Four Star Blogger

During his talk at the IFPA "New Triad" Conference, General James "Hoss" Cartwright mentioned his blog.

How did I miss this?

Back in March, "Timmer" at The Daily Brief noted that General Cartwright had been "talking up his Command and Control Blog (you couldn’t get to it even if I did link to it)" and posted some guidance that Cartwright issued about not letting the chain of command get in the way the information he needs. (Another blogger, with the handle Sgt. Mom, noted that a blogging 4-Star isn't that odd.)

Any way, the story bumped around the blogosphere (for example) before petering out.

The Huntsville Times reported General Cartwright's blog in August after he mentioned it at the Annual Space and Missile Defense Conference.

Cartwright's comments -- as reported by Timmer and the Hunstville Times -- suggest that he "gets" the potential for blogging.

"The first thing that came out was 'Don't post anything on that blog without clearance from the commander,' " Cartwright said. "We had to beat that down."

The next firewall thrown up to Cartwright's blog were responses that came from only senior staff officers like captains and majors "giving me only what their commanders wanted me to hear," he said. "I called that the 'tethered goat' response and it wasn't all that helpful.

"What I wanted was information and context to help with decision making. I can't wait for the perfect advice," Cartwright said. "If there is a bad decision then that's on me. That's my responsibility."

Finally after "blowing the doors down and sitting on" the blog nay-sayers, Cartwright is getting what he wants from STRATCOM's Web tools, he said.

Of course, one doesn't become a flag officer (or anything else essentially political) without some skill at self-promotion, so grain of salt and all.

I know that DefenseTech.org (and Arms Control Wonk.com, where this is cross posted) get lots of STRATCOM traffic -- so, folks, I'd love to hear about how the STRATCOM blogs are working. Drop one of us a line:

jeffrey-AT-armscontrolwonk-DOT-com or
defense-AT-defensetech-DOT-org

-- Jeffrey Lewis

Not a Deal Maker, or an Arms Broker

I feel ridiculous even typing this. But enough companies have written in, asking me to help them market their products to the Defense Department, that I feel obliged to respond. Here's my answer, in a nutshell: no.

I received the latest come-on just a few days ago, from a company that claims to make radio frequency jammers.

...COMPANY is able to quickly produce most professional [customized] solutions for Every requirement of jammers, the best in the world, and most competitive in terms of price. The only issue is that currently we don't have yet connections with the US Military.

Can you help us make the US Army immediately aware of our superior capabilities ? because we understand that there's an immediate top-urgent requirement of Professional IED Jammers for the US Army troops in Iraq. Needless to say that if you help us in this matter you (or your organization) will be highly compensated for the same.

Your prompt response will be very appreciated. Thank you very much in advance...

Look, I'm a journalist. Not a deal maker. And not an arms broker. I'm happy to consider writing about your product, whatever it is. But I'm not about to start lobbying the government to take the technologies I cover. That would pretty much shred whatever last little bit of credibility I still have. How could I appear to be an objective observer if I'm pimping gear behind the scenes? So, please, do everyone a favor -- no matter how revolutionary and awesome your new doodad is: back off.

Sub's Unmanned Buddy

A while back, I briefly mentioned the Cormorant, Darpa's idea for a sub-launched flying drone. Reader DS points us to the agency's quick write-up of the 19-foot "multi-purpose unmanned aerial vehicle," or MPUAV.

The idea is that the drone could handle "all-weather reconnaissance, battle damage assessment, or specialized mission support (e.g., special forces re-supply)" for the sub.

The Cormorants would be kept in the sub's ICBM launch tubes, and released into the water as needed. From there, they'd be launched into the air "using two Tomahawk missile-derived solid rocket boosters."

Upon mission completion, the turbofan engine-powered MPUAVs return to a designated retrieval point at sea, initiate engine shut down, and splash down to await recovery. During recovery, the submerged [sub] would deploy a remotely operated vehicle to secure an in-haul cable from the [sub] to the recovery tether deployed by the MPUAV. The [sub] would then haul the MPUAV to its designated launch tube [with a] saddle mechanism, where it would be docked and retracted into the missile tube.

StrategyPage, for one, isn't so sure all that trouble is worth it.

Aircraft operating off submarines is nothing new... [During World War II], the Japanese built 44 subs that could carry a small float plane for reconnaissance. This idea was fine in theory, but much less successful in practice... Someone may read a history book before that, or remember that the United States has plenty of other satellite and long range UAVs that could provide air reconnaissance needs of U.S. subs.

And Darpa admits there are a whole bunch of technical hurdles to leap before the Cormorant would begin to make sense.

The launch and recovery procedure -- including that "saddle" thingy -- would have to go through "key risk reduction demonstrations." So so would the drone's high-pressure turbofan engine.

Rapid Fire 12/28/05

* Houston's Katrina crimewave

* Pentagon's wireless shift

* Old planes' new networks

* Nuke lab blogger bows out

* Chem plants still at risk

* Euro-GPS takes off (background here)

* Laser = IED finder

* DHS = lame

* Carter 1, eavesdroppers 0

(Big ups: JQP, Early Brief, RC, CA)

Free Press in Kurdistan, Take Two

So I tracked down the staff of Hawlati, the only independent newspaper in Kurdistan, to get their take on press freedom in this country so utterly dominated by two powerful political parties. Editor Faisal Khalid says that only Hawlati will tackle stories related to government corruption, of which there is a lot in Kurdistan. In retaliation, Hawlati staff have been threatened and, in a few cases, bribed by the government to become informants.

If the Hawlati staff believes an employee's loyalty is wavering, that employee is promptly fired. Recently three Hawlati reporters were jailed for covering corruption stories; all three are out on bail awaiting trial. What makes this legally possible is the absence of Miranda Rights in Kurdistan and a law prohibiting loosely-defined "slander", which editors have told me might include criticism of the major political parties.

Incredibly, even the courageous Hawlati staff cows away from certain subjects. "Past the red line," is how Khalid describes them. When I asked what subjects were past the line, he refused to answer, saying only that everyone knows what subjects are absolutely taboo. If government corruption is fair game in this place where government is worshipped, what in the world is off-limits? My cynical Western mind suspects that these subjects are related to sex and religion. More on that later.

-- David Axe

Hummer Limos Enter War Games

The next wave of Army fighting vehicles are still on the drawing board. So, in the meantime, "Boeing is outfitting 34 commercially produced limousine-style Hummers with radios and computer networking equipment to stand in for the... vehicles during tests and exercises," according to Inside Defense.

In early January, seven of the vehicles will drive up California’s Interstate 15 to Nellis Air Force Base, NV, located near Las Vegas, to be used in the Air Force-led Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 2006...

To find the actual vehicles, Boeing conducted two separate competitions -- one among Hummer dealerships near Huntington Beach, CA, and another among companies that make vehicles into limousines by cutting them in half and adding length to the middle as needed. Hummer of West Covina, CA, and LA Custom Coach Inc. won out.

The Hummers were delivered to the Huntington Beach SOSIL [System of Systems Integration Laboratory] facility with an added alternator, dual oil filters and run-flat tires. Then they were handed over to the limousine company, where their length was increased by 65 inches...

After the expansion to a six-door vehicle was complete, the Army added air conditioning because the vehicles will be running with computers and radios in the heat of the desert. They also were painted with the service’s signature camouflage print.

On Growing Old (and Being Young) in Kurdistan

There are few things rarer than an old Kurdish man. Decades of oppression, poor nutrition and medical care, war, flight and starting over have taken their toll. The low life expectancy of Kurdish men goes a long way to explain why the survivors are so revered.

More than most, Kurdish culture is patriarchal and personality-worshipping. And no patriarchs' personalities are more worshipped than the Barzanis. In every office, shop and home hang portraits of Mustafa Barzani, the deceased Kurdish revolutionary, and his son Massoud, the current head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the dominant party in Erbil and, with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan based in Sulaymaniyah, the heart of the Kurdish coalition that has been kicking ass at the polls since January.

Extremely high birth rates -- an artifact of Kurds' obsession with nuclear families -- mean that despite historically high death rates among men, Kurdish population is exploding. All Iraqi peoples have very very young populations. (That many Arabs have multiple wives contributes to this.) High birth rates aren't all good. Feeding, clothing and educating all these kids is a real challenge. At the public hospital in Shaqlawa, a resort town north of Erbil, Dr. Bestum Ali is doing all he can to keep thousands of kids healthy. That means up to 50 innoculations per day and aggressive childrearing education for new mothers. Ali says things are getting better, especially since the fall of Saddam. Medicine, personnel and expertise move more freely, international aid is up, and expatriate doctors like Shaqlawa head of pediatrics Dr. Yusef are returning to Kurdistan from places like Zurich. The result of all this and of Kurdistan's new era of peace, hopefully, is that old Kurds will one day be as common as young ones.

-- David Axe

Merry Christmas, Iraq

At the Erbil Ministry of Culture's media hall, the Iraqi-Kurdistan Symphony Orchestra has just struck the final chord of the Kurdish national anthem, and the audience -- Kurdish Christians and Muslims, Arabs and Turkomens, maybe even an Iraqi Jew or two, all in black ties and gowns -- bursts into loud applause, foot-stomping and cheers. It's Christmas Eve in the oldest city in the world, and the city's million-and-some residents are in a pretty good mood. Maybe it's the successful election they had just two weeks ago.
Maybe it's the Christmas cheer of the city's sizeable Christian minority rubbing off on everyone else. Or maybe it's just that Kurdistanis love being Kurdistanis.

Sure, Iraqi Kurdistan's got troubles. Corruption hamstrings the economy. Intense security limits civil rights. A dearth of natural resources has ministers begging for foreign investment. But despite all this, and against the backdrop of a country descending into an Arab civil war, Kurdistan is prospering. People are making money, raising their kids, going to school, travelling abroad, making plans, dreaming and enjoying life.

This is it folks, this is what a peaceful, democratic, multi-ethnic and religiously-tolerant Iraq looks like. The Western media's myopic focus on Baghdad and Arab Iraq means it's missed a quarter of the story, the northern quarter, where five million people are building the Middle East's first indigenous democracy from scratch. Every day Kurds thank me, believing I represent all Americans. They thank me for freeing them from a murderous tyrant. They thank me for saving their lives and their families' lives. They tell me that they understand we went to war for many reasons, some quite bad. Still, they say, no American has died in vain here, for even if there were no weapons of mass destruction, even if Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11, there is at least one good reason to fight and die in Iraq.

In fact, there are five million.

Merry Christmas, America. Merry Christmas, Iraq.

--David Axe

NSA "Tapping Into... Telecom's Main Arteries"

"The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States... by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries," the Times is reporting.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged...

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications.

When the NSA domestic spying story broke last week, I had a hunch that the eavesdropping technology at work was a whole lot different than what you'd find in an average wiretap. A former signals intelligence specialist wondered whether the NSA "may have compromised... a telecom carrier."

That guess looks to be dead-on.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the leading companies in the industry have been storing information on calling patterns and giving it to the federal government to aid in tracking possible terrorists.

"All that data is mined with the cooperation of the government and shared with them, and since 9/11, there's been much more active involvement in that area," said the former manager, a telecommunications expert who did not want his name or that of his former company used because of concern about revealing trade secrets.

The Times article also makes clear why Senator Jay Rockefeller compared the program to Total Information Awareness, the Pentagon's uber-database project.

The N.S.A. has sought to analyze communications patterns to glean clues from details like who is calling whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, and the origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages. Calls to and from Afghanistan, for instance, are known to have been of particular interest to the N.S.A. since the Sept. 11 attacks, the officials said.

This so-called "pattern analysis" on calls within the United States would, in many circumstances, require a court warrant if the government wanted to trace who calls whom.

The use of similar data-mining operations by the Bush administration in other contexts has raised strong objections, most notably in connection with the Total Information Awareness system... [which was] ultimately scrapped after public outcries over possible threats to privacy and civil liberties.

But the Bush administration regards the N.S.A.'s ability to trace and analyze large volumes of data as critical to its expanded mission to detect terrorist plots before they can be carried out, officials familiar with the program say. Administration officials maintain that the system set up by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not give them the speed and flexibility to respond fully to terrorist threats at home.

Some will say this story is old news. The NSA has long been rumored to have the ability to vacuum up huge swaths of data at once.

"The NSA is intercepting huge streams of communications, taking in 2 million pieces of communications an hour," James Bamford, the author of two books on the NSA, told the Boston Globe on Friday.

"They have a capacity to listen to every overseas phone call," added Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University."

But the question has been: how do you turn all that data into something useful? You've got to find a realtively simple way to get rid of 99.99999% of the calls and e-mails quickly. Otherwise, it's like drinking from a firehose.

But as link analysis and data mining programs have become more sophisticated, that sifting process has gotten easier. And, I'll bet, it is simpler still when the telecom companies are playing ball.

Inside the Air Force's Laser Lab

I love the bit in Bond films where 007 goes round Q’s laboratory checking out the latest top-secret gadgets. That’s why I enjoyed talking to Capt.Wegner and his colleagues at ScorpWorks, source of a variety of laser weapons and other one-of-a-kind devices.

