TSA WANTS "SUSPICIOUS" SPOTTER

As if you weren't nervous enough in the airport. The Transportation Security Administration has started to hunt for technologies that'll secretly spot "suspicious behavior" in passengers.

The request for information, filed by the minds of the William J. Hughes Technical Center in the Atlantic City Airport, hopes to find ways to "sense patterns of individuals' physiological response(s) and/or overt behavior that are reliably associated with malicious intent."

Proposed technologies may be applicable to the screening of travelers or of employees of transportation facilities (e.g., airports, rail stations, and bus terminals) and carriers.

Ideally, proposed technologies will be non invasive, remote, covert, passive, automatic, and suitable for area, as well as portal use. However, alternatives requiring contact, interaction (challenge-response, for example), manual operation, etc. will also be considered.

Great. Just great. (via Cyrptome)

ANTI-LASER CONTACT LENSES

I think we all winced when we read, back in September, about the Delta pilot who was hit in the eye by a laser while flying a 737. Or about the 20 year-old Los Alamos intern who was zapped during a July experiment.

Air Force researchers must not have liked what they read, either. That's presumably why they're looking to develop a contact lens that can protect against laser blasts (scroll down to find it).

Lasers are becoming more and more common on the battlefield. Range finders, smart bomb guidance packages, and airplane protection systems all use the rays. And while the Air Force has been working hard to put together eyewear that'll keep the lasers at bay, it's been hard to integrate the things with "protective equipment (helmets, goggles, and chem/bio gear), life support equipment (visors and oxygen masks), and avionics (head/helmet mounted displays and night vision goggles)." Corrective glasses only make the problem worse.

Anti-laser contact lenses might solve many of the problems, though. And they'd cover the eye better than glasses or goggles.

The contact lens sits on the eye, the entire cornea and pupil are covered, so there is no chance of a reflection, or high angle incident beam, sneaking behind the LEP [Laser Eye Protection]. Therefore, coupled with the appropriate laser protection technology, contact lenses provide a perfectly sized defense against eye injury, eliminating direct and off-axis retinal hazards from today’s most dangerous military lasers that operate in the far red and near infrared spectrum (670 nm – 1200 nm).

INSIDE FALLUJAH'S INSURGENCY

IED factories, packed with radios and plastic explosives. Martyr training manuals. Illicitly-used mosques, pinpointed on a map.

That's all part of an eye-popping PowerPoint presentation, obtained by Military.com, "Telling the Story of Fallujah to the Word." Allegedly created by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and the Multi-National Corps - Iraq, the slide show is meant to catalog just how venomous insurgent forces in Fallujah had become.

Sixty percent of Fallujah's mosques had fighting positions within them, according to "Telling." That's a violation of the laws of war. 203 weapons caches were found dotted around the city. 653 IEDs were discovered – as well as 11 factories for building the bombs.

The presentation also shows ledgers, supposedly tracking foreign fighter in the city, evidence of torture chambers, and a rundown of the weapons confiscated by American and Iraqi government troops. Grisly stuff, especially for a holiday weekend. But well worth the 3MB download.

THERE'S MORE: The bosses here have turned that PowerPoint beast into good ol' HTML. So now there's no excuse the check it out.

AND MORE: A review of Palestinian militants' stockpiles and production facilities, produced by a former Israeli Army soldier, is here.

MAPS, JETS, AND CHATS

- From commerical satellite pictures, the Army is putting together 3D maps of Mosul and Fallujah.

- Out of a 737 passenger jet, Boeing is making an anti-sub spyplane.

- In online chat rooms, the CIA and the National Science Foundation are hoping to catch terrorists scheming.

THERE'S MORE: With a program called FalconView, the Air Force has been cooking up satellite-generated 3-D maps since 1995 in Bosnia, notes Defense Tech pal CA.

"One of the best things about FV is not just that you can place items on imagery, but that you can 'drape' that imagery over 3-D Digital Terrain Elevation Data. This is what enables the hi-fidelity fly-throughs [of the area]. More cumbersome technology, using [government] imagery, has been around for years. But time and progress now allows it to get to the field...

Hi-fidelity imagery is not only a boon to the troops, but also to the intelligence community. Now lower-priority, lower-fidelity requirements (like low-resolution maps, environmental studies) can be [handled by] commercial [satellites], and not take up valuable "national" resources as they have always done. The main drawback to commercial is lack of assets (though improving), and lack of timeliness. But the capability is great if you want to, say, get mid-res city graphics of major Iranian cities, or produce mid-res familiarization products of Iranian nuclear/missile facilities.

TANKER SCANDAL: START HERE

Maybe it was out of sheer laziness. Maybe it was because so many others have been covering the subject so thoroughly. But I haven't been blogging about the ongoing Boeing-USAF tanker scandal, even though the mess has drained billions in taxpayer funds, cost several Air Force leaders their jobs, and made for some of Washington's best political theater.

Anyway, here is a good place for background on Tankergate. Hopefully, I'll get off my butt and start covering this thing myself.

"WHEN I GROW UP, I WANNA SPY ON THE NEIGHBORS!"

Imagine a world where Teletubbies pack heat and Spongebob goes undercover. That's apparently what US government web designers had in mind when they followed President Clinton's 1997 order to add child-oriented Web pages to government sites. Today, the results are bizarre - cryptographic coloring books, drug-sniffing dog cartoons, and spy-satellite sing-alongs. Are they giant inside jokes? Coded messages? The remnants of LSD experiments gone awry? Only Dick Cheney may know for sure.

Here are two examples. Click on over to my story in this month's Wired magazine for the rest:

NRO Jr.
The National Reconnaissance Office used to be so hush-hush that officials wouldn't admit it existed. Now the spy-satellite agency has gone cute. The site has songs ("Whoosh Goes Satellite," to the tune of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"), stories of cats in space, and "simple-to-make, paper-plate satellite puppets."

CIA's Homepage for Kids
Youngsters can thank CIA "Ace Photo Pigeon" Harry Recon for the exciting overhead views of the agency's Langley, Virginia, headquarters (presumably with some details redacted). Meanwhile, Ginger, a mischievous blue teddy bear, takes a tour of spook HQ - without a security badge. "Lucky the guard knows me!"

USAF WANTS SELF-AWARE SATELLITES

The possibility of a sneak attack in space has the Pentagon spooked. And one of the things that makes Rummy & Co. the most nervous is that nobody has a clue what's actually up there in orbit. Imagine how vast and opaque the seas must have seen to World War I-era commanders, and you'll get the idea.

There are an array of efforts underway to try to fix this. But a just-introduced Air Force program wins the coolest name award. And it could be in the running for a biggest-bang-for-the-buck prize, too, if it ever gets off of the ground.

"The Self-Aware Satellite" (scroll waaay down) starts with the premise that orbiters already have a lot of sensors on board. But these instruments are oriented inward, to keep tabs on the satellite's health. What's worse, many of the sensors "are fixed and uni-purpose, and they cannot be accessed in a way inconsistent with this originally envisioned purpose," the Air Force notes.

The Self-Aware Satellite – also known as Satellite-As-A-Sensor, or SAAS – looks to break that rigid mold, and let free up the orbiters' instrumentation.

In SAAS, all sensor data is posted to a centralized database, which can be freely accessed in real-time by a satellite's own processor(s). Sensors can furthermore be redirected to other purposes. For example, a timing, telemetry and control (TT&C) radio can be retargeted to behave as a radio-frequency (RF) threat-warning sensor when not otherwise engaged. Correlations between sensors can be analyzed by the platform on orbit. When combined with an autonomous ability to exploit the information for short-loop responsive actions, a "self-aware" satellite is created.

But pulling off this trick means doing a big time reworking of satellites' closed and centralized software. And it means reprogramming sensors, so they can spot both internal trouble as well as threats from without.

BUNKER-BUSTER WIPED OUT

I couldn't quite believe it, when I first got the news over the weekend. But it's true: "Congress, in a surprising blow to the Bush administration's nuclear weapons ambitions, has eliminated funding for two major bomb research programs, including a so-called bunker buster that the president had said was essential to the country's security," the San Francisco Chronicle (among others) is reporting.

The bunker-buster – or, more formally, the "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator" – is a weapon that burrows about 10 yards beneath the ground before unleashing hell. And it has been a contentious issue in Congress ever since it was proposed by the Administration in 2002. Last year, legislators cut funds for the project in half. Then, in June, a key Republican representative – Ohio's David Hobson, who chairs the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee – moved to wipe out funds for the program entirely. The money was later restored in the Senate.

Now, Hobson seems to have struck again, fulfilling a pledge John Kerry made in the Presidential debates, to ban the bunker-buster.

"The U.S. has about 10,000 warheads in the stockpile already. To him, that number is enough," Hobson's press secretary, Sara Perkins, tells the Chron.

But while Hobson has complained long and loud about America's Cold War-sized atomic stockpile, there's a little more to his bunker-buster opposition than that. Hobson has also been a big-time critic of the Energy Department bureaucrats in charge of the country's nuclear weapons programs. And he's not afraid to use issues like the bunker-buster as a club against them. As I wrote back in June:

[In 2003], he pared back proposed funding for some weapons research programs. For others, he withheld funds until the Bush administration came up with a plan to shrink the country's nuclear weapons stockpile. That road map -- to halve the American arsenal by 2012 -- was submitted last week.

"After several years of frustration, we finally put a fence around some of (Energy Department's) advanced concepts funding and said that it would not be available until the department delivered a revised stockpile plan," Hobson said in a statement. "I admit that we held a DOE program hostage until they produced this revised stockpile plan, and you know what? -- the power of the purse does work!"

CHICAGO LISTENS UP FOR GUNS

"Gang members in Chicago who fire off a few rounds at their rivals [could] find cops on the scene in minutes, thanks to new gunshot-detection devices being installed in 80 locations around the city before the end of the year," Wired News reports.

The devices, mounted on telephone poles in specific neighborhoods, listen for the distinctive sound of a gunshot and immediately alert a police dispatcher when one is detected. A video camera in the device allows the dispatcher to keep an eye on the scene until officers arrive.

The system is similar to those being used to decrease gunshot-related injuries and deaths in a half dozen other cities in the United States, including Redwood City, California; Glendale, Arizona; and Charleston, South Carolina.

Here's how the systems work: Police mount the detection devices, which include microphones and sound-analysis hardware, on telephone poles and other locations in neighborhoods where gunfire is a problem. The devices are connected to a control center where dispatchers wait to receive alerts via their computers.

Chicago authorities have been getting increasingly worked up about using distributed technology to keep tabs on their less-than-friendly residents. In September, Mayor Daley announced a proposal to network together 2,000 surveillance cameras around the city.

Chicago's gunshot detectors sound a whole lot like Darpa's "Boomerang," sniper-finder system, which G.I.s have been mounting on their Humvees since early in the year. More info on the project's next stage --designed to fight off RPG attacks, as well -- is here.

SOFTWARE SPOTS A MASTERPIECE

No, this doesn't have a damn thing to do with killer drones, pain rays, or mullahs with nukes. But I'm posting this Wired News story of mine anyway, dammit. It's about software tools that may be able to spot the difference between a real painting, and a slick forgery.

Scholars have had their suspicions that the painting of Madonna and child credited to the Italian Renaissance master Pietro Perugino wasn't really done by him alone. But they could never be sure.

Now, a new set of software tools, developed by a Dartmouth College team, seems to confirm the art historians' doubts, showing evidence of at least four different painters working on the canvas. The programs' makers hope this will be the first in a long line of art authentication mysteries they can help put to rest, with code that can sort out real from fake.

"There are properties in an artist's pen and brush strokes that aren't visible to the human eye, but that are there nonetheless. And we can find them, through mathematical, statistical analysis," said Dartmouth computer science professor Hany Farid, who developed the algorithms, along with math professor Daniel Rockmore and graduate student Siwei Lyu.

But museum curators and statisticians caution that the Dartmouth group's techniques have only begun to be tested. Using algorithms to back up scholars' suspicions is one thing; uncovering a fraud with just a computer, that's completely different. And in the art world, no scientific method is considered as sure as the eye of a seasoned connoisseur.

"This is very unusual," said Nadine Orenstein, the curator of the drawings and prints department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. "We're all a bit skeptical."

THERE'S MORE: Earlier this year, Farid made noise when he unveiled his software for finding faked digital images. My New York Times story on that work is here.

ANOTHER I.E.D. STOPPER?

"Two Missouri professors seeking ways to track civilian automobiles for General Motors have discovered a way to detect and conceivably even detonate so-called Improvised Explosive Devices," Soldiers for the Truth says. It sounds a lot like what the Army already has, in its Warlock series of radio frequency jammers.

Simply stated, the scientists have figured out a way to eavesdrop on the ether to detect ambient electronic noise floating around when the mad bombers set up their devices in preparation of setting off an ambush. Both the transmitter the insurgents need to send out a radio signal ordering the detonator to explode and the detonator itself, emit these radio signals.

The trick is isolating the unique signals much the same way sonar operators on submarines filter out biologic and machinery noises until they can identify the sounds of the target they are looking for. That radio signal sounds very much like the rapid electronic “beep-beep-beep” emitted by Soviet-era SA-2 acquisition radar...

“It would be relatively easy to override these radio receivers if we can recognize them,” Hubing told me last week. “When we identify the receiver, it is possible to prevent an IED from ever receiving the initiation signal.”

Hubing said operators using the same equipment could then detonate the IED under a controlled situation where it would not cause any casualties.

