WASHINGTON, D.C. - For 18 consecutive months before a combined Illinois-Iowa National Guard helicopter unit was deployed to Iraq, the Guard unit reported to the U.S. Army that most of the unit's helicopters lacked basic missile defense systems.

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"We clearly reported it and showed the unit's deficiencies," said Lt. Col. Alicia Tate-Nadeau of the Illinois National Guard. "The information was there for them to view."

She was responding to the suggestion made by Army officials earlier this week that the Guard unit had misrepresented itself as ready for deployment to Iraq, setting off a last-minute scramble by the Army to find missile defense systems for the helicopters just before they were shipped out from Corpus Christi, Texas. Several of the newly acquired systems, however, arrived damaged.

Six of the unit's 14 helicopters flew for three months lacking the basic anti-missile protection system, Army officials told Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in a private briefing Monday. One of the helicopters was shot down Nov. 2, killing 16 soldiers including 1st Lt. Brian D. Slavenas of Genoa, Ill. That unit had the basic missile defense system, but not the more advanced system that regular Army and some Guard Chinook helicopters have.