The ScorpWorks is the Air Force Research Laboratory’s in-house development team for laser system prototypes. Although it has existed since 1992, they have shunned publicity until this year. A laser weapon does not need to convert the target into smoking rubble: they are much more versatile than that.

The Laser AirCraft CounterMeasures (ACCM), which I detail in this week's New Scientist, is a nonlethal coaxial laser that sits alongside a helicopter door gun. It dazzles the target, preventing them from firing accurately and providing protection for the helicopter, but without risking civilian casualties.

It’s more than a dazzler. Experience with the Saber 203 laser dazzler in Somalia showed that it was too low-powered to affect vision, but anyone illuminated beat a hasty retreat as they knew a weapon was being aimed at them. The ACCM should have a similar effect, scattering potential threats on the ground and leaving only the truly dangerous ones - and the 4,000 rpm minigun should deal with them.

The PHaSR laser-dazzling rifle unveiled a few weeks ago is similar (and not a hoax). In a riot-control situation, the idea is that lighting people up with this portable laser will separate peaceful protesters from the stone-throwers. The PhaSR’s dual-wavelength laser will also make countermeasures difficult, and Capt. Wegner points out that the end product will probably be very different to the bulky prototype.

The PHaSR is a relative of the Portable Efficient Laser Testbed (PELT). This is another riot-control weapon, but one that works by heat – "the first man-portable heat compliance weapon of its kind" Take a close look at the picture of PELT on page 52 here and you'll see a signature Scorpion logo – a rare visible sign of ScorpWorks handiwork.

Elsewhere they've been utilizing the laser as a sensor. By picking up the reflections back from the human eye, invisible laser sensors can detect people looking at them - similar to the way animal eyes light up when you shine a flashlight on them. A sniper detection system is in the works.

Even more sophisticated is BOSS, the Battlefield Optical Surveillance System. This is a vehicle-mounted setup which uses retro-reflection and a number of other technologies to spot targets in pitch darkness. It can be locate, identify and invisibly designate targets, so they won’t even know they've been spotted until a laser-guided weapon hits (and probably not even then). Exactly how far advanced BOSS or its successors are is not known.

The ScorpWorks name is a deliberate echo of Lockheed’s famous Skunk Works, renowned for producing world-beating aircraft like the F-117 stealth fighter and SR-71 Blackbird on time and within budget, a feat achieved following a set of bureaucracy-busting rules laid down by the legendary Kelly Johnson.

ScorpWorks reckon that many projects get completed within two years and with prototypes built for less than $300k. At that price you could get about 20,000 different projects for the price of one Airborne Laser.

The Skunk Works is famous for the many black programs that originated there, and you do get the impression with ScorpWorks that what they have revealed is the tip of the iceberg. We know their customers include Special Operations Command, Air Force, Marines, DARPA and the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, but we don’t know what they bought. Even their unclassified programs can only be discussed in broad terms. If they told me more, they’d probably have to kill me – but I bet they’d use a really impressive laser.

-- David Hambling

Corruptistan

Kurds talk big when it comes to democracy, but old undemocratic ways are hard to shake, and Kurdistan is very very old. Corruption here isn't as bad as in, say, Baghdad, a city built on closed-door deals and dead Kurds. But it's still pretty obnoxious.

Take the multi-million-dollar four-lane highway being built near Erbil that doesn't seem to connect any major population centers. It doesn't make much sense until you realize that the highway begins at the regional prime minister's house and ends at his office.

Most corruption isn't so grand. At the Erbil airport, my co-camerman David burch got shook down for $80 by the customs guys despite having everything he needed to get into the country: a precious Iraqi visa courtesy of His Honor Ambassador of Iraq to the United Kingdom Dr. Salah Al-Shaikhly and an American passport. Fortunately, Kurdish bureaucrats are as inept as they are corrupt, and David simply smiled and hurried through the shakedown line without paying, and nobody noticed.

Outside Erbil, at Kes Nazan, the Kurdish Regional Government is building a $50-million, 3,000-unit apartment complex with oil revenue provided by Baghdad. (How much of that revenue winds up in Kurdish ministers' pockets, I'd love to know.) The complex is intended for poor families being displaced from Erbil by new commercial construction, but sources tell me that many of the units have already been assigned to wealthy powerful Kurds using fake names.

It's a shame, made all the more shameful by an accute historical irony. The land around Kes Nazan is flat and featureless, not because no one has ever lived here, but because it used to be populated by conservative rural Kurds until Saddam swept in, killed a bunch, rounded up the rest, put them in camps then bulldozed their homes. Their graves still dot the area. Some of these surviving displaced peoples are returning to the area, soon to find their land occupied by the local upper class -- a newer, more familiar oppressor, albeit a less cruel one than Saddam.

-- David Axe

Rapid Fire 12/22/05

* Patriot Act's brief extension

* Spooks spooked by domestic wiretaps (background here)

* Secret court judges spooked, too

* DHS' ugly birth

* Defense bill, packed with pork

* De-nuked subs head to sea

* $50K reward for missing explosives

* Israelis, Saudis eye U.S. shoreline ship

* Racers = military R&D

* The overlords look back

(Big ups: Early Brief, Eric, RC, Murdoc)

SSG Johnnie Mason, RIP

Staff Sergeant Johnnie Mason was smiling when I met him, a few days after he had dodged death. He was part of an Army bomb squad team in Mahmudiyah, not far from Baghdad. An improvised explosive device, stuffed underneath a set of corpses, detonated just feet away from him in mid-July. Only his kevlar bomb suit -- and a quick duck behind a mound of dirt -- kept him alive.

If Mason was bothered by the experience, he didn't show it. "All I've got is a little short-term memory loss. There are four roads on post -- I keep getting lost," he laughed.

But he had enough wherewithall to get back to work, he promised his commanding officer. Mason eyes grew big, and he cracked a toothy grin, when he got the okay.

I shook my head in wonder at Mason's easy-going bravery then.

Now, I'm cradling my head in my hand, after getting this message from Sergeant Jon Ferraro, from the "Baghdad Bomb Squad."

On 19 December 2005 @ 23:30, my team leader SSG Johnnie V. Mason was killed in the line of duty in Al Mahmudiyah, Iraq. We were working on an IED in the median of a road, when a possible secondary IED was found in our safe area. SSG Johnnie Mason responded immediately to the secondary and took immediate actions on the device. He was trying to safe the device when it detonated...killing him instantly from the explosion (at exactly 23:30). He saved at least 4 soldiers that night who were within feet of the device. SSG Johnnie Mason is a fallen brother. A brother in arms. An EOD brother. A husband to his wife Brook and a father to his 2 step children: Ashley (18) and Adam (16). He will not be forgotten. His loss will not be in vain.

He was my team leader. He was my NCO. He was my best friend. He was my brother. I have never gotten so close to someone in such a short time. I first met Johnnie when I got to Ft.Campbell, KY back in January of this year. I found out he was going to be my team leader for Iraq back in March. Ever since then we have been inseparable and we've had a brothers bond.

We were Team 8 "Jokers". When we rolled out on an incident, everyone knew who we were. Johnnie was a joker. He's the guy that makes everyone laugh and smile. Everyone liked him or loved him. He was always in a good mood and made the best out of every situation. He was cool under pressure and was an amazing team leader. He taught me alot as a person, as an EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] tech...and soon to be husband. We had fun on every incident we ran. We ran safely, as fast as possible, and held high standards as a team. Everywhere we went on post, someone would say hey to Johnnie from the lowest ranking private to the Brigade Commander. Everyone knew him.

I ask that everyone take a moment of silence and pray for his family and friends during this horrible time. I ask God to keep them strong and safe during this time of Christmas. I ask that you forward this to all the EOD techs you know and the friends and loved ones of his.

Thank you and God bless,

SGT Jonathan M. Ferraro
717th Ordnance Company (EOD)

UPDATE 12/22 8:52 AM: More on Johnnie here and here. If you're interested in sending condolences or flowers, e-mail me.

UPDATE 12/25 11:46 AM: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has some choice snippets of Johnnie's battlefield humor. And the Ft. Worth Star Telegram hangs out with Johnnie's Dad.

California Keeps Los Alamos Control

For more than sixty years, the University of California has run Los Alamos National Laboratory on the Energy Department's behalf. And, despite a seemingly-ceaseless array of financial, security, and safety scandals at the birthplace of the atom bomb -- the latest came out just yesterday -- the University will hold on to the lab's $2.2 billion per year management contract. Just goes to show, no amount of incompetence can lose you a fat government deal. The Santa Fe New Mexican has the scoop. LANL: The Real Story has employee reacts.

Rapid Fire 12/21/05

* Secret court judge resigns over wiretaps

* "Purely domestic" calls snagged

* Sub found -- 7,500 feet above sea level

* Stalin's half-man, half-apes

* GIs' cool, cool vests

* Private space launched, scrubbed again

* Mil sims get real

* "Future Combat" timeline, revised

* Border patrol job = tchotchkes!

(Big ups: /., TP, TS, Roland, Adam)

Iraq's Beautiful Trash

I was having my morning chai at the Shahan Hotel in downtown Erbil when, out the window, I saw something very exciting. A garbage truck, stopped at the curb, and garbage collectors tossing in boxes and bags. I was so amazed that I lunged for my camera like I'd just spotted Bigfoot. That's when I saw another garbage truck rounding the corner. I snapped photos on the fly like a paparazzi tailing Tom Cruise.

In five trips to Iraq totalling five months, these are the first garbage trucks I've seen -- and they're the best evidence so far of the development of civil society -- if not in all of Iraq, then at least here in Kurdistan. Elsewhere, garbage including animal parts and discarded food piles up in big festering heaps on the streets until somebody with a pickup truck volunteers to haul it to the city limits, where it gets dumped in sprawling fields of waste 30 years old and hundreds of acres in size. The garbage is so dense in places that during hot summers, it spontaneously combusts, fueling putrid garbage fires that burn uncontrolled for days. The upside of garbage fires is that they keep down the populations of vicious wild dogs that live in the garbage, venturing into the cities at night to terrorize pedestrians and domestic animals.

What Iraq needs, more than any election or military campaign, is basic civic infrastructures like garbage collection. There's little sense of public good or public ownership in most Iraqi cities, which contrbutes to the lack of security. If you don't care enough to keep your streets clean, how in the world are you going to muster the enthusiasm to ward of terrorists and foreign fighters, both public nuisances that, unlike garbage, can kill you?

-- David Axe

Zero Hour for Los Alamos

Jeez. As if things couldn't get any busier around here. Now the Santa Fe New Mexican is reporting that there's a winner in the monster fight to grab control of Los Alamos National Lab -- and its $2.2 billion per year contract.

"Department of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman is scheduled to announce the winning contractor... at noon Mountain Time," according to the paper's Los Alamos blog.

A whole lot more than money is at stake here. If the Lockheed Martin-led team wins, some scientists worry, the nuclear lab's culture of innovation could be crushed. But if the University of California continues to run Los Alamos -- as it has since the days of the Manhattan Project -- the lab's seemingly-endless series of scandals may never stop. Stay tuned to the New Mexican's site, and to LANL: The Real Story, where lab insiders dish and vent hot.

Pain Ray Headed to Iraq?

It's been talked about for years. But the Pentagon's microwave-like pain ray may finally be headed to Iraq, Inside the Army reports.

Developed by the Air Force, the so-called "Active Denial System" (ADS) fires out milimeter waves -- a sort of cousin of microwaves, in the 95 GHz range. The invisible beams penetrate just a 64th of inch beneath the skin. But that's deep enough to heat up the water inside a person. Which is enough to cause excruciating pain.

Seconds later, people have to run away. And that causes mobs to break up in a hurry. It's no wonder, then, why less-lethal weapon guru Charles "Sid" Heal calls the ray the "Holy Grail of crowd control."

Raytheon has been developing a Humvee-mountable ADS for the Pentagon over the last couple of years, as part of an ACTD, or "advanced concept technology demonstration."

By now, the system was supposed to be in the field. But there have been concerns that the ADS tests weren't sufficiently realistic. The Pentagon ordered additional trials. More than 2,370 ADS shots were fired during a pair of "military utility assessments" over the fall.

Now, the head of the Army's Rapid Equipping Force -- the unit in charge of getting gear to the troops in a hurry -- is saying: enough.

The system's "capabilities have, to date, been sufficiently demonstrated in the ACTD [advanced concept technology demonstration] to prove its value to the solider," Col. Robert Lovett notes in a memo, obtained by Inside the Army.

And the 18th Military Police Brigade has requested ADS "to help 'suppress' insurgent attacks and quell prison uprisings."

ADS' technical manager, Diana Loree, said the system "now meets all of the ACTD performance parameters," Inside the Army notes.

"Because the system is a hand-built, one-of-a-kind technology demonstrator, it does not meet conventional humvee curb weight requirements... However, the technology team worked closely with [Humvee manufacturer] AM General to ensure the safety of the system and its occupants."

There has also been talk, at least, of building an airborne model of ADS -- as well as putting together a Hummer with both pain rays and sonic blasters. Needless to say, neither project is as far along as the basic Active Denial System.

Wiretap Mystery: Spooks React

A few current and former signals intelligence guys have been checking in since this NSA domestic spying story broke. Their reactions range between midly creeped out and completely pissed off.