The technology to create the device already exists. The laboratory where the two scientists do their research possessed enough equipment to make a working theoretical model of the IED detector and present their finding to the Pentagon, Hubing said. Beetner, the other half of the team and the fiscal wizard in the equation, said he thinks it will take about $750,000 and a year of focused attention to field a working prototype.

SOVIET BATTLE STATION SNAPSHOTS

Thank you, Slashdot. Thank you. How else would I have found out about these photographs of the Soviet Union's orbiting battle station?

The Skif and its Polyus prototype were supposed to be the Soviets' answer to Star Wars -- a spacecraft to defend against (and launch its own) anti-satellite weapons. The Polyus was launched in '87. But it couldn't get itself into a working orbit, probably because of "a faulty inertial guidance sensor," according to the Encyclopedia Astronautica. "No member of the Reagan or Bush administrations ever admitted or revealed publicly any knowledge of Polyus. The US Navy has made no statements about any attempts to investigate the wreckage of Polyus, which lies on the floor of the South Pacific."

MORE ON WARLOCK'S TRICKS

It's not much. But I've got a leeetle more information on the military's hush-hush defense against improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

The Warlock radio frequency jammers are made by the New York and Simi Valley firm EDO. And they're based on an earlier EDO product called the Shortstop Electronic Protection System, which is designed to protect troops against proximity-fused weapons, like mortar rounds and artillery shells. According to EDO, Shortstop grabs the electronic signal that one of these weapons makes, "modifies the signal and sends it back to the weapon making the fuze think it is close to the ground. The fuze then prematurely detonates the warhead rendering the weapon essentially harmless."

The Warlock doesn't do anything quite so dramatic. Instead, "it basically works by intercepting the signal sent from a remote location to the IED instructing it to detonate," an Army official told Inside Defense (which has a wrap-up of all its recent IED stories here.) "The signal 'cannot make contact, therefore when it can’t make contact it doesn’t detonate,' much like a cellular phone call that does not connect, he added. "The cell phone never gets through, but [enemy forces] think it go through."

The jammers come in two flavors, each interrupting different frequency bands. Warlock Green connects off of the 24V DC power supply of any military vehicle, an Army document notes. Warlock Red is "designed to connect off the cigarette lighter and/or 12V DC power supply."

THERE'S MORE: "The Army is testing a new method of intercepting improvised explosive devices that relies on an up-armored humvee and two types of vehicles designed in South Africa to withstand blasts from land mines," Inside Defense also notes.

$2.9 million will pay for two "Hunter/Killer" teams, each with an up-armored humvee, an enhanced RG31 Medium Mine Protection vehicle, and a bulldozer-like Buffalo Explosive Ordnance Disposal vehicle, the magazine says.

U.S. forces -- including the 82nd Airborne's Task Force Pathfinder -- have been using the vehicles since the beginning of the year. According to an Army public affairs story, soldiers like the RG31 because it's built to withstand a bomb (more on how that's done here) and because it's roomy. "Like riding in an armored Cadillac," one soldier quips.

IRAN'S NUKE PAUSE - BAD NEWS?

So Iran has apparently stopped enriching uranium for the moment, pressing pause on its nuclear program. Great news, right?

Actually, it could hardly be worse, argues Michael Levi, the Brookings Institution's resident atomic authority. Iran's time-out is the product of a deal between Tehran and three European countries. The mullahs made similar commitments last year -- and didn't keep them. And even if Tehran decides to stick to its agreements this time around, this new bargain has "dealt Iran a stronger hand," Levi contends.

Supporters insist that the new language is more specific and provides fewer loopholes than the last deal. But in exchange for a mere tightening of loopholes, the EU-3 has offered Iran a pretty indulgent deal. Most importantly, the Europeans have again promised to keep Tehran away from the Security Council, a commitment with irreversible consequences -- after all, while the Europeans can change their minds and head to the Security Council whenever they please, they cannot turn back the clock. Every day Iran operates under lessened pressure is a day it might move closer to producing a bomb. (Only an overly optimistic or naïve observer can confidently believe Iran continues no nuclear efforts in secret.) Moreover, the past two years have shown that the further into history Iran's most egregious actions recede, the less willing other countries become to punish Tehran for them. So by delaying a Security Council confrontation, the EU-3 has, for now, dealt Iran a stronger hand.

The Europeans didn't stop there, however. They promised to bring Iran into WTO-entry negotiations; they also promised the possibility of nuclear, technological, and economic cooperation. Finally, they delivered an important intangible to Iran--the deal, which never mentions the country's violations, will provide Tehran with useful ammunition for its propaganda machine domestically, in the Middle East, and around the world. As a guest on Iranian and Arabic television programs, I've experienced first-hand the importance of this factor: Iranian officials seize on any sentiment or phrase from an outside power that can be read as exonerating its nuclear program and use it to drown out reasoned opposition. Now, faced with claims that the outside world, including Europe, believes Iran violated last October's agreement--a plain truth--Iran will repeatedly produce the EU-3 deal as evidence to the contrary. That, in turn, will bolster domestic support for the regime and its actions while creating regional sympathy for Iran's claims of mistreatment at the hands of the West.

It isn't just the EU-3 that is to blame here. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which for the most part has done a solid job in investigating Iran, put itself in an inappropriate political position as part of the EU-3 negotiations. Scheduled to deliver a critical report on Iran's activities last week, the agency delayed its release pending the outcome of the EU-3 negotiations. In doing so, it clearly suggested that Iran could influence the report--which is presumably a factual accounting of Iran's activities--by agreeing to the right deal. Imagine a criminal psychiatrist delaying her assessment of a defendant pending the outcome of plea bargain negotiations, and you've got an idea of how irresponsible this is.

VETS BATTLE MYSTERY SICKNESS

A pointer to this Reuters article landed in my in-box with the subject "Gulf War II Syndrome?" That's probably a little premature. But this is weird, weird stuff, nonetheless.

An unexpectedly high number of U.S. soldiers injured in the Middle East and Afghanistan are testing positive for a rare, hard-to-treat blood infection in military hospitals, Army doctors reported on Thursday.

A total of 102 soldiers were found to be infected with the bacteria Acinetobacter baumannii. The infections occurred among soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and three other sites between Jan. 1, 2002, and Aug. 31, 2004.

Although it was not known where the soldiers contracted the infections, the Army said the recent surge highlighted a need to improve infection control in military hospitals.

Eighty-five of the bloodstream infections occurred among soldiers serving in Iraq, the area around Kuwait and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army said in a report published on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Military hospitals typically see about one case per year.

If there is a Gulf War II syndrome, it may have the same roots as the mystery illness that struck the veterans of Gulf War I: depleted uranium, or D.U. That's the ultra-hard, apparently toxic material American forces have been using for years in their anti-tank shells.

Vanity Fair chronicles how soldiers who have been exposed to the stuff in Iraq have been coming back in bad, bad shape.

At first, Terry merely had the usual headaches, body pain, oozing rash, and other symptoms. But later he began to suffer from another symptom which afflicts some of those exposed to D.U.: burning semen. "If he leaked a little lubrication from his penis, it would feel like sunburn on your skin... In England, Malcolm Hooper, professor emeritus of medicinal chemistry at the University of Sunderland, is aware of 4,000 such cases. He hypothesizes that the presence of D.U. may be associated with the transformation of semen into a caustic alkali.

"It hurt [Terry] too. He said it was like forcing it through barbed wire," Riordon says. "It seemed to burn through condoms; if he got any on his thighs or his testicles, he was in hell." In a last, desperate attempt to save their sex life, says Riordon, "I used to fill condoms with frozen peas and insert them [after sex] with a lubricant." That, she says, made her pain just about bearable. Perhaps inevitably, he became impotent. "And that was like our last little intimacy gone."

By late 1995, Terry was seriously deteriorating. Susan shows me her journal-she titled it "The Twilight Zone"-and his medical record. It makes harrowing reading. He lost his fine motor control to the point where he could not button his shirt or zip his fly. While walking, he would fall without warning. At night, he shook so violently that the bed would move across the floor. He became unpredictably violent: one terrible day in 1997 he attacked their 16-year-old son and started choking him. By the time armed police arrived to pull him off, the boy's bottom lip had turned blue. After such rages, he would fall into a deep sleep for as long as 24 hours, and awake with no memory of what had happened...

Even after he died, on April 29, 1999, Terry's Canadian doctors remained unable to explain his illness. "This patient has a history [of] 'Gulf War Syndrome' with multiple motor, sensory and emotional problems," the autopsy report by pathologist Dr. B. Jollymore, of Yarmouth, begins. "During extensive investigation, no definitive diagnosis has been determined.... Essentially it appears that this gentleman remains an enigma in death as he was in life."

The article never quite gets around to what D.U. exposure really does to a man. Is it burning semen? Bone cancer? Psychotic breaks? Lung problems? All of the above? But the amount of stories and studies accumulated leads to only one conclusion: that D.U. is somehow linked to a whole bunch of soldiers getting sick. And the Pentagon doesn't seem to be in any particular hurry to figure out why.

THERE'S MORE: D.U. was also used extensively in Bosnia and Kosovo, Mike Davis points out. And there seems to be "no difference in the symptoms of those infected in the Balkans as those in Iraq from the first Persian Gulf War." But the Pentagon isn't impressed. This 2001 study says there's no link between D.U. and leukemia.

For a history of soldiers coming home sick, Defense Tech pal Ryan Singel recommends The Wages of War: When America's Soldiers Came Home.

TASTY SPAM

Maybe it's because my e-mail account has been hijacked by spammers recently, leaving me to clean up the mess when a zillion people get hit with advertisements for "Unlimited Free Music," "Hot Deals from Adobe," and "Moms Ready to Cheat." But boy, did I like my weekend read, Brian McWilliams' Spam Kings.

Brian has been one of my favorite freelance writers, ever since he hacked his way into Saddam's in-box two years ago. I must have tried a dozen times to get him to write for Defense Tech. But he always demurred.

Now I know why. He was too busy cataloguing the exploits of backwoods neo-Nazis, shady stock-pickers, and sexy anti-spam crusaders.

The result is breezy, naughty fun, with deeply-flawed good guys and painfully-human villians. Think Dominick Dunne, edited by the geeks at Slashdot. Good stuff.

Now, if I could only figure out a way to get these spammers to stop using my e-mail...

PENTAGON: MORE RAY GUNS, PLEASE

The Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate is the tiny Pentagon agency that's pushing weapons like the microwave-like pain ray and a slippery goo to make angry mobs lose their footing. Now, the JNLWD is on the lookout for new, far-out projects to fund. And the Directorate's $57.6 million shopping list is heavy on the ray guns:

* Emerging Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) that have non-lethal applications -- specifically counter-personnel, counter-material, and counter-capability missions (examples include novel HPM [high power microwaves], RFR [radiofrequency radiation], laser, and laser induced plasma sources).

* Human effects of non-lethal directed energy exposures, to include physiological and behavioral responses (examples include HPM, pulsed and continuous radiofrequency radiation RFR, laser radiation, and laser induced plasma stimuli).

* Advanced Materials that either provide or enhance non-lethal capabilities (examples include advanced anti-traction materials; engine suffocates, electrical and mechanical foulers, malodorants, thermobarics, NL [non-lethal] nanoparticles; rigid foams/materials, morphing materials, and NL payload delivery systems or payloads for long range remote engagement; and other NL reactants).

* Human effects relating percussive and continuous sounds, incoherent light sources, and overpressures that alone or in combination would provide operational capabilities while minimizing adverse health effects (examples include exposure-response relationships resulting in glare and flashblindess, or behavioral responses resulting from aversive sounds.) Also includes establishing either safety thresholds or probability relationship for adverse health effects for these stimuli.

* Development of long-range acoustic and ocular technologies and devices that support operational requirements while minimizing adverse health consequences.

* Development of long-range, extended duration, wireless electro-muscular incapacitation technologies or devices (include characterization of human effect and safety issues, miniaturization and advanced technology issues, and precision targeting). (via The Sunshine Project)

NET HUNTING TAKES AIM

Ah, progress. A Texas company, Live-Shot , is planning to let hunters use a webcam and an Internet-controlled rifle to shoot down deer, mouflon sheep, antelopes and wild pigs as they roam a 54-acre ranch, according to the BBC.

John Underwood got the idea a year ago when he was watching deer via a webcam on another net site, "We were looking at a beautiful white-tail buck and my friend said 'If you just had a gun for that'. A little light bulb went off in my head..."

Each remote hunting session will cost $150 with additional fees for meat processing and taxidermy work.

Already the Live-Shot site lets people shoot 10 rounds at paper and silhouette targets for $5.95 for each 20-minute shooting session. For further fees, users can get the target they shot and a DVD recording of their session.

Handlers oversee each shooting session and can stop the gun being fired if it is being aimed off-range or at something it should not be...

Mike Berger, wildlife director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, said current hunting statutes did not cover net or remote hunting. Besides, the law only covers "regulated animals" and there's thus nothing to stop Mr Underwood letting people hunt "unregulated" imported animals. (via The Near Near Future).

I.E.D.S - WHY THE WHISPERS?

It all seemed pretty straightforward, at first.

I wanted to do some follow-up on a post from a few weeks back, about the U.S. military's efforts to counter improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Those are the roadside bombs which are proving so lethal to American troops in Iraq.

A company out of New York, EDO, put out a couple of press releases announcing their $45 million contract with the Army, to make radio frequency jammers that could block the signals triggering the IEDs. Some of the government trade press had followed up, with quick articles on the jammer, called Warlock Green.

