NAVY'S BOATLOAD OF GADGETS

Some of the Navy's top minds sailed into New York today, and brought with them a literal boatload of gadgets: spray-on armor; remote control rifles; camera phones that can read Arabic and Farsi; and this drone to the left, the Seaglider, which can swim for months at a time.

The Office of Naval Research docks its "Afloat Lab" on Manhattan's West Side each May, as part of the annual Fleet Week celebration here. It's a way to demonstrate to the taxpayers what Navy-funded scientists have been doing with their hard-earned lucre. This year, the 108 foot-long patrol craft is showing off nearly two dozen technology projects -- many of which are bound for Iraq, or have just returned from the Middle East.

My Wired News article has an article on a bunch of the gizmos on display. One device that didn't make it into the story, however, was a new-fangled headband.

Brian McClimens is working on ways for soldiers to hear their communications in 3D. Turns out that cross-chatter gets a whole lot more understandable when you separate out the voices, spatially. G.I.s can't wear headphones on the battlefield, though. So Brian's idea is to give a soldier a headband, with speakers on it. Sounds come out of the speakers, bounce of the helmet, and go into the grunt's ears spatially correct.

After a bit of soul searching, I decided not to publish the mildly embarrasing pictures of Brian wearing his invention. Appropriately grovelling e-mails may get me to change my mind, however.

SADR WALKS

Since early April, U.S. commanders in Iraq have been vowing to "kill or capture" the renegade cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Now, they appear to be backing off of that promise.

The Times is reporting that American forces and Sadr's guerillas have struck a deal to end the fighting in the holy cities of Najaf and Kufa.

The agreement, hammered out between Mr. Sadr and Iraqi leaders and approved by the Americans, calls for [Sadr's] Mahdi Army, whose fighters have held the city since April 5, to put away their guns and go home, and for the American forces to pull most of their forces out of the city. Under the agreement, the Americans can maintain a handful of posts inside the city and may still run patrols through the city center...

In a major concession to Mr. Sadr, the Americans and Iraqi officials promised to suspend the arrest warrant issued against him for his suspected involvement in the murder of a rival cleric in April 2003...

In a news conference today, the Americans and the Iraqis said Mr. Sadr's fate was open to negotiation. Some Shiite leaders said plans were in the works to offer Mr. Sadr or people around him positions in the new government, scheduled to take over when the Americans transfer sovereignty here on June 30. (emphasis mine)

"DRAGON SKIN": DAMN TOUGH

It may not be as sexy as liquid armor or soldier-sized scarab shells, but the "Dragon Skin" bulletproof vests sound damn tough.

According to Defense Review, the Skin is basically your standard body armor, laced with silver-dollar sized ceramic discs. These are configured lover the vest ike scales (hence the "Dragon" sobriquet). And they make the outfits super light -- but strong enough to stop armor-penetrating bullets.

FBI NABS BUFFALO MAN FOR "BIOTECH" ART

Waking up with his wife dead was only the beginning of Steve Kurtz's troubles. Within a few days of her untimely passing, the FBI had raided his Buffalo home. Health workers dressed in hazmat moon suits had turned the place into a quarantine zone. Now, in Kurtz's livelihood may be in jeopardy, too. And let's not even get into the legal bills.

Kurtz is a University of Buffalo professor and artist specializing in biotechnology-inspired works: subversive remixes of big pharma corporate materials, kits to see if food is genetically modified. Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, New York's New Museum, and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC displayed his art. The New York Times and Washington Post, among others, have looked on it favorably.

Earlier this month, Kurtz woke up to find his wife, Hope, dead of apparent heart failure. In shock, he called the police. But when the officers came over, they saw strange things: test tubes, Bunsen burners, Petri dishes, and the like. So they brought in the local counter-terror task force, and the FBI.

Kurtz was detained on the way to the funeral home. His house was cordoned off, while the county health department searched for chemical or biological agents – and the local TV cameras rolled. And Kurtz's equipment was all confiscated, for further testing and investigation.

The artist was planning to use some of that gear in a new show at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, slated to open Sunday. Now, that's not happening. Other works – including a book in progress – are also on hold. And Kurtz has a $10,000 mountain of legal bills; he's retained celebrity lawyer Paul Cambria (Larry Flynt and DMX's defender) to represent him.

Some would say Kurtz had it coming; a 2002 workshop by his group in Halifax two years back lead to a scare with a feaux "bomb." But, to others, Kurtz's story is yet another example of how brittle rights can be in Ashcroft's age of terror.

BAGHDAD BLOGGER'S CAR BOMB PIC

Back to Iraq's Chris Allbritton has only been in Baghdad for a few days. And he's already in the thick of it.

He e-mails friends to say:

"Nasty car bomb today at about 8:15 a.m. Maybe 100 m from my hotel. I’m fine, but I was in the Internet café and every wall and window shook. People poured out of hotels. Too much to do now, but I’m fine. Speculation that the car, a blue VW, was carrying wired artillery or mortar shells, based on shrapnel in the street and complete absence of the car. (All that was left of it was the hood which landed about 100 m away, and the engine block, which landed near the hotel.) A window in my kitchen was broken.

The bomb went off right in front of the al-Karma hotel, which makes the black jokes obvious. 5 people injured. Two critically, including a boy 10-11 years old.

Later, Chris sent on a slew of pictures from the scene. Here's one.

THERE'S MORE: Chris' heart-breaking full report is now up.

NYC: DNA SWIPES FOR EVERY CRIME

New York City's chief medical examiner is planning "to test hundreds of DNA samples a day from nearly every crime scene, including burglarized homes and stolen cars," the Times reports. Before, DNA testing was only done routinely only in homicides, rapes and the most serious assaults.

"Because many property crimes do not yield blood, semen or saliva, the lab will use DNA samples previously considered too minuscule to collect, like skin cells left in a smudged fingerprint or a ski mask, and match them against databases of convicted felons, suspects and DNA profiles from crime scenes and rape kits."

IRAQ: SANCHEZ OUT, MILITIAS IN?

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who's leading U.S. military forces on the ground in Iraq, is going to be replaced.

"Sanchez has been besieged lately by questions about his oversight of detainee operations in Iraq, especially his role in the scandal over the abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad," the Washington Post notes. "But administration officials said the move to install a new four-star commander has been under consideration for months, well before the mistreatment of detainees became major news. "

The Army's second-in-command, Gen. George Casey, is the main contender for Sanchez' job. But whoever the new American leader is, it's clear that he won't have control over all the forces keeping order in Iraq. The New York Times reports that with "the sharp deterioration of the security situation in recent months, American officials appear to have resigned themselves to working with [private and tribal] militias in Falluja, Baghdad and elsewhere even as American soldiers die fighting them in street battles in Karbala and Najaf."

THERE'S MORE: "An Army summary of deaths and mistreatment involving prisoners in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan shows a widespread pattern of abuse involving more military units than previously known," according to the Times.

ARMY REBOOTS G.I.S' TIRED FATIGUES

Ever since they tangled with the Red Coats, American generals have been giving their grunts more and more and more gear to lug -- from rations to radios, body armor to batteries. Now, for the first time, the Army has decided to junk the old uniforms and start from scratch.

"We're stripping the soldier down to his skin, and building out from there," said Jean-Louis "Dutch" DeGay, an equipment specialist at the Army's Natick Soldier Systems Center, which is supervising the seven-year, $250 million overhaul, dubbed Future Force Warrior, or FFW.

