"We successfully 'hit a bullet with a bullet' for the first time," Lt. Gen. James Abrahamson of the Air Force, head of the Pentagon's anti-missile program, told Congress. The interceptor, he added, had worked by zeroing in on "a warhead with its inherent heat."
But the Pentagon had actually raised that heat artificially so the test was easier, investigators at the congressional General Accounting Office reported years later. The doctoring was done by heating the mock warhead before launch to 100 degrees. And in flight, the long warhead was instructed to fly sideways, exposing a greater surface area to the distant heat seeker.
The congressional team bluntly noted that dozens of public statements by Defense Department officials had failed to mention "the steps taken to enhance the target's signature."
The next hit-to-kill test, in January 1991, was also touted as a major success. It not only demolished a mock warhead but was said to have succeeded in ignoring two inflatable decoys. The ability to ignore false targets is considered crucial in anti-missile warfare, as foes are expected to scatter decoys and chaff around warheads in hopes of confusing and defeating any defense.
But investigators from the congressional accounting office reported later that the two decoys had been tethered to either side of the dummy warhead, and the interceptor's computer had been programmed to pick out the target in the middle.