The Scud Hunters

A new serialized book by Scott Ritter, exclusively available on SubStack

The night of January 16-17, 2026 will mark the 35th anniversary of the start of Operation Desert Storm. Much has been written about that conflict, mostly focusing on the victory of a US-led coalition over Iraq, which at that time possessed the world’s fourth largest army and was fresh off a nearly eight-year war with Iran which saw Iraq emerge victorious, albeit at a heavy cost.

The strategic air campaign which the United States unleashed against Iraq was unprecedented in modern history, a masterpiece of operational art which saw Iraq’s ability to wage war degraded at every level through the application of air power that had been designed precisely for purpose during the decades of Cold War.

And the ground war, once it kicked off, lasted a mere 100 hours before Kuwait, the invasion and occupation of which by Iraq in August 1990 served as the justification for Desert Storm, liberated and the Iraqi army reeling in retreat.

But Operation Desert Storm had a third facet of conflict that has gone largely unexplored in the various memoirs and histories that emerged in the aftermath of the conflict—a missile war which saw Iraq launch nearly a hundred modified Soviet-made Scud missiles against targets in Israel and the Arabian peninsula. To the extent that the missile war has been covered in post-war literature, it has been in the context of promoting the effectiveness of US-made Patriot missile as a “Scud killer”, and the heroism of US pilots and US and British commandos in hunting down the Iraqi missile launchers that threatened Israel.

However, the truth tells a different story.

The US diverted thousands of aircraft away from their assigned duties as part of the Strategic Air Campaign to instead scour southern and western Iraq in search of elusive mobile Iraqi missile launchers, and scores of US and UK special operators were dispatched into the expanse of western Iraq to hunt the launchers and their crews.

Patriot missile batteries were deployed to Israel and the Persian Gulf in order to provide an umbrella of missile defense against those Iraqi missiles that managed to elude the net being cast by the US and its allies.

And yet, when the war ended, not a single Iraqi mobile missile launcher had been destroyed. Iraq was able to launch missiles against Israel and the Arabian peninsula up until the last days of the conflict. And it is highly unlikely that any of the Iraqi-modified Scud missiles that were launched were successfully intercepted by Patriot missiles.

In short, everything that has been written about the missile war during Operation Desert Storm is premised on lies and distortions.

These lies carried over into the post-conflict period where UN weapons inspectors were dispatched to Iraq to oversee the elimination of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs, inclusive of their indigenously modified Scud missiles.

But the lies of Desert Storm carried over to the work of the UN inspection teams, impacting their ability to attain a final accounting regarding the disposition of Iraq’s missile force. In many ways, the missile war did not end with the ceasefire that was agreed to in March 1990, but continued for several years as those who hunted the Iraqi missiles during the war worked hand in glove with the UN weapons inspectors to finish the job they had started. Throughout, Israel loomed dangerously in the background, threatening to break apart a US-led coalition that would not survive Israel actively aligning itself against Iraq during the conflict, and poised to intervene decisively once the war ended.

The Scud Hunt never really ended, with commandos, spies and inspectors searching for missiles and the ghosts of missiles up until the very end, when the US government, acting on the basis of the lies that had been told over the years, invaded Iraq in 2003.

The story of this Scud Hunt, and those who carried it out, has never been told before.

The Scud Hunters tells this story, in comprehensive fashion, from the perspective of both the hunters and the hunted. One of a kind interviews and unique access to archival material previously inaccessible to historians and researchers, combined with the author’s first hand experience in virtually every aspect of this narrative, have resulted in a book unlike any other ever written about Operation Desert Storm and its aftermath.

It is a story the US government does not want told.

Which makes it a story that must be told.

Over the course of the next 18 weeks, I will be publishing The Scud Hunters in its entirety, one chapter at a time. The goal is to have this story published in full by the time the 35th anniversary of Operation Desert Storm rolls around.

The purpose of this book is not to embarrass anyone, but rather to tell the truth, and let the chips fall where they may.

The truth, it turns out, is far better than any manufactured narrative promulgated by those who fear the consequences of their lies. But many of those involved in this story, on both sides, are no longer alive, and most of the others are getting along in the years themselves, making telling the truth while the truth can still be told a top priority.

The failure to kill any Scuds during Operation Desert Storm in no way diminishes the courage of the American and British men who were given the job of doing just that. Their work should be known in the context of how it actually transpired, and not through the fictional haze manufactured by those who put perception above reality.

Likewise, the success of the Iraqi missile forces in the face of overwhelming military superiority on the part of the US-led coalition should likewise be known and appreciated for what it was—a classic David-versus-Goliath story.

The tireless work of the UN weapons inspectors, who had been given the Sisyphean task of discovering a truth no one was interested in being told, fills out this classic tale of right versus wrong.

The first four chapters of The Scud Hunters will be published for all subscribers. After that time, all subsequent chapters will be available to paid subscribers only.

The Scud Hunters is the byproduct of nearly 35 years of firsthand experience and research. The first draft of this book was written in 1992, with the final version completed in August 2025.

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