One of the most obvious changes is that the new uniforms are unisex. The zipper has been extended, and the uniform's butt flap has been expanded, so GI Janes aren't literally caught with their pants down if they have to pee.

FFW's body armor is probably the biggest improvement, however. It sits on a series of foam pads around the rib cage, so there's a 2.5-inch gap between the harness and the body. It keeps the GI cool. And it's almost imperceptibly light -- unlike today's bulletproof vests, many of which are about as comfortable as that lead apron the dentist makes you wear during X-rays. But the scarab-like shell can take five to seven direct hits from a machine gun, and it doubles as a holster for ammunition and grenades.

It also protects the computer that future infantrymen are expected to rely on. Instead of the bulky cables that ordinarily connect the computer to a PDA or a helmet-mounted display, FFW is supposed to use "e-textiles" -- durable cloth, with wires woven in. The helmet will integrate night vision into a built-in, half-inch monocle, and bone-conduction microphones will replace radio headsets.

At first, the sensors were metal. But tests showed that "some people's heads were literally too thick for that to work," DeGay said. Now, the metal has been replaced with a gel-based sensor that's sensitive enough to transmit pulse and breathing rates back to base, too.

My Wired News article has details.

GIANT BLIMP SET FOR TAKEOFF

"Next month, a V-shaped airship bigger than a baseball diamond is due to rise from the West Texas desert to an altitude of 100,000 feet, navigate by remote control, linger above the clouds and drift back to earth," Defense Tech pal (and MSNBC correspondent) Alan Boyle writes.

For the U.S. Air Force, the feat will demonstrate the feasibility of a new kind of semi-autonomous craft that could hover in "near space," to do reconnaissance and relay battlefield communications.

That vision is ambitious enough. But for JP Aerospace, the California-based company that built the airship for the military, the flight would represent just one more small step toward an even bigger conceptual leap: a system of floating platforms that gossamer spaceships could use as high-altitude way stations.

Defense Tech took a tiny peak at JP's blimp here. More on airships here, here, and here, too.

RUMSFELD VS. CAMERA PHONES

First, Donald Rumsfeld clamped down on Defense Department websites, claiming the information they offered was a national security threat. Now, he's going after digital cameras and camera phones, according to AFP.

Mobile phones fitted with digital cameras have been banned in US army installations in Iraq... the US Defence Department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones.

"Digital cameras, camcorders and cellphones with cameras have been prohibited in military compounds in Iraq," it said, adding that a "total ban throughout the US military" is in the works. (via Boing Boing)

THERE'S MORE: "I spoke to several NJ Army Guard transportation NCOs just back from Iraq and they told me that availability of free email services like YAHOO and HOTMAIL had been shut down on military provided internet computers in theater," one Air Force NCO tells Soldiers for the Truth.

In the ANG [Air National Guard] here in CONUS [the continental United States], wing level communications flights and squadrons are DENYING or removing access to free email services for members of each ANG unit. I LOST my access to both YAHOO mail and HOTMAIL on 5/20/04. Prior to that, I used to make contact using these sites even while at my unit. Now, I can no longer do so...

Many of the folks I spoke to used words like "censorship" and "big brother" because they know that their mil domain email accounts are subject to monitoring. These same folks said they feared saying anything critical on a mil domain computer for fear of prosecution.

AND MORE: The report of a Defense Department-wide camera phone ban is bogus, Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin now says. But there is a new directive limiting the use of commercial wireless technology on the DoD's "Global Information Grid."

AND MORE: Xeni's got a kick-ass round-up of the issue in today's Wired News.

ALASKANS SUE FEDS OVER CAPPS II

Alaskans depend on planes to go just about anywhere. Mess with their ability to fly, and they tend to get pretty pissed off.

So maybe it was only a matter of time before a bunch of Alaskans got together to sue the Transportation Security Administration over CAPPS II, the feds' controversial airline passenger screening program.

"Outside government bureaucrats think we need their permission before we can get on a plane. We think they're wrong, so we're turning to the US District Court for help," the plaintiffs say on their website.

CAPPS II ran into a brick wall of bad press after it came out that JetBlue and other airlines turned passenger information over to the government. That ended a fairly cozy relationship between the TSA and the carriers. Now, "the airline industry has made it clear that it will not participate in CAPPS II unless ordered to do so," reports Defense Tech homie Ryan Singel in today's Wired News.

"Out of frustration, Adm. James Loy, then head of the Transportation Security Administration, threatened in September to issue a secret directive to force hesitant airlines to share the data," Singel continues. "If it follows through, the TSA would require airlines to forward all passenger information to the system, including date of birth, home phone numbers and addresses."

"We think the Feds need to tell us what they're planning before they start turning every flight we take into an excuse to snoop," the Alaskans respond. "The TSA didn't bother responding to a letter we sent, so we're asking the US District Court in Anchorage to help us find out the truth."

NEWSDAY: CHALABI = IRANIAN MOLE

Neocon darling Ahmad Chalabi's group was one of the major sources for misleading intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Now, we're learning why his so information was so bad: "Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection Program information to provoke the United States into getting rid of Saddam Hussein," Newsday reports, relying on sources within the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The Information Collection Program also "kept the Iranians informed about what we were doing" by passing classified U.S. documents and other sensitive information, he said. The program has received millions of dollars from the U.S. government over several years...

Indications that Iran, which fought a bloody war against Iraq during the 1980s, was trying to lure the U.S. into action against Saddam Hussein appeared many years before the Bush administration decided in 2001 that ousting Hussein was a national priority.

In 1995, for instance, Khidhir Hamza, who had once worked in Iraq's nuclear program and whose claims that Iraq had continued a massive bomb program in the 1990s are now largely discredited, gave UN nuclear inspectors what appeared to be explosive documents about Iraq's program. Hamza, who fled Iraq in 1994, teamed up with Chalabi after his escape.

The documents, which referred to results of experiments on enriched uranium in the bomb's core, were almost flawless, according to Andrew Cockburn's recent account of the event in the political newsletter CounterPunch.

But the inspectors were troubled by one minor matter: Some of the techinical descriptions used terms that would only be used by an Iranian. They determined that the original copy had been written in Farsi by an Iranian scientist and then translated into Arabic.

And the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded the documents were fraudulent.

THERE'S MORE: Chalabi "sent Iraqi defectors to at least eight Western spy services before the war in an apparent effort to dupe them about Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's illicit weapons programs," according to the L.A. Times (via Kevin Drum).

Because even friendly spy services rarely share the identities of their informants or let outsiders meet or debrief their sources, it has only in recent months become clear that Chalabi's group sent defectors with inaccurate or misleading information to Denmark, England, Italy, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden, as well as to the United States, the officials said...

"We had a lot of sources, but it was all coming from the same pot," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They were all [Chalabi's] guys. And none of them panned out."

AND MORE: Drum now has a handy Chalabi timeline, too.

Bottom line: practically every group that has ever worked with Chalabi has eventually felt betrayed by him. This includes, at a minimum: (1) the Jordanian government, (2) the CIA, (3) the State Department, (4) Paul Bremer and the CPA, (5) the United Nations, (6) the NSC, and (7) the DIA. Oh — and quite possibly, (8) George W. Bush.

But at least the cuddly ayatollahs in Iran still seem to like him. It's good to have at least a few friends who stay loyal through thick and thin.

