in the atmosphere would spew the biological or chemical weapons over a wider area, perhaps rendering them ineffective.

Israel will still use the U.S.-supplied Patriot, linking that system to the Arrow to provide a two-layered defense. If the Arrow missed an incoming Scud, the lower-aiming Patriot would get a chance to shoot it down. The Patriots stationed in Israel are an improved version of the same design that failed to destroy nearly all the Scuds it targeted in the last Gulf War. Israeli officials are confident the improved Patriots would perform better in a second conflict. But just in case some Scuds would succeed in piercing the dual shields, Israel is providing its citizens with gas masks.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is spending $12 billion developing a new generation of Patriots. The original Patriot was designed to destroy airplanes and was drafted to shoot down missiles only in the heat of the Gulf War. Unlike the older Patriot, which destroys its target by blowing up as it passes by, the new Patriot destroys its target by crashing into it. The Pentagon, eyeing a possible war with Iraq, recently decided to boost production of the new Patriot, each of which costs $10 million.

In its ongoing effort to improve its Scud-killing abilities, the U.S. Air Force last month launched a pair of Scuds--which it secretly obtained from an unspecified Warsaw Pact nation--from American soil for the first time. The firings, from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base out over the Pacific Ocean, were witnessed by U.S. and Israeli defense officials. Sensors on the missiles as well as aboard nearby ships and planes tracked the trajectory of the Scuds. "Because the new Patriot is 'hit to kill,' we need very accurate data on Scud performance," a Pentagon official said.

U.S. military officials say the stakes in any anti-Scud campaign would be high. While Saddam may have few missiles in his quiver, he might in a future campaign have the motivation--and ability--to load them with devastating chemical warheads. U.S. intelligence isn't sure why he didn't do this last time. Perhaps he was convinced by hints that Washington might retaliate with nuclear weapons. Or his engineers might have been unable to perfect the sophisticated fuse needed to spread a cloud of sarin or VX gas half a mile wide, a lethal fog capable of killing thousands of people in its path. Such devices--used to trigger car air bags--are now common. --With reporting by Azadeh Moaveni/Cairo and Matt Rees and Aharon Klein/Jerusalem

With reporting by Azadeh Moaveni/Cairo and Matt Rees and Aharon Klein/Jerusalem