Posted on 01/16/2020 9:20:03 PM PST by Zhang Fei
In the early morning darkness of Jan. 8, several thousand U.S. troops huddled in Saddam Hussein-era bunkers in western Iraq as 11 ballistic missiles rained destruction on parts of the sprawling al Asad air base — Iran's promised "harsh revenge" for the killing of its top general, Qassem Soleimani, in a U.S. drone strike five days earlier.
The night sky lit up, and the bunkers shook as two waves of missiles struck over an hour and a half, sending a shockwave through the air and rattling some American troops who were above ground standing watch.
Even with the benefit of an advance warning of the attack, there was little the troops could do but duck and cover — and hope it would not be their day to die.
"All is well!" President Trump tweeted when the attack was over. "So far, so good! We have the most powerful and well-equipped military anywhere in the world, by far!"
But despite well over $350 billion spent in the past three decades, when they were most needed to protect U.S. forces and potentially prevent an escalation to all-out war, America's vaunted missile defenses were missing in action.
From the tours the military gave reporters two days later, it was clear that while a warning from the Iraqis gave the United States time to disperse its forces and lower the risk of casualties, the fact that no one died or suffered more than a concussion was also due in large part to sheer luck.
It was also apparent that there were no defenses against ballistic missiles protecting the U.S. troops at the base despite the rising tensions with and direct threats from Iran, which possesses a formidable arsenal of both ballistic and cruise missiles.
A request by the Washington Examiner for an explanation of
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Gee, all those “Should Trump be impeached?”
pop ups should have given you a clue about these cucks
I have an ad blocker, and it works. 8>)
We are all different I guess. The amount you open your eyes is much like breathing, one does what they do without much thought given to the act. 8>)
Interesting how everyone’s conclusion seems to be that it was luck when the administration had been predicting and forecasting the outcome for almost two weeks. I suppose the people doing the reporting do not have the same information as the admin has as to why decisions that were taken, were taken.
Bravo! Your analysis is correct.
But some blame lies with American non-voters who fail to vote those Democrats out of office.
This is a weak argument from them. “Missile shields” are designed mainly to protect in windows of expected attack against ICBMs or Scuds, but you cannot deploy enough “missile shields” to protect against MOBILE attacks in non-window targets.
Army personnel don’t tote around little anti-missile shields. These require tremendous computing power and radar. Ground units, except at the largest bases, won’t have this.
It's pretty amazing that all this money has been spent on research but so few systems have deployed, even in a front line area like Iraq, where random missile launches from Iran or its proxies are an issue.
Israel is a HELL of a lot smaller than Iraq!
And then there was FraudCo, who landed one of our drones in Iran FOR Iran, and handed over any other financial assets and personnel and materiel to Iran he could as well.
But hey, “It was theirs anyway”!
(Here, I’m absolutely sure I need the /s)
And yet these HYPOCRITS are now whining about some money to the Ukraine being DELAYED a bit!
Bingo; and the targets are fewer and LOTS smaller; too.
Pacifist sour grapes attempting to make apples out of Kiwi’s
Israel has a relatively small footprint to protect. The US, and all the places around the world we are positioned, orders of magnitude more.
Missile defense systems are limited in numbers due to costs, and they work in a subset of the attackers phases of flight and a relatively narrow geometry with respect to the attacking missile. A complete system, like Israels, has many layers, and you have to have a pretty good idea of the target and where the attack will come from.
This why a big part of our own US defense is centered around ship borne systems that can move to where the possible threat vector is. Land based systems have a harder time adjusting for different geographic threats and targets.
Awww...look at the cute little Deep Stater trying to bait Trump into attacking Iran to help his defense clients. How sweeeeet.
Al Jazeera America, NPR, CNN, WTOP
Tells me everything I need to know about the author.
Dose of realism necessary. ISIS has no modified SCUD or medium/short ranged solid fuel ballistic missiles. there fore appropriate countermissile batteries not necessary. For the occasional rocket/mortar requires different system - one that is not designed to defend against the missiles Iran launched and we can more easily defend against the occasional rocket/mortar without the expense of an iron dome style system - practical for Israel, but not practical for the numerous bases scattered over Iraq.
“They were deployed to protect military installations during Desert Storm.”
In Desert Storm, there was a very credible threat of widespread use of chemical WMDs by Saddam.
“if bunkers can do the job”
It looks like they did, once again.
Rocket fire against our troops in Iraq has been an ongoing threat, most of the time we have been there.
Early warning sensors, audible alarms and bunkers make casualties few and far between.
Good alliteration!
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