It's been over a month, and we still haven't found any of Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction", but we do have some idea about the most devastating weapon in use against Coalition forces in our latest adventure: the Patriot Missile. The LA Times reports this morning that the Patriot, which is typically used to bolster the arguments of supporters of missile defense systems, is coming under scrutiny again after three separate "friendly fire" incidents:

The Patriot attacks on allied planes were particularly puzzling given that throughout the war, no Iraqi aircraft were aloft.

"Why were the Patriots even shooting at aircraft?" asked Philip Coyle, former assistant secretary of Defense and director of operational testing and evaluation for the Pentagon. "We ruled the skies in Iraq, so almost by definition any aircraft up there was either ours or British."

The Patriot system, designed in the 1970s to shoot down enemy aircraft, should have been able to distinguish between relatively slow-moving planes and speedy rockets fired by Iraqi forces, Coyle said.

"If they can't tell the difference between a missile and an airplane, then they need much more restrictive rules of engagement," he said.

The Pentagon claims that nine Iraqi missiles were shot down by the missile, which was revamped after the first Gulf War, but similar claims about its effectiveness were made last time as well, only to be later discredited.