Military Pitchmen Took U.S. for Ride on ‘Smart’ Weapons

For Americans, the most memorable images of the Persian Gulf War probably were the grainy video pictures of “smart” bombs being guided precisely to their Iraqi targets in an apparent triumph of sophisticated military technology. Though accurate, it’s now apparent the pictures told only a part of the story. In a new report, the General Accounting Office, Congress’ investigatory arm, concludes that much of what the Pentagon and its weapons suppliers claimed about the weapons used in the air war against Iraq was “overstated, misleading, inconsistent with the best available data or unverifiable.” In other words, the reliability and effectiveness of some of the most expensive planes, missiles and bombs in the U.S. inventory were seriously oversold.

That was especially so, says the GAO report, when it came to praising the performance of the F-117 stealth fighter, cruise missiles and laser-guided bombs. These expensive weapons and delivery systems could not be described as generally more capable than the lower-cost planes and munitions also used against Iraqi targets, if only because imperfect bomb damage assessments made it impossible to say whether results were commensurate with costs. The major problem, says the GAO study, is that these weapons only functioned effectively in optimal conditions, and combat conditions are seldom optimal. GAO investigators interviewed more than 100 Gulf War pilots. They reported that infrared, electrooptical and laser systems used for guiding weapons to their targets were all “seriously degraded” by rain, clouds, fog, smoke and humidity.

The U.S. and its allies, of course, dominated the battlefield and inflicted heavy damage on Iraq and its military forces. But every war, even those that produce the most lopsided victories, contains important lessons for future conflicts. The Pentagon projects spending tens of billions of dollars in coming years on new precision weapons. Based on Gulf War experiences, says the GAO, “a reevaluation is warranted” regarding the effectiveness of guided munitions and whether less complex--and far cheaper--munitions might do just as well.

The Gulf War was one in which the flow of information about allied operations against Iraq was tightly controlled by U.S. military headquarters in Saudi Arabia. During the fighting, few American reporters had the chance to move about independently or to conduct interviews in the field without restraint. Censorship in wartime is defensible when security is demonstrably involved or where lives are at stake. It’s not defensible in a democracy when it’s used by officials to shade the truth or otherwise mislead the public. The GAO report made available this week, a brief unclassified summary of a 250-page classified study, leaves little doubt that information about the performance of some major, high-cost U.S. weapons was manipulated to give a distorted impression of how well they worked. So the whole truth was not told, nor was there any official rush after the war to fill in omissions. To do that took more than four years, and a push by Congress.