But despite the semi-public profile, when I asked EDO chief Bill Walkowiak about Warlock Green, he went mute. The Army wouldn't let him talk any more, he said. Anything having to do with IEDs – it was all classified now.

And that's a problem, some defense industry insiders are saying. Not whether or not Walkowiak will talk a reporter -- defense contractors clam up all the time, often rightly so. The dark blanket of secrecy that's been thrown over any and all information about these roadside bombs is the issue. "The Pentagon remains tight-lipped about how much money it is spending on a regular basis to counter the threat of such devices and how many troops who need it have access to specialized equipment, such as electronic jammer devices," Inside Defense notes. "Even details on how the enemy builds the IED remain under wraps."

Finding and stopping IEDs is a super-hard problem. They don't give off heat, so thermal sensors won't work; they're not made of metal, generally, so magnets are out; they're not unstable, like a chemical agent, so detectors that "sniff" the air haven't done the trick, yet.

In fact, the problem is so hard, that all interested researchers and contractors and scientists – not just the ones with security clearance – need to get a whack at IEDs, says John MacGaffin, former associate deputy director for operations at the CIA.

“Why is it classified?” he asks Inside Defense. “What is the secret?”

MacGaffin, who spent 31 years at the CIA, now runs the AKE Group, which provides training and security in Iraq for major media organizations and industry. He says the only information that should remain classified are the frequencies used by the United States to jam IEDs. He acknowledged that if information on how enemies build IEDs is released, other insurgents could learn how to construct the devices. But there is also a strong likelihood that release of that information will prompt industry to find the solution that will make the weapon less deadly, he says.

“What’s more important? Keeping people alive,” MacGaffin told sister publication Inside the Army last week.

Not everyone agrees that DOD should be more generous with IED threat data. Defense officials say the protection of such information is vital to ensuring countermeasures will work for as long as possible…

“I know there’s a frustration,” Scott Gooch, senior associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, said. [The company] is conducting capabilities assessment work on IEDs for the Joint Staff.

But classification issues are nothing new, Gooch noted -- and new ideas are making their way to the Pentagon. In one example, a farmer discovered a material that could withstand explosives and sent it via UPS to the Defense Department.

But doesn’t the farmer example actually argue for more people getting involved in the process – and less secrecy?

THERE'S MORE: Shhh! Keep quiet when you're reading Steven Aftergood's Slate story on why airport screeners don't have to tell you what law they're relying on to give you the pat-down.

AND MORE: House Armed Services Committee chair Duncan Hunter "is developing a proposal to boost production" of Warlock Green-like jammers, Aerospace Daily says. "The Army plans to buy another 3,300 jammers, a figure that Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) asserted still would leave many U.S. vehicles unprotected against IEDs."

ARMY BASES STILL VULNERABLE?

"Pentagon inspectors say police, firefighters and doctors are still inadequately prepared to respond to attacks using weapons of mass destruction against Army bases — even though the Army had tried, in vain, to improve that after the 9/11 attacks."

That's the story from the Deseret Morning News, which says that "'plans to implement an Installation Preparedness Program for first responders were substantially fragmented and ineffective," according to an Army Audit Agency report.

For example, the report complained that one set of Army officials and rules oversaw police; another set of officials and rules governed firefighters; and a third, separate set oversaw medical personnel.

Inspectors said that not only did those groups not coordinate with each other, they often failed to consult special response teams and other Army experts on biological, chemical and radiological weapons to develop training criteria and equipment lists.

Inspectors said while the Army had meant to separate and assign key roles to ensure they were accomplished, "the unintended result was a lack of coordination and communication between key Army proponents and technical experts to collectively address installation preparedness issues related to first responders.

(From a tip by Phil Carter, who's got a dynamite story on the Fallujah mosque shooting in today's Slate.)

DARPA TAKES A DIVE

The first in the U.S. Navy's new class of Virginia submarines was commissioned just last month.

But already, the mad scientists over at Darpa, the Pentagon's way-out research division, are bored.

They want a sub that can run with a fraction of the crew of current boats. So Darpa has put together a new, $97 million effort to build the submarines of the future, code named Tango Bravo. Last week, the agency held a classified meeting with defense contractors and researchers interested in bidding on the project.

At the heart of the Tango Bravo project is a problem that's older than U-Boats: how to run a sub without packing the crew in like fish in a can. Why the concern? Well, it's not for the sailors' comfort. "People are expensive," notes GlobalSecurity.org director John Pike.

For years, the Navy has been pushing to run bigger and bigger ships with fewer and fewer sailors. It took a crew of about 320 to run the World War II-era Fletcher destroyers. Today, an Arleigh Burke destroyer uses the same number of men – but, at 8300 tons, it's three times as big.

Things have been different on submarines, however. While crew sizes have basically remained stable, sub sized have only doubled – a lot less than the destroyers' three-fold increase.

One way to cut down on the number of people is to automate the sub, particularly its attack center and sonar battlestations. Those areas require 17 people on the Virginia class submarines, Darpa notes. The agency wants to see that crew cut to eight, with "a set of systems should be proposed which can replace the current VIRGINIA Class sonar, fire control, and tactical data display systems."

But even with a crew trim, space on a sub is still beyond cramped. "There's never enough room for people," says retired Rear Admiral Hank McKinney, the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's submarine force. "On the Los Angeles class [of subs], a third of the crew didn't have bunks of their own. Seawolf – same problem."

Tango Bravo's solution: take the torpedoes, and store them outside the sub, not within. "They take up a lot of room inside what we call the people tank," Adm. McKinney notes. And it's something that's been done on a number of submarines before. Tomahawk missiles were kept in the ballast tanks in some of the later Los Angeles-class subs, for example, to increase the number of torpedoes that could be kept aboard. What's more, the latest Mark 48 torpedoes aren't even maintained on the ship, McKinney observes. "They're prepped before hand, and then left alone."

ARMY'S INSURGENT MANUAL AUTHOR SPEAKS

Last week, Defense Tech took a look at the Army's new field manual for Counterinsurgency Operations – and how that guide seemed, at first blush, to be at odds with the assault on Fallujah.

The story kicked up a nice little dust-up over on the new Defense Tech forum. One of the people who weighed in: Lt. Col. Jan Horvath, with the Army's Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate. He's the man who led the team that put together the counterinsurgency manual, "FM-I 3-07.22."

Lt. Col. Horvath and I have traded e-mails a few times this week. I've parsed the conversation into a Q & A. In it, he's sometimes critical of U.S. operations in Iraq -- the Fallujah strike should have emphasized "operational secrecy and surprise," for example. But he finds a lot of good in how American troops are handling this ongoing guerilla war.

DEFENSE TECH: Who put together this manual? And what is it supposed to be used for? Is it some kind of academic exercise, or does it really guide troops on the ground?

JAN HORVATH: The FM-I is a collaborative product developed primarily by the U.S. Army but in collaboration with the USMC [U.S. Marine Corps], the [Army's] Special Warfare Center and the British Army.

The FM-I is NOT academic. It applies lessons learned and tactics, techniques and procedures to articulate what we learned in Vietnam, El Salvador, Afghanistan and Iraq and what others learned in Colombia, and Northern Ireland. It is descriptive and not prescriptive. The FM-I recognizes each environment (and for that matter each day) is unique.

I believe we all recognize doctrine has rarely ever been an American strength. However, the FM-I is just a good, first-draft for the field manual we are now writing.

Did we miss anything? Of course, we only had five months to research and write it. What are we adding? An operational and theater strategic focus and guidelines, near state-of-the-art intelligence analysis, [and] principles for training indigenous security forces. Tactically, [we missed] the "swarm" attack, urban operations (going through walls rather than down the street); logistics, Intel[ligence] analysis, and the media and communications. After all, if counterinsurgency is a war of ideas, we better win the formulation and communication of those ideas.

The Army refers to me as the author of FM-I 3-07.22 -- I am not. I am the leader of an informal, distributed, team that put the material together and then shaped it into a coherent (and what we regard as a useful) product.

DT: But the manual is already being challenged, in some ways, by events in the field, right? For example, FM-I suggests commanders should "concentrate on elimination of the insurgents, not on terrain objectives" and "get counterinsurgency forces out of garrisons, cities, and towns." Doesn't the Fallujah attack run counter to these suggestions?

JH: No, I do not believe the Fallujah attack runs counter to these recommendations. Why not? An imperative is to eliminate insurgent sanctuaries. Fallujah is the primary sanctuary from which most insurgent political direction emanated. The armed supporters of that specific counter-state had to be broken and eliminated. The political and ideological apparatus will be eliminated in Fallujah over the next 6 months.

Our military's role is to secure the populace from insurgent violence and intimidation, therefore, influence. In securing the people, we must separate them from the insurgents. We do this by patrolling everywhere, talking with the people, and earning a modicum of trust. After all, we don't want anything from them... except information. Our very presence (on-the-spot) should disrupt the insurgents' influence and movements.

We learned from an earlier misstep when we attacked the insurgents too soon in Samarra. Yes, we won. However, we left the area and did not remain to secure the local populace AND the police. The insurgents came back, attacked the police and intimidated their way back into authority. The next attack had to wait until the militia and police we were training were trained and capable of effectively defending the people and area, initially with our assistance, after our successful attack. Then, soldiers and militia attacked in the middle of the night together, and surprise and disruption reigned. We still own the people of Samarra, and the city is no longer a sanctuary.

DT: So what do you see as the big issues ahead as the U.S. fights the Iraq insurgency?

JH: Operationally, there are two issues. We must eliminate all sanctuaries, and we must permanently sever the lines-of-communication and supply from Syria through Ar-Ramadi to Baghdad -- darn near done. We did not do this in Vietnam.

Second, we must effectively eliminate all enemy insurgents that will prevent or interfere with the Iraqi Govt establishing a strong presence in Fallujah that provides security for the residents while separating them permanently from the insurgents -- critical, and we are successfully creating those conditions.

Tactically, we haven't used firepower to flatten Fallujah as we applied in Hue, Vietnam to destroy the VC [Viet Cong] battalions during Tet in 1968. We have used distributed, networked systems (drones and long-range surveillance, and eyeballs to ID where the enemy is followed by precision FA [field artillery] and tanks, LAVs [light armored vehicles], BFVs [Bradley Fighting Vehicles] and sniper and rifle fires to kill them.

We should move along a city block by moving inside buildings and through walls more. However, more residents might have become injured. We must still find the two leaders of the Fallujah Muj[hadeen] -- an Imam and a Sheikh -- regardless of where they have fled in Iraq or Iran, and assist them in their rapid transition to Paradise.

We [also] missed on the operational secrecy and surprise, but we will continue to tactically surprise. [FM-I counsels U.S. commanders to "emphasize secrecy and surprise" during their attacks. But the build-up to Fallujah was long and noisy -- ed.]

Yes, we must still root out the counter-state infrastructure in Fallujah using population resource control. [That's a] mechanism to collect social and economic intelligence... The Nazi's Gestapo and the Eastern European communists were the best at this. Without becoming tainted or infected by their methods and attitudes, we have picked up some of their systems and processes.

We rarely have an opportunity to plan and execute such operations -- this is exactly one of those opportunities. [It'll take] 6-12 months [for this to work].

Otherwise, I appreciate our military leaders' application of the principles and common sense. They are smart enough to have teams following the soldiers to provide food and blankets, medical care, and basic services as well as turning power and water on in areas we have secured.

We won't convince everybody overnight we mean them well, but we can provide a stark contrast -- deeds, not words. Fortunately, people will always demonstrate their intentions for us. What we must demonstrate very quickly is the Iraqi Government is legitimate, and we are not the same though our goals and objectives are complementary. Then perhaps, the Iraqi people can show us whether they have the capacity for freedom, or not.

After all, freedom is never free.

RUSSIA WANTS NEW ICBM

Oh, super. Just super. Not only is a dictator now in charge of Russia. But the guy wants to develop new, nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, according to the AP.

Speaking at a meeting of the Armed Forces' leadership, Putin reportedly said that Russia is researching and successfully testing new nuclear missile systems.

``I am sure that ... they will be put in service within the next few years and, what is more, they will be developments of the kind that other nuclear powers do not and will not have,'' Putin was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Putin reportedly said: ``International terrorism is one of the major threats for Russia. We understand as soon as we ignore such components of our defense as a nuclear and missile shield, other threats may occur.''

No details were immediately available, but Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said earlier this month that Russia expected to test-fire a mobile version of its Topol-M ballistic missile this year and that production of the new weapon could be commissioned in 2005.

News reports have also said Russia is believed to be developing a next-generation heavy nuclear missile that could carry up to 10 nuclear warheads weighing a total of 4.4 tons, compared with the Topol-M's 1.32-ton combat payload.

Topol-Ms have been deployed in silos since 1998. The missiles have a range of about 6,000 miles and reportedly can maneuver in ways that are difficult to detect.

Anybody wanna bet how long it'll take for the White House or the Pentagon to say this proves the need for its missile defense array -- even though the system is so lame, it can't be tested?

THERE'S MORE: "This is not something that we look at as new," White House press secretary Scott McCllelan now says. "We are very well aware of their long-standing modernization efforts for their military. ... We are allies now in the global war on terrorism."

AND MORE: The Russian military has been working for a number of years, now, on missiles that can juke American interceptors, Jeffrey Lewis notes. In December 2003, "a source on the Russian General Staff told Interfax that every Topol-M [missile] will be outfitted with... the capability of launching decoys."