All of the sigint specialists emphasized repeatedly that keeping tabs on Americans is way beyond the bounds of what they ordinarily do -- no matter what the conspiracy crowd may think.

"It's drilled into you from minute one that you should not ever, ever, ever, under any fucking circumstances turn this massive apparatus on an American citizen," one source says. "You do a lot of weird shit. But at least you don't fuck with your own people."

Another, who's generally very pro-Administration, emphasized that the operation at least started with people that had Al-Qaeda connections -- with some mass-spying master list. As the Times, in its original story, noted:

The C.I.A. seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A. surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, they said....In addition to eavesdropping on those numbers and reading e-mail messages to and from the Qaeda figures, the N.S.A. began monitoring others linked to them, creating an expanding chain. While most of the numbers and addresses were overseas, hundreds were in the United States, the officials said....Since 2002, the agency has been conducting some warrantless eavesdropping on people in the United States who are linked, even if indirectly, to suspected terrorists through the chain of phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

But this call chain could very well have grown out of control, the source admits. Suddenly, people ten and twelve degrees of separation away from Osama may have been targeted.

Deputy Director for National Intelligence Michael Hayden hinted at what might be going on in a press conference yesterday:

And here the key is not so much persistence as it is agility. It's a quicker trigger. It's a subtly softer trigger. And the intrusion into privacy -- the intrusion into privacy is significantly less. It's only international calls. The period of time in which we do this is, in most cases, far less than that which would be gained by getting a court order.

That points to a diferent type of technology at work, as I suggested the other day. Senator Jay Rockefeller, in a remarkable pair of handwritten letters (one kept for safe keeping, in case someone tried to say later on that he approved of the program) seems to back this point of view.

As I reflected on the meeting today, and the future we face, John Poindexter's TIA project sprung to mind, exacerbating my concern regarding the direction the Administration is moving with regard to security, technology, and surveillance.

TIA, of course, would be "Total Information Awareness," Darpa's effort to find potential enemies of the state in the data trails of ordinary folks. The program was cancelled a few years back. But a whole bunch of similar efforts continue throughout the government.

A former sigint type -- who also talked to Ryan, apparently -- suggests a different technological approach: the NSA "may have compromised a hardware manufacturer -- say Motorola or a satellite phone manufacturer, a telecom carrier or a satellite(s)."

I'll keep my ears open.

UPDATE 11:27 AM: There's a ton of surveillance-related news that has come out in the last day, including:

- FBI spied on PETA

- Bush personally asked the Times to kill its NSA story

- "Pentagon's Intelligence Authority Widens"

- DoD: gay law school groups a "credible" terror threat

UPDATE 12:22 PM: Laura points us to an absolute must-read post from Bill Arkin today:

In the spring of 2001, NSA began to change direction in its counter-terrorism targeting under Lt. Gen. Hayden: rather than analyzing the mass of what was collected hoping for the gem in the growing mass of available material, NSA began a methodical process of dissecting terrorist target communications practices and network to determine what to collect. This is commonly referred to at NSA as hunting rather than gathering. It was a procedure that was in its infancy on 9/11.

So what happened? The perceived shackles of domestic collection were removed, the gathering process began again to overwhelm the hunting process, new software, data-mining and link analysis methods were applied to isolate potential domestic targets.

UPDATE 2:07 PM: Check out Bruce Schneier for a quick history of domestic eavesdropping. Our old pal Hannibal from Ars Technica rounds out the review. And Garrance from around the block dives into the data mining laws.

Next-Gen GPS Takes Off

The first modernized GPS satellite is now operational, according to a Lockheed Martin press release:

A joint U.S. Air Force/Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] team announced today that the first modernized Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite has been declared fully operational for GPS users around the globe following extensive on-orbit testing of the spacecraft's new military and civilian signals.

Launched on Sept. 25 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. the GPS IIR-14 (M) satellite is the most technologically advanced GPS satellite ever developed. The spacecraft features a modernized antenna panel that provides increased signal power to receivers on the ground, two new military signals for improved accuracy, enhanced encryption and anti-jamming capabilities for the military, and a second civil signal that will provide users with an open access signal on a different frequency.

The second modernized GPS sat will launch early next year. A total of eight of these birds is planned.

Meanwhile, the first launch of Europe's sat-nav program, Galileo, was pushed back from December 26th to the 28th. The satellite, built by Britain, will be launched on a Russian Soyuz rocket.

Meanwhile, India is going to use GLONASS, Russia's answer to GPS and Gallileo.

--cross-posted by Murdoc

In Iraq, Free Press (Kinda, Sorta, Maybe)

Everyone in Kurdistan is proud of saying that there's no censorship here, that their media is free and independent. But poking around the edges of some small-time magazines in Erbil, I discovered something strange. From the smallest fry to the biggest fish, almost all media in Kurdistan is government-funded.

When I asked Karwan Abdula, editor of Caravan literary magazine (and a former communist) if government funding shaped his mag's editorial ethos, he said no, of course not. But then, he added, we would never think of publishing anything critical of Kurdistan's two major parties.

I ran this past the media bigwig in Erbil, Minister of Culture Sami Shorish, and he explained that while there are no laws restricting free speech, there is one important law restricting speech that isn't free and never should be. "We provide freedom to media, provided the media doesn't act in a slanderous way."

And would criticizing the ruling parties entail slander? I asked Abdula.

Yes, he said.

In all of Kurdistan there is only one privately-financed newspaper, Hawlati, which has been an on-again off-again affair. Its editors come and go with shocking frequency. Sources tell me that there's a lot of pressure on Hawlati on account of its independence. I'm trying to get in touch with the current editor to get his take.

To the Kurds, it seems, censorship ain't censorship as long as you call it something else.

-- David Axe

Rapid Fire 12/19/05

* Mach 5 for scramjet

* Robo-copter, super-catamaran team up

* Bats Fly-by-touch

* DHS, stuck on Windows 95

* Cops heart game Nazi

* Ham jockey hears Mars orbiter

(Big ups: RC, JQP)

China Bosses' Best Pal: Cisco

It was a disgusting, when Yahoo helped China jail a dissident writer in September. But it wasn't exactly uncommon. Lots of American technology companies have been helping out the autocrats in Beijing, Legal Affairs notes.

Take Cisco. The company "earns $500 million a year in revenues [in China] and holds 60 percent of the Chinese market for routers, switches, and other sophisticated networking gear."

That includes "the watchdog router that prevents Internet users in China from gaining access to banned websites."

And it includes Policenet,
which "connects officials of the Public Security Bureau — a national agency with local branches that handle security, immigration, 'social order,' and law enforcement — to each other and to electronic records that store a wealth of information on every citizen in China."

Cisco marketed Policenet at China's 2002 Information Infrastructure Expo (a trade show for potential suppliers to the Golden Shield [uber-database] project) by touting how the technology helped police in California match the faces of criminal suspects with images captured through surveillance cameras in department stores. [Here's a brochure] It's hard to get upset about devices that help law enforcement officials lock up shoplifters. Yet the technology itself seems to change when, rather than being operated by police who are subject to the constraints of search warrants and evidence rules, it is used by security forces concerned primarily with suppressing dissent. Policenet may be effective against crime in California, but it also lets China's Public Security Bureau obtain information about the political beliefs and Internet use of innocent people and their family members...

Public law — the criminal and civil statutes and case law that shape corporate conduct — would be clumsy and probably ineffective in trying to [stop Cisco from this kind of thing]. Far more promising would be... shareholder pressure and lawsuits. Though no law required it to do so, Nike adopted a code of conduct to improve working conditions at its sneaker factories abroad. It succumbed to pressure from labor rights groups and from lawsuits that claimed the company had committed false advertising by misrepresenting working conditions. Boston Common Asset Management, which holds 67,000 of the billions of Cisco shares outstanding, filed a shareholder resolution with the Securities and Exchange Commission in May 2004 demanding that Cisco consider human rights issues when choosing wholesalers for its products. The investment firm said it worried that "corporations doing business with repressive governments face serious risks to their reputation and share value." Cisco argued that the human rights policies set forth in its code of business conduct were enough to ensure proper behavior and asked the SEC to exclude the resolution. The SEC refused, allowing shareholders to decide in effect whether Cisco should balance individual freedoms with the goal of earning profits.

New Tech Behind NSA Snoop Case?

There's more to the NSA domestic spying case than the current storyline -- that much is clear. The idea that the Bush Administration needed to bypass the courts to get wiretaps quickly makes no sense; under the current system, you can start eavesdropping, and get a warrant later. The notion that disclosing the surveillance would somehow tip off potential terrorists is laughable, too; Al Qaeda types know they're being monitored.

That's all assuming, of course, that the wiretaps in this case are the same as in any other. But maybe they're not. Maybe there's something different about this surveillance. It could be in its scope, as Laura suggests. But I'm guessing -- and this is just a guess -- that the real difference is in the technology of the wiretaps themselves.

Look at what former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who was briefed on the eavesdropping program, told the Washington Post:

"I came out of the room with the full sense that we were dealing with a change in technology but not policy," Graham said, with new opportunities to intercept overseas calls that passed through U.S. switches.

Or what New York Times editor Bill Keller had to say about the paper's year-long delay in breaking the story:

In the course of subsequent reporting we satisfied ourselves that we could write about this program -- withholding a number of technical details -- in a way that would not expose any intelligence-gathering methods or capabilities that are not already on the public record.

So maybe the NSA wiretaps were using a new kind of capability; one that terror suspects might not have know about; one that might have even made the FISA court uncomfortable, somehow.

It's a lot of mights and maybes, I know. But the current threads of this story are so thin, it's time to start considering some alternatives.

Bomb Squad Story, Blown

From the AP and NPR reports, you'd think that the the big deal about the military's revamped IED training course was new, mock buildings that the government put up for the class. You'd be wrong.

I went down to the military's bomb squad school over the summer, while those buildings were being constructed. (Here's a picture, right) I talked to the guys who are running the IED program. The new structures are the least important part of the change that's going on in bomb squad training. Think of it like the movies: The scenery matters, sure. But what really counts is the acting, and the plot. Here's what I wrote about the school for Wired:

When [a bomb technician] was deployed to the Balkans in the late 1990s, his main task was to sweep unexploded ordnance from battlefields and firing ranges once the action was over. He followed a cold war playbook - when to get the tools out, when to just blow something up. But that playbook only works when you're up against mass-produced bombs. Guerrillas in Iraq cobble together weapons from whatever they can find. A bombmaker in Mosul might use dynamite and a timer from a washing machine. One in Baghdad lashes artillery shells to a motorcycle battery and a cordless telephone. Insurgent cells swap tactics on Web sites, and when American forces catch on, the terrorists move to newer tactics...

The ever-shifting conflict is forcing bomb squads to develop new, more improvisational tactics. On the red clay ranges of the military's EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] school in Niceville, Florida, Marine gunnery sergeant Eric Slachter teaches the next generation of bomb-disposal troops. His syllabus: There is no syllabus. "The basic classes here, they're all about following procedure. This is an advanced course - you think on your feet. You've got a brain, some experience. Now use it," he says. "We'll take it from the headlines, what killed a GI. We'll make that device. And we'll learn to defeat it."

Not too long ago, IEDs were treated as almost an afterthought during explosives training. They were the pipe bombs that 16 year-olds left in school libraries -- kid's stuff, really. Real men handled roomfuls of grenades, or thousand-pound building-killers.

Some of the feaux-buildings at Eglin reflect that history. There's a mock library there, in fact, with books and everything. But that's a relic of the past, not a pointer to the future. Which is why it's particularly silly for the press to focus in on it.

(Full disclosure: NPR's Phillip Davis interviewed me for his story on the IED school. I tried to tell him all this. But I didn't make it into his piece. Some might say, then, that this post is sour grapes. But really, I'm just sour about the point of the story being missed.)

Rapid Fire 12/17/05

* Space spiders spin sats?

* Darpa AI chief joins Yahoo! (background here)

* Tomcat's last call

* Secrecy vs. biodefense

* Guided weapons: a history

* One Excel spreadsheet, 800+ satellites

* Pricing out the Navy's super-carrier

(Big ups: JQP)

Wiretaps' Fishy Rationale

It's no surprise that the President defended the NSA's domestic eavesdropping this morning; the guy backs every decision he makes, to the death. And it's no surprise to learn that the President had "reauthorized the program more than 30 times since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and plans to continue doing so," according to the AP.

But what's odd is why the Administration felt they needed to avoid geting warrants for the wiretaps, in the first place. As Josh notes:

[T]he prime rationale for this program appears to have been to avoid the time and bureaucratic hurdles involved in getting warrants.

In the abstract, there sounds like there might be some merit in that argument, especially considering the importance of speed in counter-terrorism work.

The problem is that the FISA Court -- the secret court set up to handle just such warrant requests -- is designed for speed. And it is known for being extremely indulgent of government applications for warrants...

It turns out that FISA specifically empowers the Attorney General or his designee to start wiretapping on an emergency basis even without a warrant so long as a retroactive application is made for one "as soon as practicable, but not more than 72 hours after the Attorney General authorizes such surveillance." (see specific citation, here)...

All of this, of course, is separate from the issue of the president overruling a federal statute by executive order -- something that by definition a president cannot do. But something seems fishy about the rationale itself.