NOT AGAIN! LOS ALAMOS LOSES SECRET DISK

It's become a recurring nightmare for managers at the nation's most important nuclear weapons lab: a hard drive or disk, filled with classified information, goes missing. And suddenly, Los Alamos officials, trying to remerge from years of scandal, have a whole lot of explaining to do.

The latest episode came to light Thursday, after Los Alamos admitted that, since a Monday inventory check, its custodians hadn't been able to find a "classified removable electronic media," or CREM -- disks and drives inscribed with the country's secrets.

A Los Alamos press release played down the incident, calling it "a single accounting discrepancy (that) in no way constitutes a compromise of national security." Los Alamos has tens of thousands of removable hard drives, discs and memory sticks. When one can't be found, it's usually because of something innocent, like "administrative errors" or outdated machinery.

But lab critics were hearing none of it.

"Can't they ever get anything right?" said Los Alamos security consultant-turned-whistleblower Glenn Walp. "They take the same old corporate line: 'It's not us, it's the system.' How refreshing it would be if someone at that place would have the backbone to admit they screwed up."

My Wired News story has details.

THERE'S MORE: After deadline, the office of Rep. Chris Shays, who's been all over the nuclear security issue, e-mailed with the following statement:

The most recent event of another missing Department of Energy (DOE) computer is just the latest manifestation of longstanding, almost cultural, security problems at some national laboratory facilities. Some time ago, Senator Grassley and I asked the General Accounting Office (GAO) to examine whether DOE has effectively organized efforts to secure national laboratory assets and data. We expect to receive preliminary result from that review late this summer.

I applaud Secretary Abraham's recent initiative to strengthen security over sensitive information and facilities. However, DOE's plan to initiate those changes in phases over a five year period is too long. Security enhancement should be identified immediately and implemented more quickly, before missing keys or lost computer discs cause real damage to national security."

MATRIX GOT WHITE HOUSE SHOWING

Hoiw did the creators of the norotious MATRIX database project get the federal government to pony up $8 million for the system? By showing it off to top officials in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in January 2003, the Washington Post reports.

Accompanied by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and the state's top police official, [MATRIX creator Hank] Asher showed his creation to Vice President Cheney, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and Tom Ridge, who was about to be sworn in as secretary of the new Department of Homeland Security, according to people at the meeting.

The demonstration startled everyone in the room who had not seen it before. Almost as quickly as questions could be asked, the system generated long reports on a projection screen: names, addresses, driver license photos, links to associates, even ethnicity. At one point, an Asher associate recalled, Ridge turned toward Cheney and nudged him with an elbow, apparently to underscore his amazement at the power of what they were seeing. A few months later, Ridge approved an $8 million "cooperative agreement" from his department to help states link to the computer system.

CHALABI RAIDS...

...Chris Allbritton has the skinny, straight from Baghdad.

By many accounts, Chalabi seemingly single-handedly convinced many in the American government and the major media that Saddam had banned weapons, and that the U.S. should invade the country, in order to take 'em out. But now that America's former best Iraqi buddy has been charged with spying for Iran, the Bush administration is saying, "Ahmad Who?"

THERE'S MORE: Are you one of the trolls who thinks the sadists at Abu Ghraib were just "having a good time?" Maybe the latest photos from the prison -- featuring soldiers actively beating their captives -- will change your mind. Maybe the accounts of interrogators raping Iraqi boys will sway you. But probably not.

SGT. SALAMANDER, REPORT FOR DUTY

In DarpaWorld, soldiers go for days without food or sleep, and fight on, despite emergency room injuries and the loss of puddles of blood. So it seems only natural that the Pentagon's team of mad scientists is looking for ways for people to regenerate arms and feet, should they be blown off.

"FUTURE" ARMY WRONG FOR URBAN FIGHTS

The U.S. Army is betting $92 billion that the wars of the future should be fought with smaller, lighter, more manueverable vehicles. But some military officials and defense contractor executives are saying that that these technology-laden Future Combat Systems (FCS) are too weak to withstand urban conflicts, like the one currently playing out in Iraq.

Like the Humvees of today, which are being shredded by rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs, the FCS vehicles won't have enough armor to withstand heavy assaults, critics tell Jane's Defence Weekly. And that could expose troops to greater danger.

Tanks, for instance, will be outfitted with a suite of new sensors, and will be plugged into a wireless network for combat. But they'll shrink to less than half their current size and loose some of their armor.

"The network is not going to keep you alive [and] is probably irrelevant once you make close contact with the enemy. Iraqis have turned out to be sufficiently smart . . . and change in order to inflict damage on us," an army official told Jane's...

Army officials and analysts told Jane's Defence Weekly that within the army, Congress and the two prime contractors for FCS (Boeing and Science Applications International Corp) optimism is waning. "I think large numbers of Democrats and Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee are acutely sensitive to all of this, understand it very clearly and are trying to figure out what to do," an army official said, adding "if the people from Boeing who work on this talk to you honestly, they tried to tell people in the army from the very beginning that this will not work."

Unlike the US plans, many non-US forces intend to continue to employ heavy armoured vehicles. The Israel Defence Force has experienced years of Iraq-like urban combat and highly values its range of heavily armoured personnel carriers developed from main battle tank chassis. The German Army also emphasises armour and its new Puma infantry fighting vehicle, scheduled to enter service in 2006, will have three different levels of armour protection, increasing the Puma's weight from 31.45 to 43 tonnes.

MATRIX GAUGES "TERROR QUOTIENT'

AP: "Before helping to launch the criminal information project known as Matrix, a database contractor gave U.S. and Florida authorities the names of 120,000 people who showed a statistical likelihood of being terrorists - sparking some investigations and arrests."

ATOMIC PLANES IN THE WORKS?

The first line sure is juicy: "After more than six decades of research, the first atom-powered airplane is cleared for takeoff."

And even if the substance doesn't quite back up the tantalizing intro in the current Popular Mechanics -- which it doesn't -- this is still an interesting concept.

The attraction of a nuclear plane is that it doesn't run out of fuel. Convert a drone to atomic power, and it could stay aloft just about forever, the thinking goes.

The nuclear drone wouldn't have a traditional fission reactor, running on uranium or plutonium. Instead, it would be powered by hafnium-178.

"In the late 1990s, researchers at the University of Texas in Dallas made a remarkable and unexpected discovery about [halfnium]," the magazine says. "When they bombarded the metal with 'soft' X-rays like those your dentist uses to examine your teeth, the metal released a burst of gamma rays 60 times more powerful than the X-rays."

This reaction could be safer than conventional ones, the magazine argues.

"The gamma ray output drops precipitously the moment power to the X-ray machine is turned off... Since it produces only gamma radiation, less shielding is required. And should an accident occur, there is less of an environmental concern than with fission. Hafnium-178 has a half-life of only 31 years compared to thousands of years for other reactor fuels. In addition, unlike uranium or plutonium, hafnium-178 cannot support a chain reaction, which means it cannot be used to make rogue nuclear weapons."

But, despite the potentially attractive features, an atomic drone is nowhere near takeoff.

"Project managers for Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory tell Popular Mechanics they have begun discussions that could lead to the conversion of a Global Hawk [drone] to a nuclear-powered aircraft… They have not yet signed a contract to convert a Global Hawk to nuclear power, they are aware of discussions taking place within the Air Force." (emphasis mine)

THERE'S MORE: Some scientists are pouring cold water all over the halfnium idea, reader MS points out. "May not make physical sense," was the opinion of 5 of 12 Pentagon researchers appointed to look into halfnium bombs.