Last February, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists observes, the Russians successfully tested "a new hypersonic 'Crazy Ivan' warhead that follows a nonclassical scenario, changing flight altitude and course repeatedly, making it nearly impossible to track and target. Putin declared Russia able to penetrate any missile defense system with ease."

AND MORE: Putin refers to his new missile as some sort of anti-terrorist weapon. That's like calling TNT a cockroach fighter. As "Retired SSBN" mentions in the Defense Tech forum, ICBMs don't have a damn thing to do with fighting Al-Qaeda & Co.

AND MORE: "If you can't think of novel uses for ICBMs, you're not trying very hard," TM Lutas says over in the Defense Tech forum.

Steven Den Beste once noted that we could win 10 simultaneous wars with today's military. It's just that 8 of those wars would have to be nuclear. For example, An ICBM at Tora Bora would have settled matters quickly, removed a relatively remote bit of land from productive use and ensured that no urban area would tolerate terrorists active against the launching power, whether it's the US or Russia.

Apparently, some in the Pentagon agree -- sort of. About a year ago, Defense Department planners handed out contracts to 10 firms to start designing a hypersonic missile that can outrun the now-retired Concorde, and can hit a terrorist nest in Europe from the East Coast.

LASER JET PAYOFF

A few days ago, we found out that the Airborne Laser -- that's the modified 747, designed to zap incoming missiles -- successfully tested its ray gun for the first time. Well, it seems that good fortune comes with a price. Because the Missile Defense Agency has just added $1.47 billion to the program," the jet's program manager tells Inside Missile Defense.

That means the price of the project just doubled, instantly. And there could be more to come. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) officials are only about "80 percent" sure that this new windfall will cover the cost of the Airborne Laser (ABL) tests they want to run.

Originally, the ABL was supposed to be blasting by 2002. Now, the MDA isn't committing to a timetable. But they do have three goals in mind: keep testing the 747's laser, finish the plane's "battle management system," and shore up the ABL's "beam control system, which is really critical to our ability to be able to point and track the high-energy laser."

While the laser is being tested on the ground, the aircraft will begin a series of flight tests -- fewer than 20 in total -- carrying the beam control and the battle management system. “Initially, with the beam control system we will just test what we call the ‘passive pieces,’ which is without the two solid state lasers we use to track the missile,” ABL Program Manager Air Force Col. Ellen Pawlikowski said. “We will check that out, we will do some tests to make sure we get good handoff between battle management and beam control. Then we will bring the plane back down for a short period and we will put two illuminating lasers on [the aircraft] in the second half of 2005.”

When the laser finishes all of its ground tests, program officials will move it out of the systems integration lab and begin putting it on the ABL aircraft, Pawlikowski said. “We will do that as the next step after we finish the flight tests and the ground tests and then we will have our final test period when we test the complete system first against target boards and then against a boosting missile.”

Program officials will take a measured approach as they finish each major phase, such as the completion of the first light test, according to Pawlikowski. “We will do two things when we reach a major milestone,” she said. “We will look at what our schedule is and what does the budget look like for the rest of that path. I am not going to tell you today that we are going to complete such-and-such by 2006 because I am going to look at that in January, when we finish these two milestones, and then I am going to look at it again. And we are going to take it one step at a time."

SO LONG, SPENCE

Most of the attention today is on Colin and Condi. But Defense Tech has had a somewhat, um, intimate relationship with the Department of Energy and its nuclear labs. And so I'd like to distract you for a moment, with a bit about Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's departure from the cabinet. Because he may have been one of the few, authentic good guys on Dubya's first-term team.

As the Times rightly points out, gas prices nearly doubled under Abraham's watch. And the country never could put together a particularly coherent energy policy. But with two oilmen as his bosses, I don't think Abraham ever really had much of a chance in these areas.

What Abraham did have control over is the country's nuclear research centers. And on that topic, you've got to give him some credit. Because he leaves the American nuclear weapons complex safer than when he found it.

After a seemingly-endless series of scandals at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Abraham forced the feckless lab chief John Browne out, and installed a former admiral in his place. When computer disks with atomic secrets went missing, Abraham ordered the labs to stop using 'em, and move to a "diskless" working environment, instead – a move watchdog groups had been begging for years for someone to make. He ordered the removal of nuclear material from the lab's most vulnerable areas. And Abraham broke with 60 years of tradition, opening up Los Alamos' management contract to competitive bidding for the first time, the San Francisco Chronicle notes.

Abraham was "a real visionary" in his push for improved security at the nation's post-9/11 nuclear weapons complex, said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Procurement, an activist group in Washington, D.C., that is normally highly critical of the Energy Department.

"He was able to dramatically increase security standards and really was willing to go head to head with a very stubborn bureaucracy" that preferred less stringent safeguards -- in particular, the National Nuclear Security Administration, whose employees tend to be overly close to the nuclear weapons labs that they're charged with overseeing, Brian said.

"It's a club -- it's very insular," and Abraham tried with some success to overcome its insularity, she added. "The next (energy) secretary will have to fill big shoes."

SPOOKS BATTLE NEW BOSS

Former CIA agent -- and Military.com columnist -- Richard Coffman was high on Porter Goss, when the congressman was first tapped to take over the spy agency. Not any more.

"What promised to be a rebirth of a robust, aggressive CIA under Porter Goss’ leadership has quickly turned sour," he writes. "Morale in the Agency’s Operations Directorate, which conducts the nation’s espionage and is on the front lines of the battle against terrorism is said to be at its lowest ebb since the directorship of Stansfield Turner in the late 70’s."

Clandestine veterans believe changes are required and have been clamoring for a return to the basics of espionage unencumbered by excessive bureaucracy, intrusive lawyering and politicized oversight. Many have been looking forward to Porter Goss as the right director at the right time to strengthen human source collection across-the-board, even employing “tough love” to make it happen.

But, turmoil at Langley has stopped promised reforms in their tracks. In an atmosphere of mutual distrust and animosity, Goss has yet to articulate the direction and substance of the moves he has in mind. In any event, his plans have been overshadowed by the lack of credibility and overbearing manner of his assistants.

PAIN RAY GOING AIRBORNE

It was only a matter of time, I guess. First, the Air Force builds a real-life, microwave-like pain ray. Then, it gets a company to strap that real-life, microwave-like pain ray to the back of a jet.

For years, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has been working on a millimeter-wave beam that penetrates a 64th of an inch beneath the skin. That causes the water molecules there to bubble. And that hurts like hell; people tend to run -- fast -- in the other direction. Small wonder, then, that non-lethal weapons experts call this "Active Denial System" the "holy grail of crowd control."

Active Denial been tested on people a bunch of times. A Humvee-mounted prototype is about to start undergoing trials. And now, Active Denial is going airborne.

AFRL handed Palo Alto's Communications & Power Industries a four year, $7 million contract, according to the Hilltop Times -- the in-house paper of Hill Air Force Base.

Dr. Diana Loree, the project officer for Active Denial, said four AFRL directorates are involved in developing this airborne capability: directed energy here; propulsion and vehicles at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio; and human effectiveness at Brooks City-Base, Texas.

Experts from directed energy, as the lead directorate, focuses on the systems engineering and radiating system development, she said. Propulsion directorate experts focus on the airborne power generation and conditioning required for the radiating system. Vehicles directorate scientists and engineers put their efforts toward Active Denial's thermal management and aircraft integration issues while human effectiveness experts focus on biological effects research.

STRYKER FIGHT RAGES

With Fallujah largely under U.S. control, the epicenter of the fighting in Iraq has shifted to Mosul, in the north. And returning to action there is one of the most controversial cards in the American military's deck -- the Stryker light armored vehicle.

When the Strykers were first being introduced to the Army, in 2002, they were damned for a variety of sins -- it's armor wasn't thick enough; it couldn't hit targets on the run; it's wheels went flat too easily; and, boy, could it get hot inside.

Now that they've been in use for a while, Stars & Stripes declares that "the naysayers have been converted... The vehicles are almost too good to be true, say those who ride them, fix them or command them."

But doubters still remain. USAR Lt. Mike Sparks has long been one of the Stryker's most vocal critics. And he's still convinced that the vehicle's "air-filled rubber tires" are trouble. Previous personnel carriers, like the Gavin 113s, had tracks, which were a whole lot more durable. Wheels, on the other hand, are awfully succeptible to roadside bombs. "Would you go into combat with your family car?" he asks.

But Staff Sgt. Lee Hodges, with the Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition Squadron of the 14th Cavalry, says not to worry. "I’ve seen Strykers be hit by an [improvised explosive device] and drive home on eight flats," he tells Stars & Stripes.

The controversy continues. Over the weekend, the Defense Department indentified two soldiers, attached to the Stryker brigade, who were killed by a mortar strike in Mosul.

THERE'S MORE: Defense Tech pal CA doesn't see how the Stryker "controversy" and the recent mortar strike in Mosul are lnked.

The individual was killed in his living area, not in a Stryker. Just because he was killed while attached to a Stryker brigade doesn't make their deaths a Stryker controversy.

Not that his death should mean any less, but I think it is irrelevant to the subject of the blog item. Had he been killed by a mortar while in a Stryker then it would be overly appropriate.

CA's right, of course. My bad.

NUKE STOCKPILES ON THE RISE

It ain't over. No matter what Iran decides to do about its nuclear program, the chances of radioactive material getting into dangerous hands are continuing to rise.

The latest evidence: a report in this month's Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which says that by "the end of 2003 there were more than 3,700 metric tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium" scattered around the world. That's "enough for hundreds of thousands of nuclear weapons, in about 60 countries."

And those numbers are growing. Every year, the worldwide amount of plutonium increases by 70-75 metric tons, according to the Bulletin, mostly from "irradiated fuel discharged from nuclear power reactors." It's a number that's "not expected to decrease in the next 15 years."

The report does contain a bit of good news, however, on the uranium front. About 50 metric tons of highly-enriched, or weapons-grade, uranium, were in "civil research and power reactor programs as of the end of 2003." But that number has fallen, as a result of an American government effort, Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactor. The program tries to convince other countries to use uranium in their reactors that's not so suitable for bomb-making purposes. Still, those 50 or so tons are really only a drop in the nuclear bucket. There are over 1,900 metric tons of highly-enriched uranium in military programs across the globe.

BLOGS DO THE RIGHT THING

I've got a story in today's New York Times, about blogs and charities. It starts like this:

People already knew Alan Nelson; they had been reading his Web log for more than a year. So when Mr. Nelson, a 35-year-old management consultant and a co-founder of the widely read Command Post site, started asking for donations to support a California mother of 13, the money came fast and quick from all over the Internet. After two and a half days, Mr. Nelson raised more than $15,000.

It became a model for Mr. Nelson, and for many in the mushrooming community of online diarists known as bloggers.

For years, bloggers have been building bonds with their readers by sharing everything from their opinions on Iraq to pictures of their cats. Mr. Nelson is part of a diffuse effort to turn that trust toward a higher purpose. He has put together a new blog coalition, Strengthen the Good, to focus attention on microcharities, like that California mother. Other bloggers have adopted their own causes, from breast cancer research to ambulances in Israel to television stations in Iraq.

Mr. Nelson's efforts began in a rage. In a Minneapolis hotel room last May, he watched the grisly online video of Islamic militants beheading Nicholas E. Berg, the American contractor who had hoped to build communications towers in Iraq. Fuming in front of his laptop, Mr. Nelson readied himself to write a red-faced screed in response.

But then he stopped. He remembered the documentary he had finished watching a few moments before, about Susan Tom, a California woman who had adopted 11 mentally and physically disabled children, in addition to two of her own. Instead of railing against the awful act in Iraq, Mr. Nelson announced that all donations to the Command Post's online "tip jar" would go to a trust to pay for the Tom children's education.

Soon, Ms. Tom began to hear from Mr. Nelson and his fellow bloggers. She was skeptical at first. "Lots of people promise things that don't come true," she explained. But then the pledges started coming. "I was overwhelmed," she added. "Most of these people, they didn't know me. They hadn't seen the movie. Most people, they just took Alan's word."

WE GET LETTERS

It never ceases to amaze, the trenchant and well-reasoned commentary that fills our servers here at Defense Tech HQ. One recent example:

This is an important issue proposed for your attention. Please consider it carefully and with much gravity as should it prove accurate, it may be of greatest national importance. A. That, there 'is' a regularly occurring abusive use of space and land-based spy surveillance systems within boundaries of the United States. Such systems are occasionally of a 'loose-cannon,' that is 'ungovernable by the citizenry,' nature. That use of such systems, particularly those producing both 'audible' and potentially more importantly 'subliminal' audio signals may be causing severe psychological stresses within the population of the country. Also! , surveillance system audible signals may often be heard by much of the United States populace. Local police departments, national law enforcement or the like may perpetrate such signals. But, that a majority of citizenry are unaware that they may be hearing such surveillance systems. Such, or otherwise might be a sort of psychological denial of a possibility that such systems may in reality be turned to use against them, although such may not necessarily be perpetrated in malicious fashion, 'for the most part.' There is a chance that law enforcement and, or private security organizations often do not realize the ability of some people to 'audibly,' that is, 'non subliminally,' hear systems as such targeted individuals are under surveillance. Such, though subliminal nonawareness may be far more detrimental to the public's health. It may prove true that police department personnel might be joking or playing audio games they are themselves unaware can be heard by targets, thus! , with citizenry they suspect of being nonacceptable for whatever reason. Such behaviors on the parts of any such law enforcement personnel must not be tolerated in any manner, and be subject to the strictest and harshest of Federal rules and laws. There must exist no allowance for any sort of psychological programming or reprogramming through use of surveillance systems...The potentially most worrisome forms of such systems are those based in space. This is because they might be used to blanket large areas of the country with subliminal programming, or to covertly have psychological, thus, 'duress' access to individuals or groups that would otherwise be secure from governmental, corporate or criminal intrusion. Should such be occurring, it might prove to be the most malicious form of citizenry maltreatment by government or otherwise, violating constitutional and civil rights at will. Should 'criminal' mob-like organizations be using such tactics nation-wide, then our country may be in the grip of a great national emergency, if not! a disaster of epic proportions.