But that's not the only fishy thing here. In his radio address today, the President said:

The existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk.

Which implies that, somehow, suspected jihadists might not have known before that the government could be eavesdropping on them. Realistically, what are the chances of that?

UPDATE 2:05 PM EST: Also, if the Administration thinks it basically has the power to do whatever it damn pleases -- detain Americans indefinitely, torture terror suspects, eavesdrop without a warrant -- then why bother pushing for the Patriot Act? What do you need new laws for, if you're already allowed to use every trick in the book?

UPDATE 12/18/05 AM: Ryan says the same thing, but better. And be sure to check out this WaPo page one analysis:

In his four-year campaign against al Qaeda, President Bush has turned the U.S. national security apparatus inward to secretly collect information on American citizens on a scale unmatched since the intelligence reforms of the 1970s.

UPDATE 12/18/05 PM: Be sure to check out Glenn Greenwald on whether or not these warantless wiretaps were legal or not. (Hint: no.)

We’re not talking here about an unconvincing or erroneous legal argument. This is something different entirely – it is an argument based upon a fundamental misquoting of the law in question designed to make illegal behavior look legal.

(Big ups: Jeralyn)

The Muftis of Kurdistan

Here's the second of David Axe's dispatches from the electioneering in northern Iraq.

Kurds have become relentless self-promoters, pitching for aid and recognition with characteristic unity. But two brothers, Adnan and Kanan Mufti, play the public relations game a whole lot better than most.

Kanan Mufti is the Kurdistan Director of Archeology and a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. He's also an unofficial ambassador of Kurdistan. He receives journalists, academics and foreign dignitaries in his well-appointed two-story home in Erbil. Listen to what he told me on Dec. 14: “The Kurdish people is the only people in the Middle East with respect for other nations. We used to cohabitate in a brotherly fashion with Jews. Now we have the district of Ankawa populated by Christians. Kurds have been oppressed, but they oppress no one.

You might wonder where this is going. After a drag on his cigarette and a sip of chai, he asked off-handedly why Kurdistan, with such a great human rights record, couldn't have independence.

Because it would tear Iraq apart and invite a Turkish invasion, is why. But Kanan's not the only person wondering. Kurds everywhere dream of independence, consequences be damned.

Kanan's brother Adnan is a big wig in the rival Kurdish political party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. He's currently speaker of the regional assembly.

Adnan Mufti isn't as blunt as Kanan. Taking a break from a press conference with local journalists on election day, he tells me that the elections are important because they will mean a new government and new laws that will reinvigorate the U.S.-Iraqi partnership. “To struggle together against terrorists and terrorism and to have a new Iraq federation respecting human rights … that’s why our people suffered, to have this one day.”

In my experience, “human rights” is Kurdish code for “Kurdish rights”. Adnan Mufti is too clever not to couch his regional patriotism -- and his desire for more U.S. involvement in Kurdistan -- in federal Iraqi terms.

Mufti, by the way, means "powerful". You can bet that the opinions expressed by Kanan and Adnan shape those of millions of Iraqi Kurds.

-- David Axe

Election Day in Erbil

Defense Tech superstar correspondent David Axe made it to Iraqi Kurdistan, just in time for the elections. Here's the first of his reports for the site. (The pics are his, too, sent by satphone.)

There's a party in northern Iraq, and everyone's invited.

While the insurgency in north-central Iraq enters its third year, the Marines root out foreign fighters in the western desert and southern Iraq becomes increasingly aligned to Islamist Iran, northern Iraq is peaceful, secure and relatively prosperous, thanks to an uneasy alliance of two rival Kurdish political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

The Iraqi Kurds had been fighting for independence since Iraq's inception in the wake of WWI. In the wake of Desert Storm, with Saddam Hussein's army in ruins, the Kurds went on a massive offensive and carved out an autonomous province with two capitals: Erbil the west under the KDP and Sulaymaniyah in the east under the PUK. From 1994 to 1997 the two parties fought each other until M. Albright intervened. When U.S.-led forces invaded in 2003 the Kurds increased their hold and cemented their truce, fielding a single slate of candidates in both the Jan. elections for an interim assembly and today's election for the first permanent assembly. During these years of peace between the parties, the Kurds have built a regional elected assembly, highways, industry, an army, police, a judiciary and airports. They've welcomed back former expatriates, including sizeable minorities of Jews and Christians. Kurdistan has grown and prospered and diversified.

But cracks are showing. More Kurds and demanding that their control extend south to oil-rich Kirkuk, which would alienate the Arabs that form 60 percent of the central government. Others want formal independence, which would piss off pretty much everybody, especially Turkey which has its own Kurd problem. And while the KDP and PUK have stayed tight, they have a new Kurdish rival now, the radical Islamic League of Kurdistan. While most Kurds are Muslims, few are radical, and the ILK threatens to upset the moderate progressive atmosphere. Recent weeks have seen riots at ILK headquarters. Everyone is blaming everyone else.

Today's elections were typical of the votes in Jan. (interim assembly) and October (referendum). With my interpreter and driver we toured three polling places, chatted with workers and voters and cops and found everything in order. It appears the KDP-PUK coalition will sweep. Tonight, with polls closed, Kurds are dancing and singing in the streets. So the peace holds ... for now.

I'll be in Erbil for two weeks, exploring local politics and getting a feel for how Kurds are balancing their growing aspirations against the concerns of their neighbors and countrymen. Stay tuned.

-- David Axe

UPDATE 11:39 EST: Word has it there's been voter fraud in Kurdistan. Big deal.

It's Friday evening in Erbil. Election Day euphoria is fading. Walking the market with my C-SPAN co-cameraman David Burch, we find an internet café with blinking fluorescent lights and a chugging generator powering some ancient hardware. Everyone's smoking cigarettes at their stations.

"How much?" I ask in bad Kurdish. The proprieter shrugs. We settle on a dollar per hour.

I log on and see that NPR is reporting voter fraud here in cheery Kurdistan.

I'm not surprised. Earlier David and I hailed a cab ("How much?" I asked in back Kurdish. The driver shrugged.) and dropped in on our Norwegian buddy Per Thorsdalem at the high-security Sheraton hotel -- with working toilets!

Per is a businessman. He's here as an advance party for some Norwegian firm. He figured, hey, I'm in Erbil. Why not be an international elections observer?

He told me this morning that he witnessed two types of fraud: family voting, where fathers dictate their childrens' votes; and multiple voting. The former is an inevitable artifact of a patriarchal society. The latter is no surprise in the Middle East, and easy to perpetrate, what with the red-dye-and-finger method of preventing it.

But neither Per nor I is as scandalized as NPR apparently is. The elections here went off without a hitch. No bombs. No violence at all. Quiet. As orderly as things get in Iraq. And, man, were the Kurds ever thrilled to vote. Per told me that in one rural village outside Erbil, info on registration procedures never got out, and hundreds of villagers were turned away from the poll. They were devastated. Democracy is life to these people -- or, as one Kurdish Christian named Jacob told me: "Democracy is the best religion for mankind." He meant that, and most Kurds agree with him.

There will always be fraud and corruption in Iraq. (In one desperate moment, a cabbie here charged me 1000 times the normal rate for a short trip!) Nevertheless, these elections have been a resounding success.

-- David Axe

Early Roll-out for Battlefield Net?

The Pentagon's next-gen radio program may be in rotten shape. But there's some good news in battlefield comms: the new wireless network for frontline soldiers may be deployed earlier than expected, says Defense News. Parts of it, anyway.

The Army envisions Warfighter Information Network — Tactical (WIN-T) as a communication system that will help troops on the battlefield plug into the Pentagon’s information networks through satellite, airborne and terrestrial links, even while they are on the move.

[WIN-T will be able to hop between a whole heap of cellular and satellite connections, contractor General Dynamics promises. Admins can design networks on the fly, based on what the terrain is like, which signals are available, and who's using the most bandwidth. --ed.]

The initial plan for WIN-T saw delivery [of network ground stations] beginning in 2009, but operations in Iraq and Afghanistan led the Army to ask the team to look at speeding that up, said Bill Weiss, vice president for tactical networks at General Dynamics C4 Systems.

The testing convinced General Dynamics that WIN-T can “provide immediate benefit to soldiers” and be ready as early as 2007, Weiss said. November testing [of the system] included live communications and simulated traffic fed into the system, according to a Dec. 1 Army news release.

Make Noise, DC

I'll be in and around the District from Thursday to Monday. So if you work on the Hill or in that five-sided building or some place like that, and want to link up, drop me a line at defense-AT-defensetech-DOT-org. There's some talk of drinks Thurdsay night, too. Details to follow.

Jailhouse Tech in the Spotlight

Guys in jail can be pretty crafty, pretty creative. Get someone who's done real time talking, and, sooner or later, you'll hear stories about makeshift water heaters or MacGyvered-up toasters.

A couple of years ago, I was sent a book by "Angelo," a guy in jail who wrote a book detailing all the jury-rigged contraptions he found behind bars. Here's some of what I wrote about Prisoners Inventions in Wired News:

[The book] shows how inmates fashion dice from sugar water and toilet paper, dry bologna jerky on jail-house light fixtures, [and] turn hot sauce bottles into shower heads...

"This gives a glimpse into the everyday lives of the outrageous number of people we have in our prison system," said [Chicago-based art group] Temporary Services' Marc Fischer, who first started trading letters with Angelo in 1991. "And it's a celebration of the creativity that comes in response to their restrictive environment."

In the movies, "prisoners only create things to escape, get high or kill each other," Fischer notes.

Angelo's objects show a more banal, more human side of locked-down life: one where soda cans filled with rocks become crude alarm clocks and inmates cool their drinks in toilet bowls.

For a while, now, Temporary Services has been building the tools based on Angelo's diagrams, and showing 'em off in art galleries.

This month, they're back in Chicago, at the I-Space.

Then, in the Spring, the Prisoners' Inventions head to San Francisco's Yerba Buena Arts Center. The show has 13 new drawings from Angelo.

Two of 'em I've linked here: one for a chess set made of soap (above, right), the other (left) for a little jury-rigged, jailhouse companion.

P.R. Push for "Future" Army

Last year, when Pentagon chiefs threatened to cut funds for the F-22 Raptor, the Air Force unleashed a massive PR campaign for the jet -- even flying the thing over the Super Bowl.

This year, it's the Army's Future Combat Systems modernization effort that could be on the chopping block. And, according to Inside Defense, "FCS supporters are taking it to the streets to make sure its program is defended... across the country, plying the time-honored trade of ensuring as many congressman in as many districts as possible are on board."

FCS contractors haven't made any playoff plans, yet. But they are holding a dozen conferences around the country to talk up the guargantuan, multi-faceted project.

The size of the program gives backers the opportunity to tap a large number of lawmakers for support: The FCS industry base spans 159 congressional districts over 35 states, with 363 companies on board, according to materials released by the program’s industry team.

And, apparently, those contractors are using some rather odd arguments to support the program. FCS centers, in large part, around replacing the Army's current fleet of tanks and fighting vehicles with lighter, quicker, better-networked substitutes. Which is all well and good, for fighting Iran or North Korea. Hurricane relief? That's a bit more questionable, at least to me. But not to FCS' industry team, which "has been advertising how well FCS could work in a 'Katrina-like' event," Catherine MacRae Hockmuth reports for Inside Defense.

Raptor on the attack

Supersonic Raptor Drops First Guided Bomb on Military.com:

Since July, Raptor program have flown seven JDAM supersonic separation test missions under a variety of conditions. The aim is to prove the JDAM can safely separate from the aircraft.

But none of the previous tests used a JDAM guidance system.

"This was the first Raptor supersonic guided JDAM. The first one to guide to a target," said Maj. John Teichert, the 411th Flight Test Squadron's test pilot for the mission.

This release marks a dramatic increase in the stealth jet’s air-to-ground capability by clearing the first phase of the JDAM supersonic envelope, he said.

"The supersonic envelope allows the Raptor to release precision air-to-ground weapons at long stand-off ranges while performing its global strike mission," Major Teichert said.

The supersonic JDAM capability allows the Raptor to deliver the weapon from a much greater distance than any other aircraft.

As long as it was intentional. Given the fact that the USAF just decided to remove the 'A' designator from the Raptor, Murdoc's wondering if the bomb just fell off in mid-flight once the decision that the Raptor was no longer an 'attack' plane had been made.

Seriously, though, this is a good thing. While the Raptor is primarily an air superiority/dominance fighter, taking down radar installations and missile sites is a critical part of air dominance strategy and this fits in with the "kick in the doors" mentality that many use with respect to the Raptor. Just remember "Fighter...The Raptor is a fighter."

The Raptor will begin testing the 250-pound Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) JDAM next year.

--cross-posted by Murdoc

Rapid Fire 12/13/05

* Big-time cuts for Osprey (background here)

* Inside the Humvee graveyard

* "Planespotters" vs. CIA

* Laser jet gets testy (background here)

* Snipers, soldiers square off in Iraq

* China hacking US?

(Big ups: Boing Boing, Early Brief, Officers' Club)

Robo-Tanker Ready?

We've all read about unmanned spy planes and remotely-piloted bombers. Now, "two U.S. Air Force test pilot school students have designed an autonomous aerial refueling scheme for an unmanned tanker," Aviation Week reports.