AND MORE: Defense Tech "deserves better than Popular Mechanics doing a fair imitation of the National Inquirer," says Los Alamos consultant and nuclear proliferation expert Russell Seitz.

With so-called "isomers" like halfnium-178, he writes, "energy has both to be put in and gotten out. The mere fact that more and better physicists using fiercer x-ray sources and more sensitive gamma detectors can't get any signal out of the same isotopes -- even upon many experimental iterations and variations -- satisfies me that [this] is just another example of the economics of desire."

AND MORE: The Defense Department was looking at atomic planes back in the 1940's, reader JM notes, with a project called "Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft," or NEPA. And for a year or so, the Pentagon considered irradiating human test subjects, to see how much nuclear exposure pilots could take. After Manhattan Project scientist Dr. Joseph Hamilton pointed out that such experiments would have "a little of the Buchenwald touch," the idea was finally, and thankfully, dropped.

U.S. GETS EXPLOSIVE ARMOR FROM ISRAEL

The U.S. Army wants to protect its Bradley fighting vehicles -- by strapping dozens of Israeli explosives to their skins.

The idea behind "reactive armor" is to blow up a roadside bomb or rocket propelled grenade just before it reaches the vehicle. The Israeli military pioneered the concept in the 1970's. American tanks have had been outfitted with it for years. And now, Bradleys in Iraq are being rushed the armor, too, Defense News reports.

The add-on armor... consists of 105 tiles that attach to the sides, the turret and the front of each Bradley. Each tile has a small explosive charge that can destroy the warhead of an attacking missile or rocket.

“The idea is to apply chemical energy against chemical energy,” an official within [Israeli firm] Rafael’s armored systems directorate. “These tiles contain a very special, insensitive explosive that is detonated only when hit by a missile or a rocket. For safety reasons, our armor does not react to other heat sources such as small arms or other fragments. When it detonates, the action of the elements inside the tiles interact with the incoming jet of the warhead, and defeats it...”

The armored systems directorate official noted that Rafael provided add-on armor for the U.S. Marine Corps’ AAV7 amphibious assault vehicles used during major combat operations in Iraq earlier last year.

THERE'S MORE: "I'd be leery of taking these into situations where large numbers of noncombatants might find themselves near [reactive armored] vehicles," says Defense Tech reader JA. "An RPG hit that triggered one of these panels might not penetrate the vehicle but I suspect the potential for exacerbating collateral casualties might give one pause. Or it will after Al-Jazeera trumpets it from the minarets."

Meanwhile, reader MS points us to this online primer on reactive armor.

AND MORE: "The story here," says reader DP, "is that the cheapskate Army under [chief of staff Eric] Shinseki squandered billions on handfuls of Stryker truck deathtraps and didn't even come close to buying enough [reactive armor."

FLAPPING 'BOT LOOKS TO FLY

The argument was settled 150 years ago -- or so it seemed. In the 1850's, aviation pioneer Sir George Cayley proved that flying machines didn't have to -- in fact, shouldn't -- flap their wings to stay in the air.

Now, some government-funded researchers are re-opening the debate. University of Missouri-Rolla engineers are working on the "world's first flapping-wing, unmanned aircraft driven entirely by solar power," Wired News tells us.

The aircraft is being designed to flap its wings not with conventional mechanical parts, but with an exotic material that can deform in an electric field like an artificial muscle. The craft is made to fly at altitudes of 30,000 to 40,000 feet.

With a wingspan of about 3 meters and thin membrane-like wings, the bird-like craft would be able to flap its wings once every one to 10 seconds, and have the flight profile of an eagle. K.M. Isaac, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UMR, who is helping to develop the aircraft for NASA, says that using a renewable power source could help the aircraft stay airborne for weeks.

Isaac's work is being supported by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts -- the space agency's "sci-fi" research arm.

NERVE GAS FOUND IN IRAQ

"An explosive containing sarin nerve gas was discovered by American troops in Baghdad and detonated," the Times reports. "It was the first sarin shell the American military has found since the invasion of Iraq last year, the spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, said in a televised news conference.

The explosive, a 155 millimeter artillery round, had been rigged as a roadside bomb, the general said. It was detonated before it could be defused, producing "a very small dispersal" of the gas, he said.

Two members of a bomb squad were treated for minor exposure, and the sarin did not present a threat to the surrounding neighborhood, the spokesman said.

The incident occurred "a couple days ago," he added.

General Kimmitt said American officials believe the weapon came from the stockpiele of the regime of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Hussein had declared all such rounds destroyed before the 1991 Gulf War.

The bomb was a "binary chemical projectile" with two chambers each containing a distinct chemical. When the projectile is fitted into an artillery round and fired, the rotation of the round causes the wall between the chambers to break, thereby blending the two chemicals. On impact with the target, the shell explodes, releasing the sarin.

But the explosive discovered last week was not launched as an artillery round, so only a small amount of the two chemicals mixed together, General Kimmitt said. It was not known whether whoever rigged the bomb knew of the presence of sarin in the explosive.

THERE'S MORE: "While deadly, sarin gas is not likely to be effective when used in this manner," explains Lt. Smash. "Chemical artillery shells are designed to "pop" rather than explode, and are generally fused to detonate well above ground level for better dispersal. Any chemical attack via artillery would have to use several shells over a wide area to be effective.

So either this is a false alarm, or whoever planted this explosive:

- Didn't know that it was a chemical weapon, or

- Doesn't know how to properly employ such a chemical weapon, or

- Intended to terrorize the Coalition, rather than cause significant damage.

Given that the proven existence of chemical weapons in Saddam's arsenal represents a major propaganda victory for the Coalition, I find the third possibility to be highly unlikely. Of the remaining two possibilities, I'm more inclined to believe that the bombers weren't familiar with the difference between chemical and conventional artillery shells, and assumed they had the latter.

AND MORE: "It appears the insurgents didn't even know they had a chemical round," former weapons inspector David Kay tells the AP.

While Saturday's explosion does demonstrate that Saddam hadn't complied fully with U.N. resolutions, Kay notes, "It doesn't strike me as a big deal."

VIBRATE TO COMMUNICATE

The Pentagon "is researching whether vibrating sensors on the body can quickly tell soldiers who is friend and who is foe, where the enemy waits and which way to turn," the AP's Mike Branom reports. "If so, then the most primitive of the five senses could be the future of communications in the armed forces."

A soldier relies on his eyes and ears to survive, but they also can get him killed. A squawking radio, a sergeant's shouted order can alert the enemy or be drowned out by the roar of battle. Hand signals are useless in the dark or at long distances. A heated firefight is not the place to stop and read a map...

"The military could use a system that allows its soldiers to communicate wordlessly and to communicate silently," said Noah Shachtman, editor of Defensetech.org, a Web site dedicated to the latest in defense innovations...

[In a] rudimentary test... [University of Central Florida] graduate student Chris Brill straps to a visitor a belt studded with what looks like small refrigerator magnets. The visitor then is seated before a laptop computer that's running a firing range simulation.

The first target pops up, to the right of the virtual crosshairs. Immediately, an insistent vibration begins near the right hip. Pan right toward the target using the computer's touchpad and the buzzing moves left, like a mouse skittering across the waist.