IRAN TAKES NUKE PAUSE

Great, great news; let's pray this holds up. Iran has agreed to temporarily suspend its uranium enrichment program, putting on hold -- for a second, at least -- the fear of the mullahs getting the Bomb. Jeffrey Lewis has more.

GERMS, BITS, AND PAPERS

- The Transportation Security Administration is about to order 72 U.S. airlines to turn over passenger data for a new terrorist-screening system, says Wired News.

- The New York Times profiles the Pentagon's plans for a Global Information Grid, and manages to confuse it with a whole bunch of other Defense Department networking and reconnaissance projects.

- Homeland Security Department and the World Health Organization okay a plan to manipulate of the smallpox virus in the name of biodefense. It's a possible first step to "creat[ing] threats where none existed before," the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists observes.

GOOD NEWS FOR LASER JET

After decades of bloated promises, busted budgets, and missed deadlines, the troubled Airborne Laser project finally got a bit of good news yesterday.

The program's goal is to mount a high-energy, chemical laser onto a 747 jet, so it can shoot down incoming missiles. But whether such a laser would ever work remained very much an open question. On Thursday, some answers emerged, when "Northrop Grumman Corp. engineers working in secrecy at Edwards Air Force Base successfully tested" the laser, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Although the laser test barely lasted a second, it marked the first time that [this] chemical laser had created a beam of light. Over the next few months, engineers hope to increase the duration and energy of the laser's beam so it could shoot down a ballistic missile from more than 200 miles away...

"The important thing is we got the photons, which proves the laser works," said Ken Englade of the agency's Airborne Laser program. "It came at a very good time, because people were saying it wasn't going to work."

"This is the best news they've had in a very long time," said Philip Coyle, a former Pentagon chief for testing and a critic of missile defense systems. "They still have a long way to go, but this is a big milestone."

U.S. military officials have been trying to develop a laser powerful enough to shoot down a missile from a long distance but compact enough to fit in an aircraft. Until this week, laser beams capable of destroying objects from a distance could be generated only using chambers that would fill a 15-story building.

The laser beam generated Wednesday came from a mixture of chemicals encased in modules about the size of six Chevy Suburbans, installed in the fuselage of a 747.

After further ground tests of this chemical oxygen-iodine laser, it will be reinstalled in a 747 jet that has been modified with a laser-firing turret.

The Airborne Laser is one of several Pentagon ray gun efforts moving ahead. In December, the Joint High Power Solid State Laser program "is slated to conduct laboratory demonstrations" of three electrically-driven, 25-kilowatt solid-state lasers, Aerospace Daily notes. By 2008, the Army hopes to start testing the "Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser, designed to destroy artillery shells, mortars, rockets and unmanned aerial vehicles."

TASERS, TREADS, AND VAPORS

- Roland Piquepaille crawls under the hood, with the vehicle electronics of the Army's Future Combat Systems.

- Miami police blow a fuse, and taser a six-year old kid.

- Arizona researchers get misty, using peroxide vapor for airplane decon.

PAYBACK, FINALLY, FOR ARMOR BUYS

It's become a disgustingly familiar scene: American troops, cornered into to paying for their own protection. When supply chains bunch up, soldiers and marines – or their families – have been forced to dig into their own pockets, for things like body armor.

Now – thank God – they'll finally start to get reimbursed for what they've spent, Strategy Page notes. But only for equipment bought between 9/11 and July 31st of this year. And "despite objections from the Pentagon," according to the New York Times, whose leaders worry that it might "undermine the accountability and effectiveness of equipment used in combat."

"The basic problem is that new technology is coming into use much faster than the traditional military procurement system can deal with," Strategy Page contends.

There’s more useful, often life-saving, gear the troops can use for sale. And the troops don’t wait for the military to get around to stocking the new stuff, and they are not shy about telling each other, or the media, how great the unofficial gear is...

Several years ago, the army thought it had this under control with the “Rapid Fielding Initiative,” which gave combat units millions of dollars to spend as the commanders saw fit. But it was never fast enough. [Especially when its funding keeps getting pushed back into "supplemental budgets.] So the latest attempt to cope with this situation is the annual $1,100 reimbursement.

IRAQ MAY GET KILLER DRONES

The U.S. military has been flying drones over Iraq since Desert Storm, back in '91. But, up 'til now, they've basically served in just one role: as airborne spies, taking pictures of what's below.

The Army wants to change that. And fast, by strapping the unmanned planes up with bombs and guns.

This wouldn't be a first, exactly. Predator unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have occasionally been equipped with a couple of Hellfire missiles. And occasionally, the drone has unleashed those weapons, either on suspected terrorist groups, or on artillery positions. But those missions have been very much the exception, and not the rule.

This new effort – reported by Inside the Army -- has the potential to be something quite different: UAVs designated specifically for combat. It's something "troops in Iraq are asking for," the military trade magazine says, "now."

Both the Army’s I-Gnat and Hunter UAV systems used in Iraq could carry weapons, sources noted. [In fact, the Hunter has already been tested with Viper Strike munitions.] The I-Gnat can carry up to 450 pounds of payload, while the Hunter’s payload capacity is 200 pounds. But the Army “has never employed a weaponized UAV to date” in a warfighting operation, a source said.

“The only thing we can confirm, due to the operational concerns on this issue, is the Army is in fact pursuing weaponizing a UAV in theater,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “That’s all we can say without disclosing classified information…”

“It is still new in inventory,” noted Army Lt. Col. Christopher Rodney. “The use has yet to be determined. The theater, particularly Iraq, will be the testing ground.”

The testing ground for what, exactly? Well, the Army is on the verge of awarding contracts, to build its weapons-carrying, Extended-Range Mission Payload pilotless planes. But those smallish UAVs, with a range of 300 kilometers, are just a first step. The real doozy is currently being jointly developed by Darpa, the Air Force, and the Navy – a drone, specifically designed for combat.

THERE'S MORE: Slate's lastest scener from Fallujah tells the story of "How the Pioneer Robot Plane Helped Win an Artillery Duel."

AND MORE: A hundred bomb-disposal robots have been bought by the Navy, and are now on their way to Afghanistan and Iraq.

AND MORE: "No fewer than 20 types of aircraft have been thrown into the [Fallujah] fight," the AP says, "including 10 fixed-wing planes, three types of helicopters and seven kinds of unmanned drones."

VETERANS' DAY

The new bosses here have a great Veterans' Day tribute. Winds of Change, meanwhile, rounds up the blog world's reaction, including this cautionary note from Defense Tech pal Phil Carter.

MORE FROM FALLUJAH

- The Washington Post hops in a M109 Paladin self-propelled howitzer, stationed just outside of Fallujah.

- The Chicago Tribune rolls with a Bradley fighting vehicle crew, on the lookout for snipers.

- The New York Times gets pinned down, with 150 marines, by a lone Iraqi sharpshooter.

- "Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water," the San Francisco Chronicle finds. "Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns." (via Boing Boing)

NASA PREPS MACH 10 FLIGHT

"NASA will attempt to break the aircraft speed record next week by flying a jet plane at 7,000 mph, or nearly 10 times the speed of sound," Wired News says.

The unmanned flight will mark the third time NASA has tested its new supersonic-combustion ramjet, or "scramjet," engine, which has no moving parts and emits only water as exhaust. The first test, in 2001, had to be aborted when the rocket that boosts the small X-43A [experimental] aircraft to its flying height spun out of control over the Pacific Ocean. The second test, in March of this year, went more smoothly, with the plane reaching a record-breaking speed of 5,000 mph, or nearly seven times the speed of sound.

NASA hopes to set a new record with its third flight Monday, when it will try to push the X-43A aircraft to Mach 10, or 10 times the speed of sound. In contrast, most commercial planes fly under Mach 1.

Speaking of supersonic, here's an article of mine from last year on the Pentagon's push to build a Mach 4 missile. And another one, on the last flight of the Concorde.

FALLUJAH PUSH: BY THE BOOK?

Maybe this means something. I'm more than willing to believe it doesn't. But I found it a little odd that the U.S. military's push into Fallujah seems to be almost 180 degrees opposed to the tactics and techniques laid out in the Army's new Counterinsurgency Operations field manual.

In Fallujah, if the news reports are to be believed, U.S. armed forces are engaged in a classic, house-to-house battle, to remove Fallujah as a guerilla base of operations. Overwhelming firepower, and manpower, have been brought to bear – gunships and artillery, more than ten thousand soldiers and marines. For months, everyone has known the attack was coming.

Now look at what the manual – unearthed by Inside the Pentagon and Secrecy News – suggests for counterinsurgent "Offensive Operations":

• Concentrate on elimination of the insurgents, not on terrain objectives…

• Get counterinsurgency forces out of garrisons, cities, and towns; off the roads and trails into the environment of the insurgents…

• Avoid establishment of semipermanent patrol bases laden with artillery and supplies that tend to tie down the force. (Pay special attention to prevent mobile units from becoming fixed.)

• Emphasize secrecy and surprise…

• Judicious application of the minimum destruction concept in view of the overriding requirements to minimize alienating the population. (For example, bringing artillery or air power to bear on a village from which sniper fire was received may neutralize insurgent action but will alienate the civilian population as a result of casualties among noncombatants.)

Doesn't sound quite the same, does it?

Now, of course, no battle is fought exactly "by the book." And the field manual's section on "Clear and Hold" operations – aimed at dislodging guerillas from an area they control – does feel a bit more like the Fallujah push. There are calls for "military forces clearly superior to the insurgent force," "emergency legislation to provide a legal basis for population and resource control measures," and "psychological preparation of the population of adjacent areas." That's reminiscent of the build-up of U.S. troops, the recent declaration of a state of emergency by Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Alawi's, and of the long, slow ratcheting up of pressure on Fallujah.

But that section also warns that "no area or its population that has been subjected to the intensive organizational efforts of a subversive insurgent organization can be won back until… the insurgent hard-core organization and its support structure has been neutralized or eliminated." And given the U.S. Army's admission that insurgent leaders like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi likely slipped out of Fallujah before the attack, that seems like a goal that will remain outstanding.

THERE'S MORE: "I'm sure the commanders know the manual," says Winds of Change's Joe Katzman. "I suspect that political constraints made a number of its prescriptions moot, or that the commanders decided to treat it as a conventional urban warfare pitched battle. It happens, and I'm reluctant to second guess people on the ground who have all the facts, but it's good to know what's in that manual."

MARKETWATCH + DEFENSE TECH

Frank Barnako, the "Internet Daily" columnist for CBS Marketwatch, was kind enough to interview me on the move to Military.com. Here's a snippet:

Do you write for yourself or the reader?

Sometimes both. I think it comes out best when I write for myself. And I try to let my own sense of urgency and my own sense of cool guide me.

What's more critical, content or opinion?

I think content. The Internet is full of people who will rant and rave with no facts behind them. So with the stuff I am doing, content is more important. There is a tendency in the mainstream press to just gawk and drool over the latest hardware idea without really looking at what its real capabilities are, how close it is to actually happening. That's why I think content trumps opinion.

WELCOME TO DEFENSE TECH 3.0

Welcome, everyone, to the retooled and revamped Defense Tech. If you've visited before, you'll notice there have been a few changes around here. And they're all good, if you ask me. More about those in a second.

For those of you dropping by Defense Tech for the first time, here's what the site is about, in a nutshell: Technology is changing how wars are fought, crooks are caught, borders are protected, and individual rights are defined. Defense Tech is my attempt to stay on top of these developments, and present them clearly enough that you don't have to be a PhD or (too big of) a policy wonk to get a feel for what's going on. I'll keep up with the day's news, dole out links to little-known reports and information troves, and to try to give a bit of analysis of what's ahead.

From killer drones to roadside bombs, computer security to nuclear threats, body armor to missile defense, Defense Tech tries to look at the intersection of technology and defense from every possible angle. Soldiers and hackers, madmen and geniuses, inventors and dictators – all of their exploits make it onto the site, sooner or later. And while the site is founded on a belief in technology's power to make progress, don't expect a lot of fawning, gee-whiz kind of coverage here. It ain't my style.

Now, for you Defense Tech recidivists, an explanation: After nearly two years of operating this site on my own, I've decided to team up with the fine folks at Military.com. And I couldn't be happier about the choice. I've been a daily visitor to Military.com for quite some time – no one rounds up defense-related news and views better. But I've always been jealous of the site's slick design, and its almost bottomless well of features. No longer. It feels good to join a crew this bad ass.

In addition to the new design for Defense Tech, we'll be adding more features in the months to come. But starting today, readers can expect an expanded roster of news, tidbits, rumors, and analysis about the future of national security. We're also setting up a forum, so you can discuss the latest in military technology, defense news, and security trends. Expect more soon, including interviews with some of the key figures behind the changing face of defense.