Using two manned planes as surogates, the students linked together the "bank-angle and roll-rate measurements and the relative positions" of the two aircraft.

These inputs manipulated the control surfaces and throttles, automatically allowing the aircraft to hold a series of positions and transitions while flying a standard racetrack course, even when the tanker was in a 30-deg. bank. By the final flights, pilots kept their hands off the controls for nearly 2 hr. In straight-and-level flight, the controller held the receiver within 1.3 ft. of the desired refueling position.

Unmanned planes can already stay in the air for a whole lot longer than aircraft with a pilot in the cockpit. The only endurance limit has been how much fuel the drone can carry. If the student-designed scheme can be made to work consistently, that final barrier could be gone.

Raptor: Just a Plain Ol' Fighter, Again

Defense News is reporting that the Air Force is planning to drop the "A" from the F/A-22 Raptor:

Three years after the U.S. Air Force added an “A” to highlight the F/A-22 Raptor’s ability to drop bombs, the service is dropping the extra letter from the stealthy jet’s designator.

The plane, which is expected to officially enter service in the coming weeks, will henceforth be called the F-22A — with the trailing letter indicating a first variant, not an extra role.

So it's losing an 'A' but gaining, er, another 'A'. Anyway.

In September 2002, Gen. John Jumper, then-Air Force chief of staff, added the “A” to emphasize the aircraft’s ground-attack capabilities. The switch came as the airplane was being assailed by critics inside and outside the Pentagon as too expensive for the post-Sept. 11 world.

“This isn’t your father’s F-22,” then-Air Force Secretary Jim Roche said in a 2002 interview.

Since then, several Air Force officials have called the aircraft even more flexible and capable than the F/A designator indicated. Classified capabilities, unknown to the American public and U.S. lawmakers alike, mean that the plane might as well have been called the FB-22 bomber, F/E-22 surveillance plane, F/EA-22 electronic attack aircraft, or even an RC-22 signals-intelligence platform, they said.

I noted a couple of weeks ago that so many additional roles were being shoehorned onto the Raptor that it was becoming the F/A/R/C/E-22. Not because it's a poor-performing plane (it isn't) or because these additional capabilities are useless (they aren't), but because so many non-fighter capabilities were being hyped so loudly on this very expensive project that it was beginning to look more than a little silly.

If a 150-million-plus dollar fifth-generation air superiority fighter cannot justify itself based solely upon its ability to defeat enemy aircraft when all the chips are down, no add-on capability to destroy IEDs along convoy routes is going to help sell anyone on it. And make no mistake. The Raptor is a 'when all the chips are down' aircraft. Between the limited numbers the Air Force will be getting and the significant expense of each plane, expect them to attend only the most important parties.

As noted at the time, adding more capability to an already-impressive fighter is great. For instance, IEDs are the biggest problem our troops face right now, and if there's anything anyone can do to help, let's get them on it ASAP. But don't tell us the Raptor can not only fight other planes but it can also drop bombs and expect us to suddenly stop caring about the price tag or questioning the program's place in today's military.

Adding the 'A' for 'attack' was pretty silly to begin with. The simple capability to carry and use ground-attack munitions isn't enough to qualify, otherwise virtually every combat plane in the inventory would be wearing an 'A'. It's all about the role that the plane is going play. And, despite the capability to use GPS-guided JDAMs, does anyone seriously believe that our limited number of very expensive F-22s are going to be playing a significant role in the ground attack and close air support roles? They'll only do so if F-16s, F-15Es, and the A-10 'Warthogs' are unavailable.

So while this is a welcome move by the Air Force, it probably shouldn't impact our expectations of the Raptor one way or the other. Before it was an 'F/A', it wasn't going to do a whole lot of ground attack. When it became an 'F/A', it still wasn't. So this change back to good old 'F' hasn't really done much to alter things.

But did you notice how the switch back from 'F/A' didn't happen until the first squadron of Raptors, nearly finished with a rather impressive string of exercises and demonstrations, is just about to become fully active?

And it occurs to me that the presence of an 'F/A' Raptor might hurt the case to justify a true fighter-bomber version of the Raptor, the FB-22. Lockheed continues to push for such a beast, but some may wonder if we need a Raptor fighter-bomber when we already have a Raptor fighter-attack plane.

Voila! We don't have a Raptor fighter attack plane anymore, do we? (Or am I just being cynical?)

--cross-posted by Murdoc

Big Bucks for Giant Blimp

I can't figure it out, honestly, what's behind this blimp fetish of mine. Maybe it's because I dig retro visions of the techno-future -- from pneumatic subways to mobile homes on the Moon; blimps somehow feed into that. Maybe it's the idea of being lighter than air that grabs me.

Either way, I'm not alone. There are a bunch of other people in the Defense Department who share my obsession. And they are handing out hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a new fleet of military airships.

The latest, Defense Industry Daily tells us: a $149 million contract to Lockheed, to build a massive High Altitude Airship that will look out for ballistic missile launches.

The blimp will hover above the jet stream at an altitude of 65,000 feet for months at a time and will also have the ability to detect low-flying missiles that may have slipped underneath ground-based radars. Once operational, it will be an important early-detection element of the broader U.S. missile defense architecture. It may also add as a weather surveyor and telecom relay.

There are a number of challenges associated with an effort of this nature.

Solar cells and an advanced fuel cells that can deliver up to 500 kW must be developed to power the craft. An aerodynamic design and a control system must be developed to help keep the airship steady amid the high winds at that altitude, without consuming excessive power. Another important factor is determining how the airship would react to changing temperatures as the sun rises and sets every day, heating and cooling the helium. Then there's the major challenge of finding materials for the airship's skin that are capable of withstanding the extreme ultraviolet radiation at such high altitudes for extended periods without becoming brittle.

But this HAA is actually a little less ambitious than earlier designs. Before, the airship was supposed to be King Kong big, at 25 times the size of the Goodyear Blimp. Now, it's merely huge, at two-and-a-half Goodyears in length. Plans to power the airship with lasers seem to have also fallen by the wayside, for now.

If everything goes well, a prototype HAA should be ready to fly in 2010. I can't wait.

UPDATE 5:23PM: Via the Wonk, here's a presentation on "Advanced Concepts in Missile Defense." The HAA is in there, as well as a program for one interceptor with "multiple kill vehicles."

Pentagon Budget: Read This Blog

News and rumors about the Pentagon's budget plans are pouring out of the Defense Department at a mile a minute. So our buddies over at Inside Defense have launched a Budget Blog, so folks can stay on top of the action. And, unlike the rest of Inside Defense, the blog is free. Check it out.

Rapid Fire 12/12/05

* Iraq insurgency's "secret sauce"

* Fingerprint scanners vs. Play-Doh

* UK Army's online officer test

* Stronger, lighter body armor, maybe

* Radio telescope = military tool?

* American spyball (background here)

* Aircraft carrier dives

(Big ups: RC, JQP)

Name This Thing

"I have seen just a few of these around the West BIAP [Baghdad International Airport] area recently," writes DW, who's working in Baghdad. "What can you tell us about 'em?"

I've seen the vehicles, too. And I read about the things online. But, right now, I'm completely blanking on what I've seen and read.

Anyone wanna chip in here?

UPDATE 9:57 AM: That didn't take long. In the comments, LauraN makes a positive ID on our mystery vehicle. The APC-1 (or, if you prefer, "The Rock") from Granite Global Services is a Ford F 550 pickup, modified for war zones. Check out its specs and pics.

Gunshot Detector and Other "Ideas"

The New York Times Magazine's "Year in Ideas" issue is out today. And I wrote up three of the ideas inside:

* "The Crawl" Makes You Stupid

* Microblindness

* Sonic Gunman Locator, The

Unfortunately, the online versions of these articles all cut off the last paragraphs of what are already short stories. The stories have been fixed. So I'll paste the full text of the "Sonic Gunman Locator" below. (And yeah, I know the thing came out in 2004. But the Times didn't feel like quibbling over details.) Let me know if you guys want to see the full texts of the other ones.

The bombs get all the headlines, but gunfire is also a constant threat to American troops in Iraq. Between the shattered buildings, the rubble piles, the swirling dust storms and the roaring Humvees, shooters can be very hard to find. The Pentagon's response: start equipping Humvees with technology that can automatically pinpoint where the shots are coming from.

One system, known as Boomerang, uses a bundle of seven microphones, each facing a different direction, mounted on top of an 18-inch pole. (Imagine a giant bouquet, with all the flower petals gone.) When a bullet flies by, creating a shock wave, each microphone picks up the sound at a slightly different time. Those tiny differences allow the system to calculate where the shooter is. (Boomerang also listens for the blast from the gun's muzzle, which reaches the system just after the bullet's faster-than-sound flight.) Inside the Humvee, a recorded voice buzzes through a dashboard speaker, announcing the shooter's position - "Shot 10 o'clock! Shot 10 o'clock!" - and an analog clocklike display indicates the direction. Other information, like the shooter's G.P.S. coordinates, range and elevation, are also provided. "We're now accurate way beyond 500 meters," says Dave Schmitt, Boomerang's program manager at BBN Technologies in Cambridge, Mass.

The Army has 25 Boomerangs in Iraq right now, and the Marines are readying an equal number for their next rotation of troops. Schmitt sees a domestic market for the devices, as well. Already, Chicago is coupling gunshot detectors to security cameras, which are hung in some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods. The idea is that when shots are heard, the camera will automatically turn in the direction of the gunfire -- giving police and ambulance dispatchers a glimpse of the scene before cops or EMTs are sent out. G.I.s won’t get that kind of advance warning, of course. But they’ll settle for a little information, just after the fact.

Air Force, Cyberspace Defenders

Ever since the Air Force broke off from the Army in 1947, the flyboys have prided themselves on being the military's resident techies -- the dudes with the newest gadgets and the coolest toys. That gear-head role has become increasingly important, lately, now that so few other countries can lift a finger to stop American dominance of the skies. That's sent the Air Force hunting for new missions; look at the airmen's recent attempt to become the Defense Department's gatekeepers for unmanned aerial vehicles, for example.

Now, the Air Force has assigned itself another hi-tech job, according to its new mission statement:

The mission of the United States Air Force is to deliver sovereign options for the defense of the United States of America and its global interests -- to fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace...

As Airmen, it is our calling to dominate Air, Space, and Cyberspace. If we can decisively and consistently control these commons, then we will deter countless conflicts. If our enemies underestimate our resolve; then we will fly, fight, and destroy them.

"We have quite a few of our Airmen dedicated to cyberspace ... from security awareness, making sure the networks can't be penetrated, as well as figuring out countermeasures," Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne told Air Force Print News. "The Air Force is a natural leader in the cyber world and we thought it would be best to recognize that talent."

"The pioneers of airpower...knew what their mission was: to fly and fight wherever our Nation calls," Wynne added in a letter to airmen. "The Air Force's mission statement has evolved over time, but it does not change the nature of who we are or what we do... Keep up the great work!"

(Big ups: AS, DS)

Killer Drone's Big Brother

If you stop by this site regularly, you probably know about Boeing's efforts to develop an killer drone for the Air Force.

You might have read about how a prototype "unmanned combat aerial vehicle," or UCAV, has already gone on trial bombing runs. Or how a pair of the drones came up with attack plans of their own -- and executed them on a mock air-defense battery. It was one of more than 60 test flights for the UCAV.

But that was just the first model, the 8,000-pound X-45A. The other day, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports, Boeing showed off its next edition, which, at 18,000 pounds, is more than twice as big: the X-45C.

It will be powered by an F404-GE-102D engine, the same kind used on Boeing's two-engine F-18.

The X-45C will be able to fly at 40,000 feet and at Mach .85. It will carry two 2,000-pound precision-guided bombs or up to eight small-diameter bombs. Its operational combat radius will be 1,100 to 1,300 nautical miles.

That's far more range than manned fighters have without being refueled.

Drones have been armed for a while, now. Look at what the Predator has done. But those planes are remote-controlled, completely. The UCAV is supposed to fly itself, make decisions for itself, the Seattle Times notes.

The aircraft's sensors identify and approach targets autonomously. The remote pilot gives consent to strike with a mouse click.

"Yet there are serious questions as to the long-term funding of the next-generation X-45-type unmanned aircraft," the Times adds.

Richard Aboulafia, industry analyst with the Teal Group, called the program "the worst-funded good idea in decades" and said it's unclear if the budget to produce combat versions will be there.

THERE'S MORE: If the X-45's $1.2 billion price tag seems a little out of your reach, maybe this little remote-controlled spy plane will be more your speed. It takes 26 pictures from up to 1,000 feet. And it's selling at Wal-Mart for $148.32.

(Big ups: CP)

Rapid Fire 12/08/05

* "Able Danger," ably explained

* Russia keeps cranking out RPGs

* Army: FCS, please

* India's next-gen fighter

* Square-wheeled bots

* Super-duper spy cams

* Truckers vs. terror

* Gilmore's day in court

(Big ups: RC, JO, AK)

Axe Heads Back to Iraq

Superstar Defense Tech contributor David Axe has been to Iraq four times already, reporting for the Village Voice, C-Span, and others.

