During the first Iraq war, the partiot missiles was presented as a great success that prevented Israel and Saudi Arabia to be hit by Scud missiles. The facts was very different.
Not a single Patriot missile manage to hit a Scud during that war, partly because of the bug mentioned in the article and because anti missile defence is really hard.
The reason the Scud missiles did not do more damage, was that Iraq had modified them to extend their range, and this modification made them unstable, and thus their accuracy really poor, so that they would almost certainly miss the target. On the other hand, as mentioned on the web page, one of the Patriot missiles that missed a Scud did hit something else, while the Scud itself missed.
All in all, the missile defence caused more damage than if no defence had been installed at all. This fact was only revealed several years later, and did not reach the headlines.
Not a single Patriot missile manage to hit a Scud during that war, partly because of the bug mentioned in the article and because anti missile defence is really hard.
The reason the Scud missiles did not do more damage, was that Iraq had modified them to extend their range, and this modification made them unstable, and thus their accuracy really poor, so that they would almost certainly miss the target. On the other hand, as mentioned on the web page, one of the Patriot missiles that missed a Scud did hit something else, while the Scud itself missed.
All in all, the missile defence caused more damage than if no defence had been installed at all. This fact was only revealed several years later, and did not reach the headlines.