Anyway, no matter how many times you've been here before, I'd love to hear what you think of Defense Tech 3.0. Let me know what you like, and what you’d like to see done differently in the days ahead. Drop me a note at defense AT defensetech DOT org.

BIG UPS: As the site relaunches, I want to thank some of the people who have been instrumental in Defense Tech's development, and in getting me off my butt and blogging in the first place. That means you, Glenn Reynolds, Phil Carter, Joel Johnson, Clive Thompson, Alan Boyle, Josh Marshall, Nick Denton, Joe Katzman, Steve Gilliard, Xeni Jardin, Meryl Yourish, Mike Tronnes, Jon Stokes, Jeralyn Merritt, Brad DeLong, John Pike, Phil Anderson, Victoria Samson, Phillip Coyle, Jim Lewis, Steven Aftergood, Elizabeth Visceglia, Tom Shachtman, Carol Guber, Steve Tuttleman, Alex Roy, Lucas Sussman, Chuck, Wyatt Earp, Adam Rogers, David Miller, Jon Rochmis, Farhad Manjoo, Kourosh Karimkhany, Alison Macondray, Nick Schultz, Hylton Jolliffe, LB Deyo, Lefty Leibowitz, Paul Weismann, Matt Rechs, Greg Clayman, BC Wilson, Victor Ozols, Webster Mudge, and about a zillion other people I've thoughtlessly neglected to mention.

Lastly, a giant thank you to all of Defense Tech's readers, who've honored me with your clicks, your tips, and your rants. Keep 'em coming.

DRONES OVER FALLUJAH

Slate has a pointed, on-the-scene report from just outside Fallujah, where a team of Marines is keeping watch over the battle, through the infrared eyes of a Pioneer flying drone. Go read it. Now. Here's a taste:

"The raiding party wants us to scan across the river," Cpl. Robert Daniels said, reading a chat-room message that had popped up on his computer monitor. "Someone's firing."

"Take us east," Neumann said over his shoulder. "Shift from white-hot to black-hot."

Behind him, the pilot of the UAV adjusted the flight path as his partner tightened the zoom on the plane's camera. The images on the screen jumped slightly and focused on two black spots hopping from place to place behind an earthen berm.

"I confirm weapons," said Sg. Jenifer Forman, an imagery analyst. "Watch their right arms when they run. They're shooting across the river."

When the black spots bobbed together, the screen suddenly bloomed white, then settled back into focus, showing a thick gray cloud and a scattering of small black spots, like someone in the cloud had thrown out a handful of rocks.

"Tank gun got them," Neumann said. "Picked them up on their thermals. They're scratched. Scan up the street."

This is good news -- really good news -- for the troops locked in the Fallujah fight. The big unmanned spy planes, like the Predator and the Global Hawk, have had a tough time peering into cities. If the medium-sized, pneumatically-launched Pioneer is having better luck, that gives the marines there a huge edge.

THERE'S MORE: In recent months, the Pioneer operators of VMU-1 (short, somehow, for "Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 1, Marine Aircraft Control Group 38, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing") have been flying their drones throughout Iraq's troubled Al-Anbar region. And they have been working, hard.

"Under normal training conditions we sustain 200 to 250 flight hours per year," 1st Lt. Jose A. Nicolas, a VMU-1 aircraft maintenance officer told Marine Corps News, VMU-1 and native of Houston. "So far we have averaged between 460 to 500 hours per month out here, or 16 to 20 hours per day."

"We observe (insurgents) setting up ambushes, moving weapons or help assess targets before and after a strike," intelligence analyst Lance Cpl. Robert Daniels added. "If the ground commanders want us to direct or adjust artillery fire or close air support we can do that. We can direct any payload to any target."

URANIUM-SUCKING TUMBLEWEEDS

For years, the U.S. military and its allies have relied on depleted uranium (DU) for their anti-tank rounds. Twice as dense as lead, the stuff does a mean job piercing armor. But it comes with a price. Tons of DU litter battlefields around the world; the British fired almost 2 tons of DU around Bara during the Iraq invasion, for example. And unexplained illnesses always seem to follow in the rounds' wake. Nothing's been categorically proven. But a variety of ailments -- from "Gulf War Syndrome" to lung cancer -- have all been linked to the material. Cleaning it up has been an almost impossibly messy task.

But now, a New Mexico researcher may have found an answer to the problem in, of all things, the tumbleweed. A preliminary study shows that the plant, and some other flora common to dry, Western lands, "have a knack for soaking up depleted uranium from contaminated soils at weapons testing grounds and battlefields," according to a statement from the Geological Society of America.

The fact that plants absorb uranium is not news, since old uranium prospectors used to use Geiger counters on junipers to find buried uranium lodes. But finding a plant that grows fast on little water and can be easily harvested to carry away the depleted uranium – that's another story...

In her study, [New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology geologist] Dana Ulmer-Scholle and her colleagues... sought out DU contaminated soils at an inactive munitions testing ground in New Mexico. Then they planted selected native and non-native plants in a test garden and in pots to see how much DU the plants absorbed from the soil.

The tumbleweed, or Russian thistle did particularly well. So did the grain crop quinoa and the purple amaranth. None of the plants need much water or care. But "sprinkling the ground with citric acid" did seem to bolster the plants' ability to suck up DU.

As for why some plants absorb uranium, that's still a mystery, says Ulmer-Scholle. It could be that the plants use the metal to create pigments. One way she hopes to test that possibility is to grow native plants used for dyes.

Either way, Ulmer-Scholle cautions, plants will only work as a slow-burn solution to DU. For immediate clean-ups, "no plant species appears to offer a short-term alternative to traditional remediation."

THERE'S MORE: Defense Tech reader TH notes "the mysterious lack of
Gulf War Syndrome in areas where natural uranium (which is chemically identical, and more radioactive), is present in concentrations far exceeding those found on battlefields."

LIGHT RESISTANCE, BAD NEWS?

Already ten soldiers have lost their lives during the fighting in Fallujah. But, according to the L.A. Times, "U.S. military leaders said that overall, resistance was lighter than expected and the advance was proceeding more quickly than anticipated."

And that may be the bad news. As I mentioned yesterday, a relatively easy fight -- and this is all relative here -- would probably mean that the hardest of the hard-core insurgents are skipped out of town before the G.I.s came barreling in.

An American general admitted as much yesterday, the New York Times reports.

Insurgent leaders in Falluja probably fled before the American-led offensive and may be coordinating attacks in Iraq that have left scores dead over the past few days, according to American military officials here... "I personally believe some of the senior leaders probably have fled," Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, commander of the multinational forces in Iraq, said in a video conference with reporters on Tuesday. "I would hope not, but I've got to assume that those kinds of leaders understand the combat power we can bring."

Insurgent attacks continued to exact a heavy toll across Iraq on Tuesday. Two American soldiers died in a mortar attack in Mosul, where government authority appears to be ebbing. Gunmen assassinated a senior government official in Samarra. Guerrillas fired mortars at police stations in downtown Baghdad while hundreds of fighters massed in the center of the provincial capital of Ramadi, just 30 miles west of Falluja.

A suspected car bombing outside an Iraqi National Guard base in Kirkuk killed three people and wounded two others, Reuters reported. The attacks on Tuesday followed several others over the weekend, both in Baghdad and the Sunni triangle.

The American military said on Tuesday that six people had been killed in the car bomb attack Monday night outside Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad. Five were Iraqi policemen, and the sixth was a civilian, the military said. In the two church bombings the same night, one Iraqi was killed and several wounded, and one of the bombers was disguised as an Iraqi policeman, according to a report put out by a Western security contractor.

This spate of what appear to be coordinated attacks, as well as the dispersal of top insurgent leaders, suggests that the Falluja offensive alone will not crush an insurgency that has been gathering strength. And it raises the prospect that insurgents will try to regroup and infiltrate Falluja after the fighting is over, as they have done in Samarra.

TERROR DRONE: NO SWEAT?

If you were worried about the drone that Hezbollah flew over Israel the other day, Stratfor has a word for you: chill. At least for now.

The terrorist group's "Nov. 7 flyover is a symbolic move by Hezbollah rather than a sign of imminent attack," Stratfor counsels.

European intelligence sources say Hezbollah has acquired two to three UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles] from Iran (renamed the Mirsad 1 by Hezbollah, the UAV is also known as the Iranian Mohajer). In addition, Hezbollah has gathered an international team of engineers and scientists to equip the UAVs with a weapons system, enabling it to use the aircraft for a limited combat role as well as reconnaissance. Some reports indicate that later versions of the Iranian Mohajer can be equipped to fire chemical weapons.

While Hezbollah's UAVs might pose a serious threat once they have been developed for combat operations, Hezbollah's capabilities are actually very limited. Because of flight-time restrictions and the need to maintain redundant systems, possessing two or three UAVs gives Hezbollah -- tactically speaking -- the ability to maintain "eyes on" only one area at a time. Due to its short duration, the flight over Israeli settlements probably did not give Hezbollah any sort of strategic insight that it would not have been able to obtain otherwise.

FALLUJAH: PLEASE, NO CAKEWALKS

As you'd expect, the reports from the first day of fighting in Fallujah have been confusing and contradictory. The New York Times describes an hours-long fight for "one house" by a group of 150 marines, while in another part of town, American units had pushed as far as 800 yards into the city. The Washington Post blandly states that "troops encountered some resistance in the first hours of the battle."

We all want as many of our troops as possible to come home from this fight safe. But I, for one, am hoping U.S. soldiers and marines don't have too easy of a time in Fallujah. And before you press "send" on that hate mail, let me explain why.

The goal of the Fallujah attack is to wipe out an insurgent stronghold. But that aim will only be met if the insurgents actually stick around and fight. That's not a standard tactic in the guerilla playbook, however. Insurgents traditionally avoid those kind of direct confrontations, opting for the hit-and-run or the terror attack instead. Just look at what happened recently in the Iraqi town of Samarra: American forces easily "take" from the rebels in October; by November, the place is back to being a terror hotspot.

If Fallujah varies from this norm, the fighting there could be brutal. American technological advantages in communications and battlefield awareness tend to crumble in urban canyons. But at least it could prove decisive.

Now, there are some signs that the hard-core, religiously-inspired insurgents have decided to stick around. The Post caught up with a dozen rebel fighters before the shooting started, and the paper found "a new generation of the jihad diaspora, arriving in Fallujah from all over the Arab world: five Saudis, three Tunisians, a Yemeni. Only three were Iraqis." These Associated Press pictures seem to tell a story of seasoned insurgents.

But John Robb, at the always-insightful Global Guerillas blog, isn't so sure. "Some insurgents will stay for the fight (as payment for the support provided and/or due to a strong affection for the city's people)," he writes. But "most of the people and equipment we want to kill or capture is already gone. The US/Iraqi government telegraphed their desire to retake the city months ago. Further, many other locations are available" for the guerillas to operate in.

Robb instead predicts a battle "against local boys, organized by neighborhood, mosque, family, or tribe…people that are fighting for their homes."

Let's hope he's wrong.

THERE'S MORE: "U.S. and Iraqi forces have faced less resistance than expected and suffered minimal casualties, a commander [told CNN] Tuesday, as the troops continue their second day of assaults on militant-controlled Falluja."

NEAR-SPACE BALLOON ON IRAQ FAST-TRACK

Regular readers know that we've got blimps and balloons on the brain here at Defense Tech HQ. But this is a pretty interesting development, even for those oddballs who are, for some reason, not obsessed by all things lighter-than-air.

According to Aerospace Daily, "if upcoming U.S. Air Force experiments are successful, free-floating, 'near space' surveillance balloons could be deployed to the field by late next year."

Maj. Robert Blackington of the Air Force Space Battlelab would like to attach a communications or spy sensor package to an unguided, inexpensive balloon. He got the idea, according to the Daily, from "a company that produces weather balloons... The company placed a small digital camera on one of their balloons, flew it to about 100,000 feet and took pictures of the Earth."

Blackington was particularly impressed by a comparison shot between satellite imagery and the balloon imagery. "For $600, they got almost an identical shot with the same resolution," he said.

The battlelab plans to test-fly a free floater with a small radio on it later this month, according to Blackington. If the technology proves itself, deployment could take place quickly, he said.

"My commander keeps saying, we want something in Iraq right now to keep kids from dying," he said. "If it gets proven here, we're thinking we can get it over there by this time next year."

TASERS IN THE SKIES

Bullets have a nasty habit of depressurizing an airplane's cabin. Firing bullets in an enclosed space is rarely a good idea. So I guess it was only a matter of time before someone decided to arm airline security guards with tasers instead.

Tasers are the stun guns that incapacitate their targets with 50,000-volt shocks, turning muscles into jelly. They've been used 45,000 times by police in the last five years. And although the weapons have been fingered in dozens of deaths, there's been no conclusive proof that the tasers were to blame.

In a press release Monday, stun gun maker Taser International announced that, for the first time, "the Transportation Security Administration of the United States Department of Homeland Security has approved a major international airline's application for the onboard use of TASER brand conducted energy weapons by specially trained personnel on flights to/from the United States."

THERE'S MORE: Meanwhile, "Oakland police, facing lawsuits over tactics used last year against anti-war demonstrators, have agreed to stop using wooden or rubber bullets, Taser stun guns, pepper spray and motorcycles to break up crowds," says WTVU (via the Sunshine Project).