Now, he's headed back to the big sandbox for his longest trip yet -- three months, to hang with soldiers, seabees, and marines stationed all across the country. If all goes well, he'll be filing exclusive dispatches for Defense Tech along the way.

Good luck, David. Keep your head down. And make sure that helmet stays on straight.

Grow Your Own Limbs?

We've all seen the pictures, at least: soldiers and marines coming home with legs and arms gone. It's a long shot, but maybe this could help: "A newly created form of protein known as 'elastin' may one day be used to build replacement body parts," according to National Defense magazine.

"This technology would allow surgeons to 'build a person from the molecular level,' says Kenton Gregory, chief cardiologist at the Oregon Medical Laser Center, in Portland, Ore. [He's the guy who founded HemCon Inc., which makes a controversial bandage for the Army designed to stop bleeding in a hurry. -- ed.]

The U.S. Army Combat Casualty Care program so far has funded $20 million worth of research work at the medical laser center...

Elastin is being studied as a possible means to “put injured soldiers back together,” Gregory explains. After nearly a decade worth of research, his lab has found the human gene for elastin, he says. Elastin is a durable, stable protein that makes up human tissue. The thinking is that the body won’t reject replacement parts that have the patient’s own DNA.

“Based on natural protein, we developed a whole series of tissue-repair parts for the stomach, esophagus, skin, arteries,” Gregory says. “We are developing cell therapy program to help regenerate tissue.”

Parachutes vs. RPGs

All kinds of inventors and gagdeteers have come up with all kinds of ways to try to stop rocket-propelled grenades before they slam into a Humvee. The U.S. Army wants to blast the thing with a foot-long mini-rocket. The Brits think they can do with with a massive electrical charge. And a company called Aoptix Technologies wants to "apply... high energy light based weapons" to stop the things.

Reader NB has dug up a patent for a different type of RPG-stopper: one that uses a parachute.

When an incoming munition such as an RPG is detected by the tracking apparatus 12, the firing solution computer 14 determines the time of launch and the particular launch tube 16 and sends a firing signal to the igniter 24 of the appropriate launch tube 16. The igniter 24 initiates the propelling charge 22. As the propelling charge 22 burns, expanding gases 40 (FIG. 2B) that are sealed behind the obturator 26 push the mass 20 up the tube 16. The mass 20 continually accelerates in the direction of the arrow V until the obturator 26 exits the end of the tube 16. Soon after the mass 20 exits the tube 16, the cable 32 will be pulled taut. As the force acting on the cable 32 increases, the parachute 30 will be pulled from its storage container 18.

Simultaneously, the resultant force acting on the connecting ring 28 will cause the mass 20 to rapidly rotate as shown by the arrow w in FIG. 2D until the connecting ring 28 is facing rearward. As the mass 20 continues to fly forward, the parachute lines 34 and canopy 36 will be pulled from the storage container 18. Within a short period of time the parachute 30 will be fully inflated and flying directly towards the incoming RPG 38. The parachute 30 will remain inflated for a long time relative to the incoming projectile's 38 remaining flight time to impact, thereby alleviating the need for precise timing and fuzing systems. There are several mechanisms by which the collision between the parachute 30 and RPG 38 will render the RPG 38 less effective.

A significant amount of the momentum of the parachute 30 and mass 20 (which is similar to the momentum of the incoming RPG 38) will be transferred to the RPG 38, thereby slowing it and possibly causing it to miss the intended target. Secondly, the collision will cause damage to the RPG 38 such as breaking fins or crushing the nose cone. Damage to the fins and disturbance upon impact will cause the RPG angle of attack to grow, thereby greatly reducing its terminal effectiveness. Crushing the nose cone can short the RPG fuzing system, rendering the warhead inoperable. The collision between the parachute 30 and RPG 38 will take place well away from the protected vehicle 10. If the collision causes the warhead to detonate prematurely it is much less likely to hit or damage the protected vehicle 10.

Rapid Fire 12/07/05

* How the Japanese pulled off Pearl Harbor

* JSF: Brits out?

* Fishy pirate-hunters reeled in

* Russia's next spaceship

* Slick new firefighter duds

* U.S. sats 413, everyone else 382

* High-tech cargo ship sunk

(Big ups: JQP)

Insurgents Using Chem Weapons - On Themselves?

This has to be the most bizarre twist in the WMD saga yet. Insurgents in Iraq could very well have chemical weapons. And they may be using them - on themselves.

The story starts over a year ago with a Marine blogger in Iraq. On June 2nd 2004 "The Green Side" - we’ll get back to the signficance of this source later - describes suicidal attacks by insurgents in Fallujah: “We could not understand why they kept coming but they did.” The reason, it turned out, was drugs: “…these ‘holy warriors’ are taking drugs to get high before attacks. It true, as we pushed into the town in April many Marines came across drug paraphernalia (mostly heroin). Recently, we have gotten evidence of them using another drug BZ that makes them high and very aggressive.”

BZ is not your typical substance of abuse. It’s a hallucinogenic chemical weapon. This weird concept originated in the 1950’s when “better living through chemistry” was a slogan to live by and warfare without blood was the goal. As the Washington Star noted in 1965:

New chemical weapons that win by creating confusion rather than death and destruction have proved so successful that they have been quietly added to the Army's arsenal. The latest and best, a gas called BZ by the Army, put a number of soldier guinea pigs out of action during field tests at a Utah Army base last November, and did it without harming a man.”

BZ or "Agent Buzz" is the military name for 3-quinuclidinyl benzillate, an extremely powerful hallucinogen. After experimenting with a whole stash of mind-altering substances including cocaine, heroin and LSD, the Pentagon selected BZ for weaponizing. Its major advantages are that it can easily delivered in an aerosol cloud, and it is very safe. With many substances, the effective dose can be dangerously close to the amount needed to kill - ask any anesthetist. With BZ, the tiny effective dose (maybe two milligrams) is around one-thousandth the lethal dose. It is also odorless and invisible, and there is currently no means of detecting it.

Agent Buzz was tested between 1959 to 1975 on some twenty-eight hundred US soldiers at several locations. It proved extremely effective as an incapacitant. The physical effects are increased heart rates, pupil dilation, blurred vision, dry skin and mouth, increased temperature, and flushing of skin – as a med school mnemonic has it “blind as a bat, dry as a bone, hot as Hades, red as a beet.”

But the psychological effects are more important than the physical ones, as the subject is also rendered “mad as a hatter.”

It also produces uncontrollable aggression, Wouter Basson, the man behind South Africa’s chemical and biological warfare program, notes. His version of BZ, in fact, was modified with CB (Carboxy-Methoxy-Benzoxytropane) specifically to reduce this effect.

The Serb army manual on their BZ munitions implies a violent reaction: “it can be expected that such individuals or groups will subsequently, under the effects of [this chemical agent], inflict great damage and losses on their own forces.”

Over a hundred thousand pounds of BZ were produced by the US. However, it fell out of favor because its effects were considered to be too unpredictable. Destruction of the BZ stockpile commenced in 1988 and was reportedly completed in Pine Bluff in 1990.

Could any be in Iraq? In 1995, the British reported that Iraq had produced Agent 15, similar or identical to BZ, and possessed ‘large stocks’ of it. A later CIA report discounts this and concludes that "Iraq never went beyond research with Agent 15—a hallucinogenic chemical similar to BZ—or any other psychochemical.” The British do not agree and as of the last updated in 2004, the MoD maintains its claim. This would appear to be the most likely source of any insurgent supplies.

I did not initially take the report from The Green Side too seriously. Posted in the form of letters home from a Marine to his Dad, it looked like just keeping in touch with the folks at home and recording a piece of personal history, not an intel report. But the blog turns out to be the work of Lt Col Dave Bellon (right), not just another Marine but intelligence officer for the First Regimental Combat Team. The blog can no longer be easily accessed as it has now disappeared behind a USMC security screen.

Given Lt Col Bellon’s access to inside information, his rather specific claim about BZ becomes more serious. Other US sources do not mention BZ by name but do describe drug use by insurgents.

The account of the November 2004's "Fall of Fallujah" by Bing West in the Marine Corps Gazette mentions “crazies” rushing out in suicidal attacks as well as others “sustained by drugs.”

Elsewhere, Dan Senor, a Senior Advisor from the CPA stated: “Our delegation has been told by Fallujan leaders that many of the individuals involved with the violence are on some - are on various drugs. It is part of what they're using to keep them up to engage in this violence at all hours

Other drugs were clearly involved as well, and Lt Col Bellon’s information about BZ may simply be wrong. But it’s quite possible than coalition troops are facing a number of aggressive, paranoid insurgents, unable to tell friend from foe and unable to realize that there was anything wrong with them, beyond control and hallucinating their worst fears.

Could the guerillas be taking BZ -- sometimes called “the ultimate bad trip” – willingly? This seems unlikely: blurred vision, paranoia and hallucinations are not assets in a firefight. But the British Navy traditionally issued a half-pint ration of rum before action and there were always plenty of takers. In Iraq, cynical leaders might dole out BZ to unwitting cannon-fodder. A homicidally aggressive fighter, even an impaired one, is more useful than one who won’t fight against insane odds. This may remind some people of the fabled assassin cult, but don’t believe everything you read in Dan Brown.

Back during the first Gulf War, some in the tinfoil-hat crowd tried to argue that the US used BZ on Iraqis. Wouter Basson even claims to have found traces of BZ in the urine of supposed victims. As with the other alleged BZ attacks mentioned above there is no independent confirmation of this. And reading the incredible story of Basson’s involvement in the whole area of chemical and biological weapons – mind-boggling only begins to describe it – you can assess his credibility yourself. Anyone making such claims will need solid evidence.

But just in case: if anyone offers you any performance-enhancing substances with the words “Dude, this is weapons grade…” – just say no.

(Speaking of Weapons Grade, my publishers would like me to mention my book of the same title which provides an insight into military high-tech from directed-energy weapons to nanotechnology and how it will change both warfare and civilian life.)

-- David Hambling

Autonomous Nanosatellite Guardian for Evaluating Local Space (ANGELS)

Jeremy Singer at Space News reports (Yahoo! has the full text) that the Air Force Research Laboratory is “planning a small experimental satellite that would orbit in close proximity to a host spacecraft and keep tabs on their surrounding space environment” in geostationary orbit:

The Angels satellite will be launched into a geostationary orbit for an experiment that is expected to last about a year, according to the request for information. The Air Force hopes to extend the mission for another two years, according to the request for information.

Geostationary orbit is a belt of space some 36,000 kilometers above the equator that hosts most communications satellites. The Air Force chose that orbit because its distance from Earth’s surface makes it less visible and more difficult to monitor than lower orbits, [Tom] Caudill [the space surveillance technical area lead at the laboratory] said.

The Angels spacecraft would launch along with a yet-to-be-determined host satellite that it would shadow in orbit, Caudill said. The launch likely will be arranged by the Defense Department’s Space Test Program, he said.

Jeremy noticed the program when the Air Force Research Laboratory released this solicitatiton for the Autonomous Nanosatellite Guardian for Evaluating Local Space or ANGELS.

I am not sure how ANGELS relates to a similar DARPA program, Spectator, that Lt Col Jim Shoemaker (USAF), Program Manager, Tactical Technology Office, DARPA Space Activities, mentioned at DARPATECH 2005:

... might also want to validate the concept of a host vehicle inspector, a nanosat carried by a host satellite, able to be released to inspect its host to assist in anomaly resolution, such as an incompletely deployed solar array. These are some of the ideas we’re exploring on a new program called Spectator. We’re not exactly sure what Spectator should be, and we welcome your input in defining the program.

Then again, from that description, I am not sure DARPA knows either. They seem to be duplicative, if not coextensive.

The United States does need to improve its space situational awareness, especially in geostationary orbit (GEO). Up there, a piece of space debris as small as a centimeter can cause the loss of a satellite; the tiny nuggets contain so much potential energy, in fact, that it's not even worth shielding against them. But we only track objects a meter and larger in GEO -- a thousand times the deadly size.

The idea of using small satellites to monitor and, perhaps, protect satellites has been kicking around for a while—Matt Bille, from the research group ANSER, co-authored a pair of papers calling for a “microsatellite space guard” in 1999 and 2000:

* Matt Bille and Deborah A. Bille, Enforcing the OST—The Inspection Question
AIAA-2000-5155, AIAA Space 2000 Conference and Exposition, Long Beach, CA, Sept. 19-21, 2000.

* Matt Bille, Robyn Kane, Martin Oetting (ANSER) and Donna Dickey (AFRL), A Microsatellite Space Guard Force, 13th Annual AIAA/USU Small Satellite Conference, 1999.

While ANGELS will eventually operate in geostationary orbits, Bille et al expect the first space guard satellites in low earth orbit (LEO), building programs like XSS, DART and Orbital Express, which all used small satellites to operate near bigger ones.

These projects haven't been without their share of bumps. Big bumps, like the ones tow satellites make when they clang together. DART had itself a little accident while conducting an rendezvous (RSO for the hipsters) last April. And given that, I think some rules of the road for such "proximity operations" would be in order—before the Chinese start doing it, too, and everybody in this town freaks out.

-- Jeffrey Lewis, cross-posted at Arms Control Wonk.

