"The Iraqi military came within seconds of possibly wiping out the headquarters of the coalition ground forces with a missile on March 27," CNN reports. "The missile was intercepted and destroyed by a U.S. Patriot missile shortly before it could have hit its target."
The short range, relatively slow al-Samoud missile was launched toward Camp Doha in Kuwait from just north of Basra.
An analysis of the Iraqi missile's trajectory by the U.S. Army's air defense unit showed it would have landed on or near the building housing the Coalition Forces Land Component Command operations center and war room.
The missile was launched during the middle of the command's morning battlefield update, a time when ground forces commander Lt. Gen. David McKiernan and other top officers were in the building.
A U.S. missile battery crew based across the street from Camp Doha fired two Patriot missile at the Iraqi al-Samoud. One intercepted it...
Just minutes after the Iraqi attack, the air defense command was able to plot the location of the Iraqi launch site and two A-10 Thunderbolts already in the Basra area destroyed the missile battery.
