did you read the second tweet you posted yourself? US couldn't do anything about it because no military assets were in place..
Besides patriot missile defence is coming out as a failed system. it could not even stop the attack on Saudi Air Fields.. Billion of dollars wasted in its acquisition.
Consider following facts:-
1. Surface defenses aren't infallible.
2. An oil refinery contain numerous objects and materials which are likely to make it difficult for a radar system to distinguish hostile objects from ground clutter around
it.
3. The attack on Abqaiq oil refinery succeeded because the
intruding force had 'angle of approach' outside the
line-of-sight of the
radar system of the Patriot battery stationed nearby. Additional defenses in the vicinity were not up to the task of stopping cruise missiles by themselves. This was a very well-planned attack.
4. Since KSA and Yemen are at war, Saudi defenses are mainly positioned and oriented in such a way as to
blunt attacks from Yemen. Not surprisingly, radar system of the Patriot battery stationed near Abqaiq oil refinery was pointing towards the direction of Yemen as well when it was struck.
Above all, KSA was not expecting a major attack from Iran
until Abqaiq incident. Failure of Saudi intelligence?
5. Patriot batteries in KSA have
blunted numerous attacks on Saudi territory originating from Yemen since 2015, preventing a great deal of destruction across KSA. This is very impressive given utter failure of much hyped Russian-origin defenses in Syria in contrast.
According to them, they knew it was going to happen, but did not bring a single ABM battery to defend. These people and their nonesense.
They did not.
American mission in Iraq have much more to do with containing ISIS movement in the region (i.e. Operation Inherent Resolve), but not to station advanced forms of defenses in Iraq because US and Iraq are not allies in true sense.