Big Guns Go Silent

Robert Novak has an editorial on the Navy's plan to decommission it's last two battleships, the Iowa and the Wisconsin. He's pitching a line for the Marine Corps, whose commandant General Mike Hagee told Congress two years ago that the loss of naval surface fire support would place his troops "at considerable risk."

The Senate Arms Services Committee is considering a bill that would turn the two ships into museums. I was on a tour of the Wisconsin at Norfolk and I can tell you it's a hell of a ship. Very impressive, especially with the World War II veterans telling you stories on the tour about its history. What's interesting is Novak's story of an "anti-battleship bias" within the Navy, that the Navy somehow never liked the big ships since World War II and it's all a military-industrial complex plot to get funds for the next generation destroyer DD(X).

[As Defense Tech guru David Axe noted a few weeks back, Navy vets are leading a campaign to put the two mothballed battleships back into service as alternatives to the $3-billion-per-copy new-jack destroyer, which is being touted as a fire-support platform but, according to the Naval Fire Support Association, will provide only a fraction of the firepower of the old BBs at far greater cost, and much later. -- ed.]

Now I don't know the Navy well enough to see if this anti-battleship conspiracy story is true or not, and I'm hoping that someone from the Navy side can clarify this story. My observations within the Pentagon were that the Navy surface guys pretty much rule over their cousins in the Navy air, shore, and submarine fleet. It somehow seems strange to think that the Navy surface community would eschew these ships. This 2004 GAO report provides some more background. Seems that the last time the Navy used battleships was during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, then they made plans to mothball the ships. Congress intervened and told them to keep at least two ships on inactive duty while the Navy was to develop an alternative firepower solution by modifying the 5 inch guns on the destroyers. That hasn't happened yet.

These battleships are old, they're expensive to maintain, and the industry doesn't support manufacture of the ammunition for the big guns. The Marine Corps does have air support and field artillery systems for fire support. I don't see the justification to keep battleships just so you have an option to fire on North Korean military structures, as Novak alludes. Maybe it's time for the big guns to go silent?

-- Jason Sigger, crossposted at Armchair Generalist

THERE'S MORE: Check out heavy-gunned debate going on over at Murdoc's place.

Troops Cut, Weapons Safe?

A few weeks back, it looked like the Pentagon really might go after some of its biggest, fattest weapons programs with an axe. Now, that's looking less likely.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Air Force is "looking to secure much of its savings by cutting active and reserve forces, instead of slashing weapons purchases."

To stay within its expected budget, the Air Force is planning to cut at least 30,000, and perhaps as many as 40,000, uniformed personnel, civilians and contractor-support staff through fiscal 2011, military officials said...

The Army, which is bearing more of the burden of the war in Iraq, doesn't envision similar personnel cuts, but is exploring a modest slowdown in its plans for troop growth as it grapples with a recruiting shortfall... The Army's current plan is to expand to 43 combat brigades from 33 by the end of 2007. The service, however, is considering either postponing or forgoing the addition of one of those 5,000-soldier brigades next year. It also could cut as many as three National Guard brigades from a planned force of 34 combat brigades, said an Army official involved in preparing the budget...

The shift is good news for the nation's major defense contractors, which appear to have dodged major cutbacks in big-ticket weapons purchases... two of the costliest future weapons systems in Mr. England's sights, the Air Force's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter made by Lockheed and the Navy's DDX destroyer made by Northrop and General Dynamics Corp., have escaped the guillotine in this budget cycle. The Army's marquee modernization program, called Future Combat Systems and led by Boeing, also appears set to be spared from another major restructuring.

A system of missile-warning satellites being built by Lockheed, years late and at a cost of more than three times as much as its initial $3 billion budget, once again is likely to survive largely intact, according to Air Force and industry officials familiar with the details. The Air Force appears ready to tell Congress that it believes management shortcomings have been corrected, the technology is headed down the right path and there isn't any viable alternative to pushing ahead with development.

New Navy Builds Up

Today's Times has a quick but interesting story on the Navy's efforts to build a new fleet of ships -- more than 90 of 'em over the next fifteen years.

[[Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael] Mullen is seeking a fleet that will give the Navy a greater role in counterterrorism and humanitarian operations.

The plan calls for building 55 small, fast vessels called littoral combat ships, which are being designed to allow the Navy to operate in shallow coastal areas where mines and terrorist bombings are a growing threat. Costing less than $300 million, the littoral combat ship is relatively inexpensive. [It's also going to be ready really soon, Sea Power magazine notes; late 2006, perhaps. Crews have already begun to train for the sip. -- ed.]

Navy officials say they have scaled back their goals for a new destroyer, the DD(X), whose primary purpose would be to support major combat operations ashore. The Navy once wanted 23 to 30 DD(X) vessels, but Admiral Mullen has decided on only 7, the Navy official said. The reduction is due in part to the ship's spiraling cost, now estimated at $2 billion to $3 billion per ship...

The choices have led some analysts to suggest that the Navy is de-emphasizing the threat from China, at least in the early stages of the shipbuilding plan. Beijing's investment in submarines, cruise missiles and other weapon systems is expected to pose a major threat to American warships for at least a decade. That gives the Navy time, some analysts argue, to build capabilities that require less firepower and more mobility, a priority for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

"This is not a fleet that is being oriented to the Chinese threat," usual suspect Loren Thompson tells the Times. "It's being oriented around irregular warfare, stability operations and dealing with rogue states."

But, Navy people: is that right? The Times isn't so sure. As the paper notes, "the Navy would keep 11 aircraft carriers, just one fewer than the dozen it has maintained since the end of the cold war."

THERE'S MORE: Those plans to grow the fleet to 313 ships, they "would require nearly one-fifth more money each year for shipbuilding," according to Defense News. "One defense analyst said the plan would require the Navy to spend an average of $13.4 billion on new ships starting in 2007, a big jump from the $11 billion level of recent years."

Tanker Will Do Windows, Too

New U.S. tanker must carry more than fuel, Wynne says

Just last week I noted that the F-22 Raptor is transmogrifying into the F/A/R/C/E-22 Swiss Army Knife. (I also cross-posted that here on Defense Tech, and some great comments were made in the discussion area, so check it out.) Now it appears that "all missions, all the time" is becoming SOP in the Air Force:

Competition for the contract to build a new aerial refueling tanker likely won't start until 2007 because the service wants a plane that can carry cargo, reconnaissance sensors and troops as well as fuel, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said today.

"I think 2006 is still going to be a development year," Wynne said in an interview in his Pentagon office. "Tankers are not only tankers any more. They are going to be multi-mission aircraft."

Again, if additional useful things can be added in a cost-effective manner to existing aircraft, by all means go ahead. But don't make those options major selling points if you're the manufacturer or requirements if you're the buyer. The Air Force wants, and probably needs, new tankers. But let's not make them so complex and expensive that they never get off the ground. Or that half of them get cancelled for budgetary reasons.

Then there's this: DOD's new transportation chief seeks multi-mission tanker

The new head of U.S. Transportation Command said Nov. 30 that he needs new tanker aircraft with the flexibility to carry cargo or passengers as well as fuel.

Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz, who took the command's reins in September, said the Air Force should buy new multi-mission tankers "without delay" to replace aging Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft. Some industry officials have been predicting that cargo capacity might emerge as a key requirement, which would give the budget-constrained Air Force more bang for its tanker buck.

Schwartz, who spoke with reporters after making remarks at the Defense Logistics 2005 conference, declined to say whether the need for a multi-mission tanker or "swing asset" would merit a larger airframe than the KC-135.

The "exact dimensions" are "not the thing that I worry about," he said. "I establish requirements, and that is that it needs to be multi-mission, it cannot be a single-mission airplane."

That's going to set the whole thing back years.

For what it's worth, I came across this on Airliners.net:

Let's look at the possibilities from both Airbus and Boeing:

Airbus:

A-330TT, already selected for the RAF and RAAF tankers.

A-340-500, not mentioned before, but carries a lot of fuel.

A-350-800, mentioned several times, newest design, partially composite construction.

Boeing:

KC-135E converted to the KC-135R, by far the cheapest option and still in production (RC-135s), and the quickest production time.

KC-767A, in production for Italy and Japan, and some common parts with the E-10A.

B-777-200ER/LR, mentioned as a Boeing proposal and carries a lot of fuel.

B-787-800, mentioned by Boeing, and is a all composite airplane.

MD-11F, almost common with the KC-10A/KDC-10 but production would have to be reopened, as not many available on the used market.

B-747-400F/ERF, not mentioned before, but the IIAF flys KC-747-200 tankers and carries twice the fuel as most other competitors. Also has swing open nose for cargo missions.

B-747-800F, not mentioned, but the largest of all competitors and carries the most fuel. Like it's smaller B-747-400F brother has swing open nose for cargo missions. Same very fuel efficient engines as on B-787 and A-350.

Most of these are waaaay outside of Murdoc's sphere of knowledge. There's a ton and a half of discussion on that board. Comments?

--cross-posted by Murdoc

Smack Ya Back

Remember Maj. Shannon Rogers? He's the fighter jock turned Predator pilot who loomed rather large in my June Wired story, "Attack of the Drones." Anyway, Rogers (call sign: "Smack") is back in the limelight. Time magazine spends a day with him, from his beige stucco home outside of Las Vegas, to Nellis Air Force Base, where he blows up insurgents 7,000 miles away. Nice shootin', Smack.

Rapid Fire 12/5/05

* Israeli interceptors okay

* Iran's sats lift off

* Predator 1, Al-Qaeda 0

* FBI IT, on hold again

* Electronic gun vs. RPGs

* Wiretaps, spoofed

* Bellsouth = pigs

(Big ups: JGP, Geek Press)

Pirate-Fighters' Curious Past

Remember that story from a few weeks back, about a group of mercenaries being given $50 million to fight Somali pirates -- the guys who attacked a cruise ship, and were sent running by a sonic blaster? Well, it gets weirder, as Kathryn Cramer has been discovering.

First, she found out that the firm, New York's Top Cat Marine Security, sure looked like a front company, sharing a single suite with NyClubScene.com, "Animal Fair" magazine, MyHealingPrayer.com, and a law firm. Then, Kathryn dug into the finances of Top Cat chief Peter Casini, who seems to have a habit of bankrupting his companies. And security didn't exactly seem like his forte. So the question was: who were the real guns-for-hire at Top Cat?

The answer, Kathryn's found out, includes the former U.S. rep for Sandline International. That's the private military company that has been involved in quite a few messy little wars, from Sierra Leone to Papua New Guinea to Liberia. The company often flouted international law and U.N. restrictions to supply weapons and mercenaries to African strongmen and shady revolutionaries alike. Now, at least one of their top guys is back, under Top Cat's cover. But who hired Top Cat, in the first place?

THERE'S MORE: Check out MountainRunner, which has a whole lot more on the Somalia situation.

Gunboats Back in Style

After years of trying to give away its 14 Cyclone-class patrol boats, the Navy is reversing course, according to Navy Times. Now the Cyclones will form the backbone of a revitalized coastal gunboat community based in Little Creek, Virginia.

The 60-meter Cyclones were commissioned in the early '90s with the intention of using them to transport SEALs and other special forces in litorral waters. But the special operators never liked the Cyclones: they were too big and drew too deep for many waterways. So in the late '90s, the Navy offered them to foreign navies. There was only one taker -- the Phillipines navy, which acquired the first of the class -- before events intervened.

The towers fell, the U.S. invaded Iraq and the Navy found itself with a lot of foreign littorals to police but with few suitable platforms. So four Cyclones were based in Bahrain, from where they sortied to guard Iraq's only two oil terminals off Basra.

Despite their sudden utility, the Navy still wasn't comfortable with the tiny Cyclones. They were simple, cramped and lightly armed (cannons and machine guns only) in a fleet dominated by supercarriers and large multi-mission destroyers. The Navy exiled two boats to the Pacific and convinced the Coast Guard to take five of the ships. Coasties didn't know what to do with the boats and weren't afraid to say so.

Against the backdrop of all this fumbling, the Navy was starting to think hard about its future fleet. The consensus was that it needed more hulls suitable to the litorrals. Grand plans were drawn up for a large force of corvettes (LCS) and catamarans (JHSV). Then somebody realized the Navy already had coastal vessels at its disposal. Last week, the commander at Little Creek announced that the Coast Guard Cyclones would be returned to the Navy, the two Pacific boats would make their way to Virginia and new doctrine would be developed to employ the Cyclones as coastal gunboats and mobile training units for small navies.

To quote Navy Times: "Hueber said the idea is to train up foreign navies so they can patrol their own maritime borders. The [Cyclone], because of its size, crew and mission, relates best to what smaller navies actually do."

That's right, it's gunboat diplomacy for the 21st century.

--David Axe

Desk Jockeys vs. Border Drones

The President wants it to happen. The guys on the ground want it to happen. And their bosses in DC want it to happen. But that doesn't mean the bureaucrats are going to let unmanned spy planes start patrolling the southern border.

In a speech in El Paso earlier this week, President Bush said he wanted more cash for border patrol technologies, including drones. Border patrol agents -- at least the ones I visited -- thought the robo-planes did a world of good during, when they briefly had them. (And, with millions illegally entering the country every year, these guys could use all the help they can get.)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently bought a new Predator B drone to help its agents out. But that may be the only unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) the Federal Aviation Administration lets the border guards use, GovExec reports.