When the vibration is centered over the belly button, that's the cue the aim is true. Fire the "gun," the target drops and the buzzing stops.

IRAQ GOVERNING COUCIL CHIEF KILLED

AP: "The head of the Iraqi Governing Council was killed in a suicide car bombing near a checkpoint outside the coalition headquarters in central Baghdad on Monday, dealing a blow to U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq ahead of a handover of sovereignty on June 30."

THERE'S MORE: Remember that deal to turn Falluja over to Saddam's former generals? Turns out they were really the part of the insurgent force attacking U.S. troops in the first place, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"Today, Fallouja is for all intents and purposes a rebel town, complete with banners proclaiming a great victory and insurgents integrated into the new Fallouja Brigade — the protective force set up with U.S. assistance to keep the peace," the paper says (via Slate).

"In Fallouja these days, there is little talk of the central U.S. demands — disarming the insurgents, finding the people who killed and mutilated the four U.S. contractors and hunting down foreign jihadists. There were no foreign fighters, proclaims [Brigade chief Mohammed] Latif. And if they were here, they must have escaped, he has said."

DOGS OF WAR SUIT UP

Following up on a Defense Tech item from a couple of weeks back, the Associated Press takes a look at military dogs in Iraq getting bulletproof vests.

The U.S. Army has some 30 dogs in Iraq, guarding bases and checking cars for explosives. [Army kennel master Staff Sgt. Jarrod] Zaleski says the dogs have uncovered car bombs and have such sensitive noses that one was able to smell an ammunition clip in a woman's pocketbook.

With violence escalating, the Army shipped vests for all of its dogs to Iraq about two weeks ago. War dogs in Afghanistan already have the vests. Soldiers have worn vests since the start of the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Zaleski said no dogs have been killed in Iraq although several have suffered injuries to their paws while walking through debris or shattered glass.

On some missions the dogs are now equipped with padded boots to protect their paws from getting cut up.

"Someone just needs to come up with a helmet for dogs and we'd be good," quipped Zaleski.

THESE GLASSES KNOW WHEN YOU'RE LOOKING

A Queen's University researcher has developed glasses that can tell when someone's looking at you. These sensors then trigger a video camera, mounted on the shades, which will auotmatically "videoblog" the conversation.

A ring of infrared light-emitting diodes on the glasses produce a red eye effect in the onlooker's eyes. The LEDs also produce a glint on the cornea. When the glint lines up with the center of the pupil, the glasses know that eye contact has been made.

The interaction is then sent to "eyeBlog," a program which "uses this information to record and publish face-2-face conversations without dividing the user's attention between the event being recorded, and the device being used to record it," the researcher, Connor Dickie, explains. "Moreover, becasue eyeBlog uses eye-contact to start and stop recording, users do not need to sift through hours of footage to find interesting segments."

LifeLog, anyone?

HERSH: RUMMY APPROVED INTERROGATION PLAN

"The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists," reports Sy Hersh in tomorrow's New Yorker, "but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld's decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror."

According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon’s operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.

Rumsfeld, during appearances last week before Congress to testify about Abu Ghraib, was precluded by law from explicitly mentioning highly secret matters in an unclassified session. But he conveyed the message that he was telling the public all that he knew about the story. He said, “Any suggestion that there is not a full, deep awareness of what has happened, and the damage it has done, I think, would be a misunderstanding.” The senior C.I.A. official, asked about Rumsfeld’s testimony and that of Stephen Cambone, his Under-Secretary for Intelligence, said, "Some people think you can bullshit anyone."

THERE'S MORE: A Newsweek report comes to similar conclusions. "The Bush administration created a bold legal framework to justify this system of interrogation," according the magazine. "What started as a carefully thought-out, if aggressive, policy of interrogation in a covert war—designed mainly for use by a handful of CIA professionals—evolved into ever-more ungoverned tactics that ended up in the hands of untrained MPs in a big, hot war. Originally, Geneva Conventions protections were stripped only from Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. But later Rumsfeld himself, impressed by the success of techniques used against Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay, seemingly set in motion a process that led to their use in Iraq."

AND MORE: "It's pure, unadulterated fantasy," a Pentagon spokesperson says of Hersh's report. "We don't discuss covert programs, but nothing in any covert program would have led anyone to sanction activity like what was seen on those videos."

To which Phil Carter responds, "This isn't exactly an unequivocal denial. For one thing, it leaves open the possibility that the Pentagon might have sanctioned what was depicted in the many photographs now in the public domain."

Josh Marshall adds, "Rumsfeld spokesman Larry Di Rita's widely-quoted statement -- 'Assertions apparently being made in the latest New Yorker article on Abu Ghraib and the abuse of Iraqi detainees are outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture.' -- isn't a denial, it's splutter -- a classic non-denial denial."

STUDENT CRACKS SECRET DOCS

"An Irish graduate student has uncovered words blacked-out of declassified US military documents using nothing more than a dictionary and text analysis software," The Register says.

Claire Whelan, a computer science student at Dublin City University was given the problems by her PhD supervisor as a diversion. David Naccache, a cryptographer with Gemplus, challenged her to discover the words missing from two documents: one was a memo to George Bush, and another concerned military modifications to civilian helicopters.

The process is quite straightforward, and according to Naccache, Whelan's success proves that merely blotting words out of declassified documents will not keep the contents secret. (via /.)

LIE DETECTORS CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH

The military may have ways -- gruesome ways -- of making people talk, as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has shown. But it still doesn't have a reliable method for figuring out whether those people are telling the truth or not.

Nearly 75 years since the introduction of the polygraph, there's still nothing close to a foolproof lie detector. Traditional methods for catching a fibber have been battered by scientific study. And, despite endless waves of hype, the high-tech alternatives -- brain scans, thermal images and voice analysis -- have withered under scrutiny, or remain largely unproven.

My Wired News article has details.

RAY GUNS, "RODS FROM GOD" IN POP SCI ROUND-UP

Popular Science takes a fairly uncritical look at four potentially revolutionary weapons of the future: the 600,000 round per minute gun, the Advanced Tactical Laser, so-called "Rods from God," and the hypersonic missile.

NUKE OFFICIALS: NO DIPLOMA, NO PROBLEM

"A General Accounting Office investigation has uncovered three National Nuclear Security Administration managers with top-level security clearances who received fraudulent degrees from diploma mills," GovExec.com reports.

But lying to the government about your background doesn't get you fired from your job protecting the nation's nuclear stockpile, apparently.

"The conditions of employment did not rest on the education that they were claiming," says NNSA spokesman Brian Wilkes.

THERE'S MORE: Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced a series of initiatives last week to try to tighten up nuclear security. But, to put those changes in place, "he will need to fight the weapons complex bureaucracy, its contractors, and its handmaiden the National Nuclear Security Administration, which wants to protect the status quo at all costs," Project on Government Oversight's Danielle Brian told a Congressional hearing yesterday. "Frankly, the NNSA has repeatedly proven itself eager to place the labs’ interests over the nation’s security interests."

DARPA'S ROBO-RACE FIX: CARS THAT THINK

The television cameras all came. The robot makers worked around the clock, for months. A $1 million check awaited the winning team. But after months of hype and twitching buildup, the Defense Department's drone-only rally across the Mojave Desert fizzled. No robot could make it past the seventh mile of the 150-mile-long Grand Challenge course.

