Patriot in Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003)
Patriot was deployed to Iraq a second time in 2003, this time to provide air and missile defence for the forces conducting Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Patriot PAC-3, GEM, and GEM+ missiles both had a very high success rate intercepting Al-Samoud 2 and Ababil-100 tactical ballistic missiles. However, no longer-range ballistic missiles were fired during that conflict. The systems were stationed in Kuwait and successfully destroyed a number of hostile surface-to-surface missiles using the new PAC-3 and guidance enhanced missiles. Patriot missile batteries were involved in three friendly fire incidents, resulting in the downing of a Royal Air Force Tornado and the death of both crew members, Flight Lieutenant David Rhys Williams and Flight Lieutenant Kevin Barry Main, on 23 March 2003. On 24 March 2003, a USAF F-16CJ Fighting Falcon fired a HARM at a Patriot Missile Battery after being locked on. No one was injured but the Patriot Missile Battery was damaged. On 2 April 2003, 2 PAC-3 missiles shot down a USN F/A-18 Hornet killing US Navy Lieutenant Nathan D. White of VFA-195, Carrier Air Wing Five.
Read more about this topic: MIM-104 Patriot
Famous quotes containing the words patriot, operation, iraqi and/or freedom:
““My country, right or wrong” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying “My mother, drunk or sober.””
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Waiting for the race to become official, he began to feel as if he had as much effect on the final outcome of the operation as a single piece of a jumbo jigsaw puzzle has to its predetermined final design. Only the addition of the missing fragments of the puzzle would reveal if the picture was as he guessed it would be.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“I will cut the head off my baby and swallow it if it will make Bush lose.”
—Zainab Ismael, Iraqi housewife. As quoted in Newsweek magazine, p. 31 (November 16, 1992)
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)