Placebo defense: Operation desert mirage? The rhetoric of patriot missile accuracy in the 1991 Persian Gulf War∗

Gordon R. Mitchell is Assistant Professor of Communication and Director of Debate at the University of Pittsburgh, and is indebted to Thomas B. Farrell, G. Thomas Goodnight and David Zarefsky for ideas, comments, and reflections on early drafts of this work

Abstract

During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the apparent success of the Patriot missile defense system served as the official centerpiece of a rhetorical campaign to portray Operation Desert Storm as an unprecedented mission ushering in a new era of American military dominance based on technological superiority. Post‐war disclosures have not only cast serious doubt on Patriot's wartime performance, but have also exposed a widespread program of strategic deception employed by Pentagon officials to protect the fiction of Patriot's Gulf War wizardry. This essay explains how Gulf War audiences were misled, assesses the rhetorical windfall flowing from perceived Patriot effectiveness, and criticizes the Pentagon's campaign of strategic deception as normatively bankrupt.

Key words:

• Patriot
• Gulf War
• deception
• rhetoric (of science)
• postmoderism

Notes

Gordon R. Mitchell is Assistant Professor of Communication and Director of Debate at the University of Pittsburgh, and is indebted to Thomas B. Farrell, G. Thomas Goodnight and David Zarefsky for ideas, comments, and reflections on early drafts of this work