Now officials at Darpa, the Pentagon's way-out research arm, are trying to get rolling after the stall out. They way they propose to do it: build cars that can think for themselves.

The robot racers got stuck in the Mojave because they're half-blind and stone dumb, Darpa officials say. Robots can't make much sense of the world around them, and they don't learn from their experiences of navigating their dimly perceived environment. Imagine not remembering what a pothole is, even after a thousand trips down the freeway. Imagine having to relearn how to swerve around one of the craters on every commute. That's the life of a drone car today, and that's what Darpa is trying to correct in its new project, Learning Applied to Ground Robots, or LAGR.

Today, most robot cars use stereo cameras and laser range finders to create a map of the area just in front of them, according to Darpa's LAGR proposal. Danger areas are identified in that map, and path-planning software picks a route that seems to be safe. But those algorithms are, for the most part, coded to spot only specific obstacles: rocks or ditches or fallen trees. If something unexpected comes up -- a fence, say -- the robot is out of luck.

Darpa's plan to correct this was announced just last week. But agency officials have a pretty clear idea of how they want the three-year LAGR program to run. Darpa will host a series of monthly races between two smallish, 70-centimeter-long robots. At the end of 18 months, the drone with intelligent code should be traversing the mini obstacle course 10 percent quicker than its dumb twin. Eighteen months after that, this braniac on wheels should be twice as swift as the regular bot.

My Wired News article has details.

THERE'S MORE: A Navy drone will use a "brain-based" controller this summer to "attempt to smoothly and quietly maneuver itself in and out of a docking tube," according to an Office of Naval Research press release.

The biggest human klutz still has more control over his body than the most agile robot. The Navy is trying to correct the imbalance, by giving the underwater drone a set of circuits which "mimic the part of the human brain that controls balance and limb movement, known as the olivo-cerebellar system."

"HUGE COMMAND FAILURES" BEHIND ABU GHRAIB

The former commander of the scandal-tainted 372nd MP Company is warning us not to blame Abu Ghraib on a handful of depraved soldiers.

"These actions were the result of huge command failures," he says in a Washington Post op-ed today.

The senior person charged thus far is Ivan L. Frederick, a staff sergeant. In an MP company, a person of his rank is normally placed in charge of a squad of 11 soldiers. I refuse to believe that no leader above Frederick was aware of or complicit in the abuses that were apparently widespread throughout the prison. While certain officers were relieved of their commands and other leaders were given letters of reprimand, the failure of unit leaders, from company to brigade, is stunning.

The 372nd has approximately 150 soldiers and is divided into five platoons, four of which consist of MPs. The company commander is directly responsible for all actions taken by his soldiers, or those that they fail to take. The 372nd's commander and the relevant platoon leader either knew or should have known of the actions of their subordinates, as should have their noncommissioned officers. All these leaders failed in their most basic responsibilities of supervising their soldiers in the performance of their duties. (via Phil Carter)

THERE'S MORE: Speaking of command failures, top Pentagon officials still can't agree on who was running the show at Abu Ghraib. At a Senate hearing yesterday, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba and under secretary of defense for intelligence Stephen Cambone, "contradicted each other about who was in charge," according to Slate.

Taguba said that the top commander in Iraq—against Army doctrine—gave military intel people final control. The Pentagon official, undersecretary for intelligence Stephen Cambone, said the order put military intel in charge of the prison "facility," not the guards.

Taguba and senators noted that the abuses came in the fall after the then-commander of Guantanamo Bay visited Abu Ghraib and suggested "special operating procedures" to "Gitmo-ize" the prison and help guards "set the conditions" for interrogations. That general, Geoffrey Miller, is now head of the Iraqi prison system and his trip was recommended by Cambone."

AND MORE: "The abuse and humiliation actually took place at 3 prisons in the Baghdad area," a senior military intelligence NCO tells Soldiers for the Truth. "This was not done by accident, it was a planned, systematic way to break down the prisoners will to resist any interrogation, degrade them and then blackmail them into working for US Intelligence."

AND MORE: "I was instructed by persons in higher rank to stand there and hold this leash and look at the camera," says Pfc. Lynndie England, the woman who's become infamous worldwide for her grinning portraits of abuse.

DUDE, THERE'S MY DRONE!

Joy in subville: the U.S. Navy has found its mine-sweeping, torpedo-shaped drone.

When the mini-submarine was lost off of the coast of Norway nearly two weeks ago, the local government sent out a frantic, nationwide call, asking their good citizens to be on the lookout for the 3.5 meter-long, yellow-orangish 'bot. The American minehunter Swift joined in the search, too, leaving a military exercises to go hunt for the Battlespace Preparation Autonomous Underwater Vehicle.

Today, the drone was found -- nearly 200 miles from where it disappeared, the AP reports.

A man going for walk along the coast near Stavanger, on Norway's west coast, spotted a small, torpedo-like object marked "Department of Navy" grounded just off the beach and called the police.

"A police officer went to the scene, found the submarine and pulled it into land," Arvid Jensen, of the Stavanger police, told Norwegian news agency NTB...

A Norwegian Navy boat was immediately dispatched to the scene to recover the submarine so it could be returned to the Americans.

THERE'S MORE: The Navy is blaming the fresh water of Norway's fjords for the drone disappearance, according to Inside Defense.

The weather forced some of the [drone's] experimentation to take place inside a fjord off the coast of Christiansand, a small city on the south coast of Norway. Unbeknownst to Navy officials at the time, the fjord had significant amounts of fresh water, a grave problem for the UUV which is ballasted for saltier water. [The Office of Naval Research's Tim] Schnoor said the vehicle sank through the freshwater layer about 100 feet down before becoming “neutrally buoyant” between the fresh and salt water layer.

"There was certainly nothing technically wrong with the vehicle,” he said in an interview earlier today. "It was just improperly prepared for the water mass in which it was launched."

Schnoor said he has been informed the recovered vehicle is still in "good shape" and will be returned shortly.

RED CROSS: IRAQ ABUSE S.O.P.

Think the abuses at Abu Ghraib were just the work of a few guards turned to the dark side? Wrong.

A Red Cross report, leaked yesterday, says that the "methods of physical and psychological coercion used by the interrogators appeared to be part of the standard operating procedures by military intelligence personnel to obtain confessions and extract information.

"Several military intelligence officers confirmed to [the Red Cross] that it was part of the military intelligence process to hold a person deprived of his liberty naked in a completely dark and empty cell for a prolonged period [,] to use inhumane and degrading treatment, including physical and psychological coercion, against persons deprived of their liberty to secure their cooperation." (via TPM)

DATA MINER SAYS NO TO CAPPS II

If you've been screened for a new job, hassled by a telemarketer, or asked to fill out an insurance claim, chances are the data aggregation company ChoicePoint had something to do with it. So the firm isn't exactly shy about collecting lots of information about lots of people.

But even for this notoriously invasive company thinks the Homeland Security Department is going too far in its attempts to snoop on airline passengers.

ChoicePoint has dropped out of CAPPS II, the government's controversial passenger-screening program, according to GovExec.com. What's more, the company's CEO threw cold water on the whole idea that the feds could find potential terrorists in the data trails of ordinary people.

Smith said CAPPS II is too much like the Terrorism Information Awareness program once proposed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to mine commercial data because CAPPS II attempts to ferret out data about 280 million individual Americans.