AND MORE: Wrong, wrong, wrong. "Despite the widespread belief advanced by Hollywood movies [and certain websites] that gunfire erupting inside a plane could depressurize the cabin and doom all aboard," the Chicago Tribune reported in 2002, "officials said it's a myth and that the air marshals use standard law-enforcement ammunition. 'So long as you don't strike any hydraulic lines or hit the pilots, you're OK,' air marshal instructor Steven Mosley said."

(Thanks to Defense Tech reader JF for the catch.)

AND MORE: Over in the new Defense Tech forums, I've learned that I may be right, after all.

"You are correct about the 'Explosive Decompression' as a result of a round exiting an aircraft. The great show Myth Busters, on Discovery, actually did an experiment with a old fuselage," reader Mike B notes. "They over pressurized fuselage to create the pressure differential that an aircraft would experience at altitude. After remotly firing many rounds through the windows, no 'Explosive Decompression.'"

HEZBOLLAH DRONE OVER ISRAEL

This is new. And it could be a very, very bad sign of things to come.

Hezbollah succeeded yesterday morning in sending a drone, apparently equipped with a camera, into Israel's airspace, over the city of Nahariya in the western Galilee. The Israel Defense Forces identified the drone too late and was not able to shoot it down...

Two weeks ago Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah intimated that his organization was developing a response to Israel's incursions into Lebanese airspace. Hezbollah has been counting the number of times that it says Lebanese sovereignty has been violated since Israel's pullout from Lebanon in May 2000.

However, yesterday's incident seems to have been aimed at public relations - embarrassing Israel and creating a "strategic equation" between Israel's overflights and Hezbollah's response.

The next stage may be an attempt to use the drones for reconnaissance, and possibly even for terror attacks using explosives. (via War & Piece)

WHO ARE IRAQ'S 36TH?

So the assault on Fallujah is underway, with the taking of the town's hospital, "a refuge for insurgents and a center of propaganda against allied forces," according to the Times.

Joining in the attack were "two companies from the Iraqi 36th Commando Battalion." It's a group that's mentioned constantly in war reports from Iraq -- most recently, in last month's (very temporary) taking of Samarra.

So who are these guys? Defense Tech recently spoke with an Army officer, present at the 36th's creation, to get the scoop.

"The 36th was originally known as the 'political battalion,'" he said. That's because it was formed from the militias of five major political groups in Iraq: Iyad Alwai's Iraq National Accord (INA), Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC), the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which backs Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and the two main Kurdish groups, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). About 110 soldiers were originally culled from each group.

Because of the group's diverse roots, it's supposed to be the "most reliable" of the Iraqi forces. But, in reality, only a segment of the 36th has really been trustworthy – the Kurdish fighters known as pesh merga. In an early operation, the U.S. Army officer recalls, about 60 of SCIRI's soldiers fled; so did 30-40 each from the INA and INC. But between the two Kurdish groups, only 11 dropped out, total.

Further battles have, hopefully, hardened the 36th's resolve. But they likely haven't eased the resentment that Iraqi Arabs feel towards the Kurds, and their participation in the unit. "I will send my brothers north to kill the Kurds," a Fallujah insurgent told the Washington Post (via Iraq'd), after the April assault on the city, to which the 36th contributed.

"The 36th was supposed to grow and become the center of the [Iraqi] national armed forces, not beholden to the warlord leaders," the U.S. Army officer notes. But with these warlords jockeying for position in advance on the January elections – and with Arab-Kurd tension still running high – the 36th remains a fractured group, still loyal to their chieftains. "We're coming to depend on them," the American officer says, "And they're not beholden to the central government."

THERE'S MORE: Back to Iraq's Chris Allbritton reminds us that the 36th's "Kurdish members also have a reputation for brutality, and [for] shooting anyone in the field of fire. The Kurds don't mind killing a few civilian Arabs -- it's payback time."

SWISS CHEESE DEFENSE FOR NUKE, BIO THREATS

It's been three years since 9/11 started making America twitch over a potential nuclear or biological terror attack. And still, the U.S. isn't anything close to ready for such an assault.

In 2001, "the federal government began passing out pills that may protect against some of the most dangerous effects of radiation. Fourteen states whose residents live near nuclear power plants haven't bothered to accept them," Wired News reports. That's despite the fact that "last year, a report commissioned by Congress recommended that everyone under 40 near a nuclear power plant should have the pills on hand."

Despite the efforts of nuclear safety advocates and medical associations, the pills' existance remains fairly obscure. "You sit there scratching your head and say, 'Why aren't they giving it out?'" said Alan Morris, president of Anbex, the only potassium iodide pill manufacturer in the United States.

On the biological front, things are a bit different. The federal government has unleashed a torrent of cash for bioterror research -- $7.6 billion, just for next year. But on the nuts-and-bolts of basic defense, giant gaps remain, the Washington Post notes.

• Hobbled by budget pressures and day-to-day crises, many health agencies say they cannot comply with federal officials' urgent demands that they gear up for bioterrorism.

• Overlapping jurisdiction among federal agencies working on biodefenses -- including the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services -- leads to confusion inside and outside government about who is in charge of preparations for, and response to, bioattacks...

• Large drug firms with track records of developing medications have little interest in making bioterrorism vaccines and treatments.

The Post notes that "because of the scientific complexities, no technology exists to detect a biological attack as it occurs." But the paper's too nice to say that Biowatch, the sensor program the feds are pushing, is basically useless.

Relying on air filters in major cities, Biowatch only detects a large-scale, airborne biological strike -- about the least likely kind. And it only gives information way, way after the fact. "You're getting very little specific data. And it's unclear what you could do with that information that's useful in the middle of an emergency," Peter LeJenue, a biodefense specialist with Potomac Institute for Policy Studies told Defense Tech last year.

F-16 VS. GRAMMAR SCHOOL

File this under WTF: "Warplane Strafes a School in New Jersey," the Times says.

It sounded like somebody running across the roof of the elementary school in a New Jersey township Wednesday night, said the cleaning woman who called the police. No prowler was found. But yesterday, what had seemed a minor item in a police blotter touched off state and federal military investigations after it was disclosed that an F-16 warplane had strafed the school with cannon fire.

The Air National Guard warplane, flying a night training mission out of Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, fired a burst of 27 rounds from its 20-millimeter cannon shortly before 10:15 p.m. as it streaked over Little Egg Harbor Township, 20 miles north of Atlantic City, New Jersey military officials said last night.

Col. Brian Webster, commander of the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey Air National Guard, said that the pilot, who was not identified, fired the cannon inadvertently just as he turned into a dive to strafe a target at the Warren Grove firing range in Ocean County, a sprawling military reservation in the Pine Barrens that has been used for bombing and strafing practice since World War II.

The pilot was to have fired the half-second burst of shells well into the dive, at about 5,000 feet, the colonel said, but instead the cannon went off at an altitude of 7,000 feet, and at least eight of the bullets - non-explosive lead slugs more than 2 inches long - crashed through the roof of Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School, three miles south of the target range. No one was hurt, and the damage was minor.

ARMY "FUTURE" DIVERTED TO IRAQ

Originally, the idea was to replace the Army of today with a fleet of ultra-quick, laser-firing tanks, connected to a array of new drones by a giant network for combat. Then, the thought was to concentrate on the network first, and do the sci-fi stuff second. But now, according to Bloomberg News, the U.S. Army's $117 billion Future Comabt Systems initiative is poised to become, in many ways, just another way to get gear to the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Of the $3 billion or so allocated to FCS this year, "about $886 million would be used to buy tactical radios," the news service says. The Stryker armored vehicles -- a brigade of which just got done with a year-long deployment in northern Iraq -- "would receive an extra $672 million. The Army wants to spend $579 million on training ammunition."

Another $9 billion in FCS funds for future years has been moved around, too. Bloomberg notes that "the biggest portion of the shifted Future Combat Systems money, about $1.3 billion, will be allocated through 2011 for 'tactical vehicles,' including upgrades and repairs of General Dynamics M1A2 tanks and United Defense Industries Inc.'s Bradley Fighting Vehicles damaged in Iraq."

(thanks to Phil Carter for the catch)

"FLY, DRONE, FLY!"

Right now, it takes months of training to learn how to remote-control a flying drone. And often, the guys behind the joystick already have their pilot's wings.

But some research over at MIT may be starting to change that. A group of PhD candidates there have figured out a way to let a pilot in one plane guide an unmanned aircraft, just by telling the drone what to do, in plain English. It's part of a Darpa-funded study we first mentioned over the summer.

In a flight test, the pilotless vehicle, called a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), responded to sudden changes in plan and avoided unexpected threats en route to its destination, in real time.

"The system allows the pilot to interface with the UAV at a high level--not just 'turn right, turn left' but 'fly to this region and perform this task,'" said Mario Valenti, a flight controls engineer for Boeing who is on leave to pursue a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. "The pilot essentially treats the UAV as a wingman," said Valenti, comparing the UAV to a companion pilot in a fighter-plane squadron.

Three elements combine to make MIT's manned-to-unmanned air vehicle guidance system more flexible and more "intelligent" than previous systems. First, the team worked with Teragram Corp., a software company specializing in language technology, to create a natural-language interface through which the two vehicles communicate and coordinate their actions. The interface translates the pilot's human language into the UAV's machine language, and vice versa. "It allows us to task machines at a higher level, improving safety and efficiency," said Feron.

Second, Valenti designed a task scheduler that keeps track of the oft-changing mission data from the manned vehicle and interprets it into tasks the UAV can perform. The task scheduler is integrated with the third element, [a] safe-trajectory-planning algorithm... [which] enable[s] the UAV to choose the fastest safe path to its destination--and then change course in a split second when faced with a new command or a sudden obstacle. (via Boing Boing)

NEW SMART BOMB FOR FALLUJAH ASSAULT

Just in time for the assault on Fallujah: a new, satellite-guided bomb, especially designed for urban combat.

U.S. forces are relying more and more on air strikes to fight the insurgents holed up in places like Fallujah. But the problem is, these bombs are too damn big. Even if they land precisely on target, the chances of innocent bystanders getting hit is pretty high.

“Our job is to destroy things if need be,” Tech Sgt. Robert Franks tells Defense News. “But why not use as little explosive as possible? If we don’t have to destroy something, we don’t want to.”

Enter the 500-pound GBU-38 -- half the size of what had been the smallest Joint Direct Attack Munition, or satellite-directed bomb. F-16s at Balad Air Base in Iraq are now being loaded up with the bombs. The U.S. Air Force "hopes within days" to begin using them, according to Defense News.

Since the Bush re-election, there's been increasing chatter in the press about a major push by U.S. armed forces against Fallujah, the insurgent stronghold. These bombs would likely be among the weapons used in such a strike.

Aircraft from an undisclosed airbase elsewhere in the Middle East made the first combat use of the GBU-38 in early October. The Air Force said the bombs were used to destroy a meeting place of insurgents linked to Abu-Musab Zarqawi...

Capt. Joe Sablatura, who commands the weapons flight here, said he and his troops have consulted those who worked on the other combat drop of the bombs, exchanging information on building and loading the weapons. He said he hopes to have approval to begin using the GBU-38 within days...

The Air Force is developing an even smaller weapon, the 250-pound Small Diameter Bomb. Sablatura said that weapon will bring not only a more measured use of explosive power, but the ability to load more bombs on a fighter, expanding the number of targets that can be hit in a single sortie.

THERE'S MORE: "American commanders seem convinced that it is only a matter of time before the Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, gives the order for them to retake the city," the Times notes. "For many marines here, that order cannot come too soon. After a long summer of cat-and-mouse games with shadowy insurgents, they are hungry for a decisive battle."

ASHCROFT OUT?

From the department of silver linings...

"Attorney General John Ascroft could be one of the first Cabinet members to
leave the administration. Sources close to Ashcroft told CNN on Thursday that they believe it is most likely the attorney general will submit his resignation in the near future, possibly within the next two weeks."

The Times, meanwhile, says that "Ashcroft and the secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge [are] considered the most likely to relinquish their posts."

(Thanks to Defense Tech pal CA for the catch.)

PENTAGON STILL SPOOKED BY SPACE ATTACK

Even before he became George Bush's Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld was spooked about a "space Pearl Harbor" – a surprise attack on America's satellites. Now that he's headed for a likely second term at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld and his deputies are getting even more jittery about a hostile strike in orbit.

To begin with, nobody at the Pentagon – nobody anywhere, in fact – really has a firm grasp on what's actually out there, circling the Earth. There are dozens of satellites, thousands of pieces of man-made debris, as well as an array of space rocks. But no one's quite sure of where, exactly, it all is.

Aviation Week quotes a "nightmare" that the country's top military space officer sometimes shares with his colleagues: "A phone call from the White House asking, 'What happened to our satellite? And what are you doing about it?' With few exceptions, today's response will be the same as a former Cincspace [Command-in-Chief of Space Operations] gave the Vice President several years ago: 'We don't know, and there's not much we can do."'

Everyone agrees that the first step to satellite defense is to get some sort of sense of what's happening in orbit. But the job of setting up this "Space Situational Awareness" has been bogged down in the bureaucratic muck. "There are now "99 organizations participating in 79 different meetings, conferences or forums, while using 91 separate SSA tools and systems -- [all] stovepiped and on their own course," Rear Adm. Thomas Zelibor, global operations director for U.S. Strategic Command, told Aviation Week.

In Rumsfeld's "space Pearl Harbor" report, the once-and-future Defense Secretary worried about adversaries attacking U.S. satellite ground stations, jamming GPS signals, or even setting off a nuclear bomb in space. Rumsfeld also warned about enemies developing ground-based lasers, or anti-satellite spacecraft that might, one day, be able to take out American orbiters.