After more than two years of negotiations, the Homeland Security Department's U.S. Customs and Border Protection Directorate recently finalized a deal with the FAA to fly one drone in the Tucson, Ariz., area.

CBP also issued an environmental impact study in September that helps clear the way for an expansion of UAV operations from the western corner of Arizona to the eastern corner of Texas, but the agency still needs to work out a deal with the FAA to fly the drones outside restricted military airspace. Because of the restrictions, CBP officials have been forced to deploy a fleet of Blackhawk helicopters to patrol the rest of the southern border.

A CBP spokesman said Wednesday that the agency has recently received the "green light" to buy its second UAV early next year and plans to deploy the drone in the Tucson area until CBP and FAA officials reach additional agreements.

"We have to talk and ask for permission, but FAA is very strict," he said. "We're looking at what we can do to get exemptions" from FAA regulations or maximize the requirements set by FAA for UAVs.

Drone manufacturers, and handlers, have been tangling for years with the FAA over when and where UAVs can fly here at home. Here's a snippet from an article I wrote for the Times three years ago, which to the best of knowledge, is still essentially true:

Jim Brass, a colleague of Mr. Herwitz at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., sought to use a drone last November to look at a forest fire in the San Gabriel Mountains, north of Los Angeles.

But the Federal Aviation Administration refused to let the drone fly. Getting to the fire, a ''controlled burn'' begun by the Forest Service to thin trees, would have involved flying through the approach to the suburban airport in Ontario, Calif., and the F.A.A. did not want a drone in crowded airspace.

It is a common problem for civilian drones. A small, piloted airplane can operate pretty much anywhere with little or no notification. But flying a drone means filing for a certificate of authorization, a narrowly drawn permission slip from the F.A.A. to roam a small strip of the skies. Getting the certificate takes months.

''We aren't pursuing commercial applications over America because U.A.V. flights are so restricted by the F.A.A.,'' Mr. Sliwa said, reflecting a common approach in the industry. The agency has yet to issue minimum standards for the drones' hardware and software. There are no guidelines on how the drones' human operators should be trained.

Okay, obviously you don't want to let pilotless planes roam the skies with no supervision. But, c'mon... it's been three years. It can't be that hard to carve out some space for these drones.

Missile Defense Trifecta

The laser jet is on the skids... The missile test at sea was even better than you thought... The satellites still aren't working... And there's a complete wack-job sitting on the Defense Science Board.

I picked up more juicy tidbits about the missile defense program in the last three posts over at Arms Control Wonk than I had seen anywhere else in the last three months.

First off, the laser jet. That'd be the Airborne Laser, the modified 747 that's supposed to use a chemical-powered ray gun to zap enemy missiles before they get too far off of the ground. Begun in 1996, the Airborne Laser's $1 billion budget has grown to $7.3 billion. Flight tests, originally planned for 2002, then for 2005, are now scheduled for 2008. And then there's growing consensus in the military community that SUV-sized vats of toxic chemicals aren't really the best way to produce laser light. So, finally, some White House budget analysts are suggested that the program get axed, Arms Control Wonk guest-blogger Victoria Samson notes.

Another chronically late, ever-more-bloated program, the Space Tracking and Surveillance System, may also be heading for cuts, Victoria says.

That’s an incredibly important part of the missile defense infrastructure, as the decades-old Defense Support Program satellites, originally designed to see a swarm of Soviet ICBMs coming over the horizon, are nowhere near sensitive enough to provide an adequate early warning of missile launches...

So how serious is this administration at getting missile defense to work if it’s willing to take out the needed eyes in the sky for it to function at all? And how credible are assertions that missile defense has, at this very moment, achieved any sort of operational status if this major hole in its infrastructure exists today, tomorrow, and forever more?

But never mind all that, says Defense Science Board chair William Schneider, who became (in)famous in arms control circles a few years back for his suggestion that missile interceptors go nuclear. He's now asserting that, despite the, um, uneven test record, "that members of Congress need to include missile defense programs in their tactical planning when determining defense budgets," Victoria writes.

This would imply that missile defense programs have done such a stellar job in their developmental and operational testing that you can just order up, say, 100 PAC-3 interceptors and be certain that they’ll show up, be ready for deployment, and earn your complete and utter trust in their efficacy. Just like an aircraft carrier or any other regular cog in the American fighting machine.

And this guy is on the science board? Sheesh!

Anyway, there is some good news, ACW guest-blogger Michael Katz-Hyman notes. The Sea-Based Midcourse Intercept program -- by far the most succesful part of the whole missile defense effort -- continues to improve. Usually, in these tests, the interceptor just tries to hit an incoming missile. Which isn't fully realistic, because a warhead will usually separate off from the missile's main booster. But in its last test, on November 17th, the Sea-Based system hit a separating missile. And that's progress.

Rapid Fire 12/02/05

* Negroponte vs. Boeing... in space!

* Jihadists, or foodies?

* Socom's mini-sub sinks

* Global Hawk goes to sea

* China's Raptor?

* Livermore's 300-bomb stockpile

* Backyard cyclotron

* 50 Cent bat mitzvah: pics here

(Big ups: LANL:TRS, JGP, NOSI, RC, Nick)

F/A/R/C/E-22 Raptor...cleans windows too!

A friend gave me the idea for the Fighter/Attack/Recon/Cargo/Electronic warfare version of the F-22 Raptor not long after the added the 'A' designation. Now they're hyping it as an electronic anti-IED platform, noted at the POGO blog. The source material is only available via paid subscription, so I can't give you any details. But at a time while some are calling for cuts in F-35 production to build additional F-22s, I've got to wonder how serious this claim really is. I don't always agree with POGO (folks, that's 'understatement'), but I've got to agree with them on this one.

First, let me be very clear: If the F-22's electronics suite is capable of countering IEDs, let's bring it on. If all that's needed is a slight modification to the existing hardware or some new software, that's a no-brainer. The POGO entry seems to make it sound like they're talking about an anti-IED specialty variant of the Raptor. I find that extremely unlikely. Most probably they're talking about upgrading them all to include the capability.

Second, they've been hyping the electronics capabilities of the Raptor for some time, and that's a good thing. Here are a couple interesting ones from C4ISR Journal: Supersonic SIGINT Is Back: ISR Sensors Built Into F/A-22, JSF Fuselages and Agile radar beams: Active electronically scanned arrays energize fighter performance.

But this claim, coming right now, seems a bit contrived. Maybe Murdoc's just a bit jaded. I'd sure like to know more details about the proposal, but, then, I'm sure the IED makers would, too.

Anyway, if Raptors can do it, let's go for it. However, I'm not expecting to see F-22s screaming down to clear roads ahead of supply convoys. And, as useful as anti-IED capabilities may be, they aren't a good reason to make decisions regarding hundred-million dollar air superiority fighters.

Now, if they'd just add a camera and a little cargo bay, the Raptor would really and truly be a F/A/R/C/E. It's not that the F-22 is a farce. Despite the high cost, no one seems to be debating the fact that it's an awesome machine. But these attempts to sell the thing as a major player in the type of war we're currently fighting appear to be little more than shallow PR campaigns. I've had a little yellow post-it note on my computer monitor for a long time as a reminder of the farce idea, just waiting for the right moment. This seems to be it.

UPDATE: Noah points out that this is another "part of a broader move to try to jam IEDs from above -- a move that has met with only limited success." It's been noted on Defense Tech here and here previously.

He also reminds me that a quick check of the Raptor Watch category here on Defense Tech will yield additional wacky justifications for the F-22. Like any good multi-billion dollar defense program, there's no shortage of them.

Finally, I got a look at the source article (paid subscription required) and Lockheed is looking to add this anti-IED capability beginning with the Block 30 model, but declines to give any specifics:

Block 30 Raptors will add air-to-ground radar, better attack capabilities against integrated air defense systems, Link 16 data link and a core Small Diameter Bomb ability through 2009. The EA capability against IEDs, not one of the aircraft's main missions as originally outlined, comes as the company looks to solidify its advanced fighter's relevance over the next 40 years, especially while the United States engages in a global war on terrorism.

They also continue to push for a bomber version of the Raptor.

UPDATE 2 : Received this in an email:

How about minesweeper, too?

Heh. I'll see your "minesweeper" and raise you a "hedgerow cutter"!

UPDATE 3: Also via e-mail: Defense Industry Daily had a great post on F-22 and F-35 electronic warfare back in October.

--Cross-posted by Murdoc

Troops Get New Jammers

One of the few reliable methods the U.S. military has for stopping improvised bombs are radio frequency jammers, which stop the bombs from being remotely triggered.

I've mentioned the jammers -- specifically, the Warlock family of jammers -- a whole bunch of times on the site. But there are others, too. Raytheon, for example, just got another $15.5 million for its IED Countermeasure Equipment ("ICE") systems. If I'm doing the math right -- always a questionable proposition -- that means another 1200-1300 jammers for the troops.

Back in April, Copley News Service notes, Lt. Gen. James Mattis told Congress that "the Marines are sending 1,066 of the new devices to Iraq and plan to buy another 2,500. The Army is purchasing 3,000." In August, the Joint IED Defeat Task Force shifted "$48 million to buy 6,246 [ICE] kits," according to Inside the Army.

"The device is about the size of a large gym bag," the El Paso Times noted in August.

It is a rectangular metal box with switches, fans and connectors on its face and sides. It takes about 15 minutes to install in a vehicle and it runs off the vehicle's power system.... The ICE device can be programmed from a laptop in the field, and it was designed with space inside the chassis for new equipment. The electronics are modular and easily replaced in the field. The simple design also makes it relatively cheap to manufacture.

Really cheap. "At $12,000 each, [ICE] is one-third the price of the Warlock device," Copley notes. Which is one reason so many are being sent into the field.

But while the jammers are useful tools, they can't guarantee soldiers and marines' safety. Far from it.

In a little more than a month, at least three marine bomb squad members have been killed by IEDs -- a huge loss for a community that's only a few hundred people big. It's safe to assume that all three had some sort of jammer. But the bombs that killed them, I'm told, were triggered by motion-detectors. No radio frequency jammer in the world could have stopped them from going off.

Drones Team Up for Spying

Drat. I had been meaning to blog about Darpa's multi-drone surveillance project for most of the year, but never quite got around to it. Now Wired News has beaten me to the punch. So let me try to play catch-up.

There are now 19 types of U.S. military drones flying in the skies above Iraq, shooting video of what's below. But it's tough to put those images together in any kind of coherent way. The average soldier or marine on the ground can't see most of that footage. And he doesn't have the authority or technical ability to order one of the unmanned aerial vehicles to go check something out.

There are exceptions to this -- which Wired News doesn't note. The hand-held Raven or Dragon Eye UAVs, for example, are controlled by frontline units. Marines on the ground during the taking of Falluja last year were able to see Pioneer drone footage as they moved through the city. But, for the most part, infantrymen don't have access to the drones-eye view.

Darpa would like to change that with the HURT program -- short for "heterogeneous urban reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition." The idea is to give soldiers the ability to see all kinds of UAV footage, and command all kinds of drones, from a single device. And, the agency wants the machines to be able to translate simple, high-level orders into complex manuevers.

It ain't easy. First of all, automatically choosing which soldiers' requests for drone coverage should get top priority is a nigthmare, just by itself. How do you program a computer to decide who gets first dibs? Then there's the question of how you take all those 19 drones -- many of which are controlled by their own proprietary software -- to talk to each other. Finally, you've got the problem of giving machines that are currently remotely-operated some measure of autonomy. Because if a captain tells a group of drones to "show me what's inside that window," they've got to be able to organize themselves for that recon mission. Gizmag gives another example: "the HURT system must be able to simultaneously order the UAVs to conduct wide-area surveillance while dispatching an individual vehicle to a location requested by a soldier for a close-up look."

Northrop has a contract from Darpa to develop HURT. And the company put on a little demo in the fall, Wired News, relying on this Northrop press release, notes.

Two fixed-wing UAVs, a Raven and a Pointer, along with an Rmax rotorcraft, were put aloft under the control of the system. Participants on the ground were able to view wide-area surveillance of the battle zone on handheld monitors, but could also send one of the UAVs in for a closer look at a suspected enemy position by merely moving over the subject with their cursor.

For the demo, a soldier observed a distant garage with a van backing out of it, and selected this target on his handheld screen. HURT autonomously selected the best UAV for the job based on location, and dispatched it to "shadow" the van. It also re-tasked the remaining three aerial units to secure a wide-area perimeter...

The elasticity of the HURT concept means that UAVs plugged into the system don't need any special modification. The system could also combine ground-based surveillance sensors with airborne platforms, with the potential to reduce manpower demands and risks to friendly forces associated with urban operations, according to a report by Rand.

Rapid Fire 12/1/05

* "Airline Secuirty a Waste of Cash"

* Contractor's 50 Cent bat mitzvah

* India starts missile exports

* Raptors vs. IEDs?

* Los Alamos: 600 lbs of plutonium, MIA

* High tech repo man

* New Zealand's super weapon

(Big ups: HuffPo, RC, JQP, /.)