Smith termed that approach "probabilistic theory" and said law enforcement and private businesses seeking to verify individuals' identities should instead take advantage of "link analysis." The latter approach concentrates first on suspected terrorists and seeks information about anyone who might be connected to them.

"Today, we are looking for small groups of people, or needles in a haystack," he said. "The last thing you want to do is put more hay on the haystacks."

SENATE, PENTAGON: DON'T READ TORTURE REPORT

Time: "It's not exactly every day that the Pentagon warns military personnel to stay away from Fox News. But that's exactly what some hopeful soul at the Department of Defense instructed, in a memo intended to forbid Pentagon staff reading a copy of the Taguba report detailing abuse of detainees at prisons in Iraq that had been posted at the Fox News web site."

Apparently, the Senate has its share of idiot bearcats, too.

"Please advise your staff not to download and/or print the report from the Internet," Mike DiSilvestro, director of the Office of Senate Security, said in an e-mail quoted by the Washington Post. "They should review official copies that you obtain through normal channels. Staff should inform Members that, despite its public appearance, the report remains classified."

"DoD still considers the report classified," he adds, "so we do not want classified reports on our unclassified systems, or printed versions floating around outside classified document control systems.

FEDS ANSWER NUKE SECURITY CALLS

Whistleblowers and good government groups have been begging the Department of Energy for years to do something about the slipshod security at its nuclear weapons labs -- only to have those pleas ignored.

But something potentially revolutionary happened on Friday. Instead of giving the watchdogs the finger, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced a series of defensive measures that were taken straight from the watchdogs' wish list.

Atomic storehouses, vulnerable to terrorist attack, will be emptied of their radioactive loads, Abraham promised in a speech at the Savannah River nuclear facility in Georgia. Classified data will be better locked down, on diskless computers. And the rent-a-cops that have been so laid-back in their protection the country's uranium supply – they might even be replaced with a federal force.

My Wired News article has details.

THERE'S MORE: Ian Hoffman, one of the deans of the nuclear security beat, isn't buying Abraham's tough talk.

"The Energy Department undergoes a major security overhaul on average every three years," he writes, "and the practical impact of Abraham's reforms -- how much more secure will nuclear weapons sites be -- was debatable."

RUMSFELD TESTIFIES...

...and Phil Carter dissects. Devastating.

NO IDEA TOO WILD FOR NASA'S SCI-FI ARM

For 25 years, Ross Hoffman has had a vision: to use tiny changes in the environment to alter the paths of hurricanes, slow down snow storms and turn dark days bright.

For most of those years, Hoffman kept his ideas largely to himself. His adviser at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told him weather control was too outlandish for his Ph.D. thesis. The chances of a buttoned-down foundation or government agency funding such research were so slim, Hoffman didn't even bother to ask.

But, in 2001, all that changed. Hoffman stumbled upon a tiny, obscure cranny of the American space program -- the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, or NIAC. In this $4 million-a-year agency, Hoffman found a place where the wildest of ideas were not only tolerated, they were welcome.

Shape-shifting space suits? Step right up. Antimatter-powered probes to Alpha Centauri? No problem. Robotic armada to destroy incoming asteroids? Pal, just sign on the dotted line. Weather control seemed downright down to earth in comparison.

Hoffman is now wrapping up his half-million-dollar study for NIAC. But the agency is continuing to bankroll concepts for a future decades away.

Some space analysts wonder how long it can last, however. With NASA in turmoil, and a presidential directive to return to the moon, will a science fiction-oriented agency like NIAC survive?

My Wired News article has details.

THERE'S MORE: LL points out that a related program, NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Project, has been axed by the agency.

"One wonders," LL writes, "if the federal government does not fund this kind of research, and public corporations are eliminating most of the basic research expenditures, what would happen to the scientific leadership of this country?"

AND MORE: "The leadership in basic science has already been ceded in certain areas," says Defense Tech dad Tom Shachtman. "High-energy particle research has gone to Switzerland because we wouldn't fund the supercollider; cutting-edge stem-cell research is now being done primarily in other countries because it has been impeded here for political/moral reasons. Congress, and in some instances the Executive Branch, have become unwilling to recommend for funding a lot of research that is too far out, or that appears to not be cost-efficient in terms of yielding near-immediate practical results. That is the very definition of short-sightedness."

AND MORE: NIAC is a lot more relevant than you think, Hoffman says. Take the all the studies "that relate to the sustained exploration of Mars," for instance.

One NIAC-funded researcher looked at where to live on Mars, and decided caves were the best place. Another studied a plant genetic assessment and control system for space environments, since astronauts cannot live by Tang alone. A third looked at what to wear on Mars, and settled on "an astronaut bio-suit system... coupling human and robotic abilities into a hybrid of the two, to the point where the explorer is hardly aware of the boundary between innate human performance and robotic activities," Hoffman explains.

Then of course, there's the question of how to get to the Red Planet.

That would be tackled, one NIAC thinker suggests, with "small, highly autonomous, solar-electric-propelled space ships, dubbed Astrotels for astronaut hotels. Hyperbolic rendezvous between them and the planetary transport hubs [would use] even smaller, fast-transfer, aeroassist vehicles called Taxis."

Obviously.

DRONE LOST AT SEA

Fisherman and divers of Norway: If you happen to see a ten-foot long, robotic mini-submarine swimming off of your shores, please call the U.S. Navy. The service has been trying to find its mine-sweeping drone for a week, now, after the 'bot failed to return to its mother ship, the USS Swift.

The Swift has broken off its participation in a military exercise to look for the Battlespace Preparation Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, the AP reports.

"The ship has searched everywhere from the fjord leading into the southern town Kristiansand to deep ocean water some 30 kilometres out, where the waters can be as much as 580 metres deep," the wire service says. "Because the sub could surface just about anywhere along Norway's coast, [Norwegian military spokesman Cmdr. Thom] Knustad appealed on national radio for Norwegians to be on the lookout for the torpedo-shaped, yellowish-orange device with a propeller on one end. "

THERE'S MORE: The boat out looking for the lost drone isn't the USS Swift, Defense Tech reader ET informs us -- that ship has scrapped years ago. Instead, it's the "HSV-2 Swift, leased from shipbuilder Incat in Australia."

NOW BUSH IS UNHAPPY WITH RUMMY?

Let me get this straight:

after more than 750 of our soldiers have been killed in a war that was supposed to be a cakewalk;

after the fighting in Iraq has dragged on for an extra year -- with no end in sight;

after invading a country -- without a plan for the occupation;

after turning marines and soldiers into cops and occupiers -- without giving them the equipment they need to do the job safely;

after relying on half-trained reservists and mercenaries to guard prisoners of war -- only to have hearts grow black and the lowest form of sadism and torture emerge;

now -- only now -- is President Bush reprimanding Defense Secretary Rumsfeld?

THERE'S MORE: New photos from the Abu Ghraib torture chambers have emerged. They are not for the faint of heart. And we should expect to see more, Sy Hersh says (via TPM).