But these "alarmist judgment[s] [are] not based on the available evidence," Jeffrey Lewis argues in Arms Control Today. "Indeed, a fair reading of unclassified intelligence estimates and the Pentagon’s own official statements suggest countries are not investing the time, money, and energy needed for such efforts."

Ground-based lasers that can strike into space – that's more science fiction than science, Lewis says. Russia, the only country to test anti-satellites, last did so in 1982. And American satellites have, so far, shown themselves impervious to jamming.

The Defense Department is less than reassured, however. Late last month, the Air Force officials declared their first anti-satellite weapon -- a radio frequency-based jammer -- ready to go.

THERE'S MORE: TM Lutas cautions against "overlooking a credible threat."

While no nation-state seems to be concentrating on anti-satellite weaponry, that does not mean that there is no threat. Hijacking an upcoming launch and loading low-tech threats like ball bearings for orbital deployment is something that needs to be countered...

There is no reason to panic or have a crash program but there are credible, growing threats in my opinion and they will multiply as private orbital rocketry becomes popular and lift costs drop... I don't think it's unrealistic to start thinking about stuff that is in the 20 year time horizon.

SCI-FI GAMERS BUZZ

I've got a story in today's New York Times on the science fiction adventure game "I Love Bees." It's sort of a cross between a scavenger hunt and a role-playing game. Players get pretty damn serious about it.

Nothing, not even Hurricane Frances, was going to keep Zach Dill from answering that phone. Everyone else had fled indoors. But with the storm just minutes away, the 24-year-old technical-support specialist stood in a Burger King parking lot in Tampa, Fla., waiting for a pay phone to ring.

The skies turned black. Swirling winds began to lift sand and debris off the parking lot and hurl it in a hundred directions. Then came the rain - wave after unrelenting wave of "stinging, cold needles," as Mr. Dill later described it. It fell so hard, he had to put his head next to the receiver to hear the phone ring. When he did finally answer, he gave a series of answers to a series of prerecorded riddles. Then he hung up and headed for his car, soaked and triumphant.

Across the country, thousands of people have gone to great lengths to answer such calls as part of an enigmatic science-fiction adventure that its fans call I Love Bees. Mr. Dill's example may be extreme. But driving halfway across a state, corralling hundreds of strangers into group photos and dressing up in futuristic uniforms - all in response to orders received by phone - have become almost commonplace in the game's world.

"A few of my friends now think I'm pretty much nuts," Mr. Dill said. "My co-workers, they're confused, wondering why I talk about bees all of the time."

DARPA: NO BLOOD? NO PROBLEM!

A while back, I mentioned a Darpa plan to have soldiers survive major injuries -- despite losing half or more of their blood. In this month's Wired magazine, I've got a short piece on the Darpa project, with a few more details.

When marine mammals like whales and seals dive deep, they let sections of their bodies go cold, cutting their metabolic rates dramatically. Darpa hopes that drugs or tech might allow soldiers to pull off the same trick - the agency's goal is to enable a rat to survive more than six hours after 60 percent of its blood has been drained.

Even Darpa managers admit it's far-fetched. Plan B: minimize bloodshed at the source, including spurting arteries. The Deep-Bleeder Acoustic Coagulation project aims to build on the work of researchers at the University of Washington and elsewhere. They're using concentrated, intense sonic blasts to heat the damaged cells. "Focused ultrasound allows a noninvasive method of cauterizing" - without fire or a laser - the scientists say. But these specialized ultrasound machines are big and bulky – and need an expert hand to guide them. Darpa's looking for a portable emitter for combat that doesn't need an expert operator.

In a recent report, Darpa worried that flesh-and-blood soldiers could become the "weak link" in the military chain. This is one of a bunch of ways the agency is planning to make it stronger.

VOTE, DAMMIT

Click here or here, or call 866-MYVOTE1 to find your polling place. 866-OUR-VOTE is the number for legal help on election day. And OurVote.com has a state-by-state list of voting rights.

When you do go vote...

- Bring a picture ID with your name and current address. If your Picture ID doesn't have your current address, bring official mail (utility bill, cable bill, rent agreement, etc). To be safe, bring as many forms of ID as possible.

- Always bring a voter registration card if you have one.

- If your name is not on the registration list, cast a provisional ballot. No one can be legally turned away at the polls.

- Be patient. If my experience down in New York's 55th election district is at all typical, you're going to have to wait a long, long time to pull that lever. One of the two voting machines was broken. To get to the other, you had to get a card from a pair of election workers. This was no simple operation. One -- tasked with looking up names on the voter rolls -- clearly couldn't read; he kept looking for "Shachtman" under W, and then J. The other, an shambling octogenarian with a cataracted right eye, was responsible for writing your name on the card. But his hands shook so badly, it took about 5 minutes to squeeze out each name. When I suggested to a supervisor there that a personnel shift might be in order, he told me a long parable about the great Jewish philosopher Maimonides, and then called me a trouble-maker.

'71 STUDY: L.S.D. GOOD FOR G.I.S

Wanna make American soldiers a little happier, and a little more productive on the job? Then give 'em a tiny dose of LSD. That's the conclusion, more or less, of a 1971 Army study, now posted on The Memory Hole.

From 1961 to 1966, 52 Army volunteers were kept awake for 24 hours straight. Then they were dosed with varying levels of LSD, and given a series of written and motor-skills tests.

The results? "The K (positive test-taking attitude), Hs (hypochondraisis) and Si (social introversion) scales were positive correlated with performance at lower doses and negatively correlated with performance and higher doses." In other words, a little LSD boosted the soldiers' test-taking abilities.

For some of them, at least. A lot depended on the G.I.'s personalities, the doctors at the Army's Edgewood Arsenal said. "Resistant subjects at lower doses were found to be more intelligent, energetic, and outgoing. Sensitive subjects at lower doses were found to be less intelligent, more constricted, more anxious, over-controlled, and dependent."

Sounds about right to me.

ASHCROFT: OSAMA LOVES KAZAA

Oh please. No matter who you're voting for on Tuesday, let's all agree to throw John Ashcroft's sorry ass out of office by Wednesday. Defense Tech pal (and NPR geekgirl) Xeni Jardin has reason # 98,922,674 why.

Ashcroft wants to lead a big Justice Department crackdown on file trading and other forms of intellectual property "theft." But, this being wartime, ol' John can't just come out and say that he wants to defend copyright law, or do Big Media's bidding. No, no. If we don't crack down on Elmer the freshman, sharing the new Eminem single on Kazaa, the terrorists will win, he insists. With a straight face.

Intellectual property theft can be so lucrative, he said, it 'risks becoming a potential source of financing for terrorists.' He did not cite specific examples of a link between the two.

Doesn't this guy have anything better to do?

GUARD'S ARMOR STILL SHORTCHANGED

It's been nearly two years since the build-up to the Iraq war began. And still, the U.S. national guardsmen and reservists serving in Iraq don't have the armor they need to protect their trucks, the Times reports.

When the 1544th Transportation Company of the Illinois National Guard was preparing to leave for Iraq in February, relatives of the soldiers offered to pay to weld steel plates on the unit's trucks to protect against roadside bombs. The Army told them not to, because it would provide better protection in Iraq, relatives said.

Seven months later, many of the company's trucks still have no armor, soldiers and relatives said, despite running some of the most dangerous missions in Iraq...

There are plans to produce armor kits for at least 2,806 medium-weight trucks, but as of Sept. 17, only 385 of the kits had been produced and sent to Iraq. Armor kits were also planned for at least 1,600 heavyweight trucks, but as of mid-September just 446 of these kits were in Iraq. The Army is also looking into developing ways to armor truck cabs quickly, and has ordered 700 armored Humvees with special weapons platforms to protect convoys.

Right here, these are the costs of Don Rumsfeld's shenanigans with the defense budget. By putting off funding for the basics our soldiers need to stay alive into a "supplemental" budget request, Rumsfeld is indirectly contributing to the deaths of American troops. It's wrong. And, what's more, it's the type of fiscal sleight-of-hand that Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, promised Congress wouldn't be done.

“This year’s budget seeks to apply the principle of honest assessments of what it will take to do the job, or what we call realistic costing. One of the unfortunate consequences of asking the military to do more than they really have the funds for is not only things like deferring real property maintenance, but underestimating the cost of flying hours in the hope that you will get a supplemental”

“We have tried in this budget, though, to get honest estimates of costs, and a significant part of that $18 billion increase is simply to get us to honest budgeting and a budget that does not require a supplemental in the year 2002. Indeed, we hope with this 2001 supplemental, which I hope is on the verge of being passed, that we will put behind us the kind of supplemental budgeting that became a process that was not based on true anticipated needs.”

THERE'S MORE: "It will be a year or more, before new plants producing Kevlar, Twaron, Spectra, Boron Carbide, Silicon Carbide and other body and vehicle armor materials can meet the vital need for protection under fire. Men are dying waiting for supply to catch up with demand," Russell Seitz notes in a Tech Central Station article. So let's get our friends in Europe and Asia to pick up the slack.

Few of our erstwhile allies have sent troops to Iraq, but all of them have inventories of bulletproof vests, helmets, and armor panels. Some of it will be ugly, and some ill fitting, but it is not wanted for its looks. Turning tough raw materials into armor takes a long time. But if the armor that sits unused by their forces were sent to Iraq today, it could be protecting the lives of tens of thousands of Americans -- and Iraqi's serving in harm's way tomorrow.

Much of the production of these advanced materials by non-combatant nations is presently going into sporting goods-from biker's helmets to surfboards and skis. NATO and former SEATO nations represent most of this production, and offering to provide it on a priority basis to producers of military protective gear would be more than a welcome gesture, it would be a literal lifesaver. The abundance of less critical modern materials would assure that civilian goods manufacture would continue.

ARMOR LACK: WHO'S TO BLAME?

So who's responsible for American troops still operating in Iraq without proper protection? Congress deserves some of the blame, according to this 60 Minutes report, spotted by Steve Gilliard:

Winslow Wheeler, a long time Capitol Hill staffer who spent years writing and reviewing defense appropriations bills, thinks he knows one reason why those shortages exist, after looking at the current Defense budget. Army accounts that pay for training, maintenance and repairs are being raided by Congress to pay for pork-barrel spending.

And buried in the back of this one, Wheeler found a biathlon jogging track in Alaska, a brown tree snake eradication program in Hawaii, a parade ground maintenance contract for a military base that closed years ago, and money for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial celebration...

According to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a member of the Armed Services Committee who speaks out against pork-barrel spending, there is a total of $8.9 billion of pork in this year's defense bill, which would go a long way toward upgrading all the equipment used by the National Guard.

"I don't think that this war has truly come home to the Congress of the United States," McCain says... "The least sexy items are the mundane - food, repair items, maintenance – there's no big contract there," says McCain. "And so there's a tendency that those mundane but vital aspects of war fighting are cut and routinely underfunded."

True. But if the Pentagon's top brass made these "mundane" items priority A1, Congress would fall in line, quick. Instead, these basics for the troops have been pushed back -- into "supplemental" funding, while the Defense Department's main budget gets filled with pork and leviathan projects meant to "transform" the military for the next century.

In fact, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker admitted in a recent interview with Army Times that he sees the Pentagon's wartime budget increases as a "window of opportunity" to pour cash into programs like the $117 billion Future Combat Systems initiative.

"The level of operational tempo that we have is being paid for with the supplemental. The increased consumption of repair parts and ammunition are all being funded by the supplemental. But the issue is that, from a strategic perspective, we have a war to fight and we're receiving increased dollars. I call that the window of opportunity — these dollars that we're receiving. And we have an Army to transform. So what is important to understand and I think what really is the extraordinary window that we have here is that we can combine these two. Combine this momentum - the momentum from the focus that war gives us, the funding that we're getting from the war, and our transformational effort...

We don’t know how long this will go long or how long supplemental funding will continue to support our wartime effort. But it makes sense to us to leverage the momentum and the additional funding we have so that where we go forward to a transformed force for the 21st Century. (thanks to Defense Tech reader BH for the catch).

THERE'S MORE: Look, it's not like Future Combat Systems is a bad idea. The Army should be investing in fighting tomorrow's wars. But there are good soldiers dying in Iraq now. Today. And picking FCS over armored trucks is like buying life insurance when the rent is three monts overdue.

AWWW YEAH

Defense Tech's traffic reached another record high last month, with 153,000 visitors checking out 358,000 pages. You guys f'ing rock. Thanks so much.

CRUNCH TIME FOR COPTERS IN IRAQ

It wasn't too long ago that some wags were calling on the U.S. Army to mothball its attack helicopter corps -- or go through a major revision, at least.

But as the insurgency grinds on, American commanders are relying on helicopters like the Apache, Kiowa, and Marine Cobra more than they ever have before, the Associated Press reports.

Since February, the 1st Cavalry Division's aviation brigade "has flown 50,000 combined hours in its nearly 100 helicopters, the highest airborne rate in division history," says the AP.

The copters have been so busy, they're now routinely being pushed beyond military flight recommendations.

Lt. Col. Mike Lundy, commander of the 1st Cavalry's Kiowa regiment, said each of his armed Kiowas flies around 105 hours per month, well over the recommended 65 hours.

Major overhauls normally done every two years are now needed every six months, said Maj. John Agor, the maintenance chief.

In the case of the Apache, the interval between complete overhauls been pushed back from once every 250 hours to once every 500 hours, said Agor.