AND MORE: Wanna job softening up Iraqi prisoners for interrogation? Maybe with a little moonlighting in torture? Then CACI, the private military contractor whose employees are at the center of the Abu Ghraib scandal, is looking for you:

Interrogator/Intel Analyst Team Lead Asst. Baghdad, Iraq... Assists the interrogation support program team lead to increase the effectiveness of dealing with Detainees, Persons of Interest, and Prisoners of War (POWs) that are in the custody of US/Coalition Forces in the CJTF 7 AOR, in terms of screening, interrogation, and debriefing of persons of intelligence value. Under minimal supervision, will assist the team lead in managing a multifaceted interrogation support cell consisting of database entry/intelligence research clerks, screeners, tactical/strategic interrogators, and intelligence analyst.

(via Boing Boing)

PBS DOC DOES DEFENSE TECH

Missed last night's PBS documentary on high-tech war? (Me, too.) Then check out the show's spiffy website, and this MSNBC story on the program.

ALSO TODAY:

- "A Cold War emergency bunker nestled in the side of a mountain will soon house one of the largest movie and music collections in the world," Wired News reports.

-The Sasser worm has taken down millions of British Coastguard computers, according to the Telegraph (via Slashdot).

- Air-sucking explosive-detectors have been installed at a Maryland train station, the Times says, to test out new security measures in the wake of the Madrid bombings.

MERCENARY JUSTICE

- The guns-for-hire involved in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal "are not subject to military justice, and so far, the Justice Department has taken no steps to prosecute them. When private military contractors break the law, what can be done to discipline them?" Phil Carter answers in Slate.

THERE'S MORE: "In the last 16 months, the Army has conducted more than 30 criminal investigations into misconduct by American captors in Iraq and Afghanistan, including 10 cases of suspicious death, 10 cases of abuse, and two deaths already determined to have been criminal homicides," according to the New York Times.

MISSILE DEFENSE DETAILED

The first phase of America's missile defense system is about to come online. And the New York Times' James Glanz travels to Delta Junction, Alaska to profile the emerging -- and controversial -- effort.

The first system will rely on interceptors in a handful of silos here at Fort Greeley, an Army base, and at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. In an attack, boosters would release the kill vehicle more than 100 miles above earth. With a heat-sensitive telescope, the vehicle would search the chill of space for the warhead, then maneuver with its thrusters and try to pulverize the weapon by simply ramming it at speeds faster than 20,000 miles an hour.

Even that description does little justice to the complexity of the system, which spans nine time zones and uses 13,000 miles of fiber optics to link sites as varied as a radar installation on the bleak island of Shemya in the Aleutians and in a secret command center at Cheyenne Mountain, Colo. If it works as planned, the system may take the honorary title of the biggest machine ever built from the nation's electrical grid.

As the nation discovered in the blackout last summer, of course, large machines can be unpredictable. The missile defense system, in fact, is so enormous and complex that it may never be fully tested unless an attack occurs.

MAYDAY FOR LASER JET

In 1996, when the Pentagon first starting pushing the Airborne Laser -- a 747 armed with an anti-missile ray gun -- the idea was to have one of the jets shooting down projectiles by 2002, and fully-functioning by 2008. Over the years, that goal has been pushed back. Way back. And now, it looks like the ABL project is in worse shape than anyone thought.

Not long ago, the ABL was supposed to have its first big trial in early 2005. Now, Aviation Week reports, that could slip another year, easily. And the test will be dumbed down, big time. Instead of actually zapping an oncoming missile, the jet will just try to reach "first light" -- in other words, get the chemical oxygen iodine laser to simply power up.

"One reason ABL has fallen behind schedule stems from serious problems with component quality, Aviation Week says. "Around 800 components, largely in the laser area, were rejected when they were delivered because of shoddy workmanship, complained one industry official. Others argue that many components were being built for the first time, so unanticipated problems were encountered."

A recent Congressional report on the program notes that "specialized valves have been recalled twice, laser fluid management software has been delayed due to inadequate definition of requirements, and improperly cleaned plumbing and material issues have required over 3,000 hr. of unplanned work."

"We believe we can make ABL work very, very well," says Missile Defense Agency chief Lt. Gen. Ron Kadish, "but we're having trouble doing it."

WAR REPORTER'S GADGETS

Gizmodo talks to New York Times magazine war correspondent Peter Maass, and finds out what gadgets he takes with him when he's covering a battle. Included in his bag of geekery: a couple of radios, a few phones, a pocket knife, a Palm PDA, and, of course, an iPod.

HINTS OF IRAQ ABUSE IN DECEMBER

I should have seen this coming. In December, in a report for the Chicago Tribune, I noted how member of the 800th Military Police brigade -- the same unit now implicated in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal -- were using electricity-spewing taser guns on its prisoners. Why? Because Saddam's thugs employed similar tactics to enforce their will.

"The previous regime used batons to beat the populace, and electrical torture devices on dissidents. Thus judicious use and control of the riot baton and introduction of the TASER has intimidated the former members of the regime, and saved soldiers and civilians lives," reads a personal report, circulating through the Defense Department, from recently retired Lt. Col. Wesley "Bo" Barbour, now a contract employee for the Army's Training and Doctrine Command...

The taser's value as a particularly ferocious behavior-modification tool became clear at a prisoner-of-war camp holding "high-value detainees currently depicted in the 'deck of cards'" -- the list of the 55 most wanted leaders of Saddam Hussein's government.

Members of the 800th Military Police Brigade had to use lethal force several times to quell prisoner uprisings, the report says. But such rebellions reportedly came to an end after a military police officer demonstrated the taser's power--more than 50,000 volts of electricity, enough to cause muscles to fail after a shock of a few seconds.

"Holy shit! That was the expression" when the prisoners saw the taser demonstration, said Sergeant Major Charles Slider, with the Military Police School based out of Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri. He was part of Barbour's team in Iraq. "They moved away, they got it in line. It was a significant event for them."

Now, we know that this wasn't the only time American guards used electricity -- or the threat of it, at least -- to enforce their will on prisoners.

"One Iraqi man," the L.A. Times notes, "had a slur written on his skin in English. Another was directed by Americans to stand on a box with his head covered and wires attached to his hands. He was informed that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted."

THERE'S MORE: TalkLeft says that "there have been hints, reports, investigation and hearings into abuse of Iraqi POW's all along." Back in May of '03, the blog passed along word of possible abuse by British soldiers.

AND MORE: The L.A. Times publishes excerpts from a secret Army report detailing "systemic" abuse at Abu Ghraib.

Maybe now that the report's segments are online, Defene Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will actually bother to read it.

"Appearing on three Sunday talk shows," the New York Times notes, "General Myers insisted that the instances of mistreatment were not widespread and were the actions of 'just a handful' of soldiers who had unfairly tainted all American forces in Iraq. But when pressed, he acknowledged that he had not yet read a classified, 53-page Army report completed in February by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba...

"A spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that the secretary had not been briefed on General Taguba's report either."

TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB

By now, you've all heard the reports and seen the awful pictures of American and British guards horribly abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Saddam's former torture chamber.

Phil Carter looks at the roles of private contractors and CIA operatives in the scandal.

Chris Allrbitton said that by stripping the prisoners, and making them perform homosexual acts, the American guards "must have had at least an instinctual knowledge of how awful their abuse would be. They picked a perfect storm of taboos and humiliation — and documented it! — that would enrage the Arab world."

But in Monday's New Yorker, Seymour Hersh, goes further, with the most potentially damning story of all.

As the international furor grew, senior military officers, and President Bush, insisted that the actions of a few did not reflect the conduct of the military as a whole. [An internal Army] report, however, amounts to an unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of Army leadership at the highest levels. The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority.