Danger Room

Round 3 For $100 Billion Tanker Fight

2008-07-09T11:23:00-07:00

Here we go again. The military will "reopen the bidding for a multibillion-dollar contract for midair refueling tankers," the Times is reporting.

The decision comes in the wake of a report by the Government Accountability Office that found flaws in the process that initially awarded the contract to a partnership of Northrop Grumman and the European parent of Airbus over a competing bid by Boeing, which filed a protest.

Senator Richard Shelby spilled the beans on his website about the re-bidding of the contract, which could eventually be worth as much as $100 billion.

“This is the best of all options,” said Shelby. “It is important to remember that out of Boeing’s 111 complaints, the GAO concurred with a mere seven. The plan the Department of Defense has come up with is an appropriate solution to remedy the minor procedural flaws the GAO found in the initial award. It is vitally important that members of Congress support this expeditious path forward that not only satisfies the recommendations offered by GAO, but also ensures that the Air Force’s urgent and compelling need to field a tanker is met as quickly as possible.”

According to Reuters, the Air Force won't be the ones overseeing the "expedited competition," however. Instead, it's be Defense Undersecretary John Young, the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer, who will be the "source selection authority" for the program.

[Photo: USAF]

ALSO:

Pain Ray vs. Snipers

2008-07-09T08:39:00-07:00

When your entire purpose in life is to hurt people, you're bound to be misunderstood. That's the situation with the Pentagon's pain ray – even though it might save lives as a counter-sniper tool.

For years, combat units have been begging for the Active Denial System, which uses millimeter waves to heat the very top layer of the skin. If it was lethal it would probably have been fielded years ago. But ADS is a non-lethal weapon. And in the field of non-lethal weapons, politics -- and perceptions -- rule.

A recent report from the Defense Science Board explains for the first time exactly why the ADS did not go to Iraq:

Army Rapid Equipping Force initiative in response to urgent need statement to field System 1... for Operation Iraqi Freedom deployment (2005-2006)... however, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy deemed the intended mission (detainee operations) not politically tenable, hence it has not been fielded for operational use.

After Abu Ghraib, it would have been politically careless to send a device specifically designed to cause pain for use on detainees. (Was that really the only request for it?) But wherever the ADS goes into action – if, indeed, it ever does - the report makes it clear that it's going to take some very careful media management.

The ADS... can be integrated into aircraft, ship or ground vehicle using various ranges, power and effects criteria. The electron waveform works well on test subjects; however, the deterrent non-lethal effects, instantaneous heating of the skin, are new and different, providing a novel battlefield effect that will require significant education and awareness for military members and the general public to understand. (Emphasis mine)

The implication here is that, seven years after it was first unveiled, the pain beam is still not understood. Judging by some of the more hysterical claims surrounding it (like the story that says it's really a death ray), I'd say they were right. The high level of secrecy surrounding the problem, such as the failure to release details of an ADS accident, must be a major cause of this. If you want people to be reassured about the safety of a new non-lethal weapon, you have to allow some kind of independent scrutiny. Classifying everything about it -- power levels, waveform, range -- is not a good way to build confidence.

Elsewhere, the Weapons System Technology Information Analysis Center suggests that the ADS' unique properties would make it the ideal weapon to ensure that a sniper never gets a second shot:

The Active Denial System could be deployed with an integrated sensor suite to provide the earliest possible detection. Automated cueing from infrared, optical, or acoustic sensors could be integrated with steering controls to provide an accurate aiming system. Automated systems control with man-in-the-loop overrides would initiate a short engagement cycle to force the sniper to move.

The beam bounces inside of enclosures (rooms, “hides”, etc.) to force a sniper to move. This nonlethal response increases the opportunity for positive identification and engagement with more lethal means.

Unlike other possible responses, the ADS will not endanger innocent bystanders, but will certainly force the sniper to shift position and possibly give himself away. However, as the Defense Science Board explains, there's no sign of it being deployed:

Deploying the ADS for the first time will be precedent setting. As is the case with most new weapons, first time use of the ADS will require approval by the Secretary of Defense.

ADS is now ready as a deployable directed energy weapon system. However, as started earlier, ADS has not been approved for operational use in ongoing contingency operations.

ALSO:

* Iraq WMD Evangelist's New Crusade: Secret Ray Guns
* 'Ray Gun' a Lethal Weapon, Says Former OSI Agent
* Video: Pain Ray vs. 60 Minutes (Updated)
* Heat Ray: Burning Questions
* Welcome to the House of Pain (Ray)
* Pain Ray: Don't Hold Your Breath
* Military Zips Lip on Pain Ray Accident
* Heat Beam Targets "Angry Mob"
* 2008: Year of the Pain Ray?
* I Was a Pain Ray Guinea Pig
* Pain Ray Zaps Through Windows, Fries Sailors
* Pain Ray 2.0: People-Zapper on the Move
* Pain Ray 2.0: Heat vs. Heat Gun
* Pain Ray Heading for L.A. Streets?
* New Active Denial System = Next iPod?
* No Pain Ray for Iraq
* Pain Ray Injures Airman
* Video: Pain Ray Fries Reporter
* New Robo-Weapon: Paralyzing Floodlight
* Marines Wants Pain Ray, ASAP

Video: Iran's Mega Missile Test

2008-07-09T07:24:00-07:00

Iran's Revolutionary Guards fired off a slew of missiles today, in a military exercise. But of the weapons, there's one that U.S. and Israeli observers are examining with particular care: a 56 foot-long Shahab-3 missile, with a reported range of 1,250 miles. That's far enough to hit Israeli soil and American bases, if it works as planned.

The Shahab ("meteor") is the Iranian version of the North Korean No Dong, NightWatch notes. "The No Dong can be well made, but its guidance system is quirky. A Pakistani No Dong, called the Ghauri, which was launched from northeastern Pakistan, cork-screwed out of control and landed in southern Afghanistan once, instead of down range inside Pakistan." According to one Western analysis, half of the old-school No Dongs fired would fall outside a 3-4 kilometer radius from the aim point. As Jeffrey Lewis notes, "this is a significant inaccuracy, even for a nuclear warhead, that would limit Iran to targeting civilian populations instead of military targets. This is, of course, little comfort to folks living in the target of an attack, particularly its suburbs."

During a February 4th test, former UN weapons inspector Geoff Forden writes, "there [was] a failure of the missile’s thrust vector control system nineteen seconds into its powered flight."

The video from today's test doesn't show more than the first few seconds of the missiles' flight. But Iran claims that the Shahab fired today is improved, and at least some of those problems have been fixed. "We were able to reduce the weight of the missiles and this provides them with great precision," Revolutionary Guards Brigadier-General Hoseyn Salami told a local TV network. Zelzal and Fateh missiles were also tested, with with reported ranges of 170 miles and 100 miles, respectively.

Naval Commander Morteza Saffari tells Iran's Fars news agency "that various missile, rocket and torpedo launchers as well as military vessels and land-to-sea missiles were tested during the exercise. 'The maneuver also sends out a reassuring message to regional countries that together we can secure the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz without the presence of foreign forces.'"

NightWatch finds it "curious that this event occurred the day after President Ahmadinejad announced the risk of war with the US and Israel was low." Could be that the Revolutionary Guards were acting on their own. It's also interesting to note that Iran's display comes right on the heels of a joint US-UK-Bahrainian training mission in the Persian Gulf, dubbed "Excerise Stake Net."

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Obama: Blackwater Troubling, Here to Stay (Updated)

2008-07-09T06:24:00-07:00

Back in February, Barack Obama caught flack from some liberals for refusing to "'rule out' deploying private security companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq." In a wide-ranging interview with the Military Times family of papers, Obama repeated -- and explained -- his view on guns-for-hire. "There are going to be uses for private contractors," he said. And not just in the mess hall, or behind a fork lift.

There is room for private contractors to work in the mess hall providing basic supplies and doing some logistical work that might have been done in-house in the past. I am troubled by the use of private contractors when it comes to potential armed engagements... I think it creates some difficult morale issues when you've got private contractors getting paid 10 times what an Army private's getting paid for work that carries similar risks…

Q: Blackwater would argue that they're a bargain: that you get a higher level of ability, that… they can keep top-level talent there perpetually.

A: I am not arguing that there are never going to be uses for private contractors in some circumstances. What I am saying is if you start building a military premised on the use of private contractors and you start making decisions on armed engagement based on the availability of private contractors to fill holes and gaps that over time you are, I believe, eroding the core of our military's relationship to the nation and how accountability is structured. I think you are privatizing something that is what essentially sets a nation-state apart, which is a monopoly on violence. And to set those kinds of precedents, I think, will lead us over the long term into some troubled waters.

UPDATE: An adviser to the Obama campaign thinks I badly misinterpreted the Senator's remarks. "Barack Obama was the very first Senator to submit legislation to reign in private military contractors and seek to bring oversight and legal accountability. He did so some 8 months before the tragic shootings in Nissor Square, demonstrating both his seriousness and foresight on this issue. He also notably doesn't have lobbyists for these firms working for his campaign," the adviser writes in to say.

In his interview, the Senator reinforced again that we have turned over too much of the public missions of defense and foreign policy to private firms interested primarily in profit. He discussed how he is "troubled by the use of private contractors when it comes to potential armed engagements." He then went on express his concern with "privatizing something that is what essentially sets a nation-state apart, which is a monopoly on violence."

The full interview Military Times did with the Senator is available at: http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3615116&c=FEA&s=INT .

Interested readers should also check out his defense plan, available at http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/Defense_Fact_Sheet_FINAL.pdf, which lays out his plans to reform military contracting. On the private security and military services front, its basic elements are to:

Require the Pentagon to develop a strategy for figuring out when contracting makes sense and when it doesn't, rather than continually handing off governmental jobs to well-connected companies.

Create the reporting requirements, accounting, and accountability needed for good governance and actual money savings with contracting.

Establish the legal status of contractor personnel, making possible prosecution of any abuses committed by private military contractors.

ALSO:

* Blackwater Sues San Diego
* San Diego Mayor Blocks Blackwater
* Blackwater Still Courting Investors
* Blackwater Buy-Out Scuttled
* Blackwater Cancels West Coast Expansion
* Blackwater Goes West
* Design a New Blackwater Motivational Poster
* State (Still) Hearts Blackwater
* Blackwater Bulks Up Air Power Using Little-Known Company
* Blackwater Cancels West Coast Expansion
* Heckler & Koch Breaks Up with Blackwater
* Blackwater Schooling Taiwan's Secret Police
* U.S. Hiring Contractors to Train Tribal Militiamen
* State Plans One Billion for Private Security Contractors in Africa
* Hayden Admits: Contractors Lead 'Enhanced Interrogations' at CIA Black Sites
* "We Are Blackwater"
* Why Blackwater Dropped Tear Gas
* Blonde and Blonder: the Blackwater Rescue Story
* Blackwater Rescues Blondes in Distress
* A Very Merry (Merc) Christmas
* Blackwater as Superheroes
* NY Times: Blackwater Killed Our Dog!
* Blackwater: The Roger Clemens of War
* Blackwater's New BFF
* Merc Company for Sale?
* Blackwater's Band of Brothers
* Blackwater's New Weapon: Laser Dazzlers
* Iraq OK's Raids on Blackwater
* Mercs: The Magazine
* World's Most Notorious Merc to Oversee Blackwater?
* Blackwater "Special Edition" Pistol
* Blackwater Immunity Deal: Huge Conflict-of-Interest
* Blackwater = Fire-Fighter?
* Vote: Blackwater's New Logo
* Blackwater Goes Grass-Roots, Scrubs Site
* The Times' Blackwater-Air Force Conspiracy
* NATO Wants Outsourced Air Force
* Pentagon vs CIA over Blackwater
* Blackwater Ordered Out of Iraq?
* Blackwater's a Black Sheep?
* Blackwater: Whose Side Are They On?
* The Private Military Company Happy Meal
* Condi Can't Afford to Lose Blackwater
* Video: Blackwater's Ad Campaign
* Blackwater and Friends: America's Achilles' Heel?
* A Kinder, Gentler Blackwater?
* Blackwater Hits the High Seas
* Blackwater: Japan's Missile Defense Force
* Blackwater's Hired PR Guns: Hillary's Helpers
* Disaster Outsourcing
* Blackwater: It's the Money, Stupid
* Blackwater's X-Wing Fighters
* Blackwater Hearings Ain't No Superbad
* Watch Blackwater Dig Its Own Grave
* Blackwater Author on Blackwater Shootings
* Addicted to Blackwater
* Black Days for Blackwater
* Blackwater: From Bad to Worse
* Top 10 PR Moves for Blackwater
* The Merc Cartoon
* Blackwater "Bitch Slap": Right Move?
* Blackwater Mess Fencing Diplos In
* The Blackwater Backlash
* Blackwater Ban "Inevitable"
* Blackwater: Banned in Iraq?
* Blackwater: The Vote
* Blackwater Goes Down the Rabbit Hole
* Blackwater Buying Counter-Insurgency Aircraft
* Blackwater Sprawl
* Inside the Belly of the Blackwater Beast
* Officers, Mercs Brawl
* U.S. Hires Mercs for Africa Ops
* Mercenary King, Revealed

Five for Fighting 7/9/08

2008-07-09T00:31:00-07:00

* Newark unveils spycam network

* Iran's mystery monkeys

* Iraq = drug crossroads

* U.S. may be forced to pay royalties on torture music

* More cash for Darpa's lasers

* Extra punch: Deputy jailed for Tasering wife

(High five: KG, RC)

Canada Wants 17,000 Soldiers in High-Tech Uniforms

2008-07-08T12:49:00-07:00

The first few hundred American troops, outfitted with Land Warrior high-tech soldier suits, are now back home from Iraq. Another U.S. Brigade Combat Team is looking to take 1,000 of the outfits to war. Canada is looking to take things much, much further, "moving ahead with a $300 million program to field up to 17,000 integrated future soldier systems," Defense News reports.

The idea behind the Integrated Soldier System Project (ISSP) is to put the the individual troop "at the centre of a personal network," CTV says, "electronically linking everything from his radio and global-positioning unit, a PDA, remote sensors and vision aids, even the electronic sighting device on his weapon."

Canadian soldiers already have some of these systems, but they're all disconnected. And they each need their own power, "requiring an individual soldier to carry a minimum of 16 batteries to operate the equipment," Defense News notes. "It is not uncommon for a soldier to carry another 24 AA batteries as a backup."

ISSP has been cleared by Defence Minister Peter MacKay. Now the Treasury Board has to decide whether or not to fund it. If approved, the project would start out by fielding a package of commercially-available gear. Getting advanced systems out to all 17,000 soldiers would take until 2018.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Army is looking to move Land Warrior into a more prominent place in its larger modernization plans, Inside Defense reports. That's quite a change, considering the Army officially canceled the program about a year-and-a-half ago. Now, 50 of the revived Land Warrior ensembles will be shipped down to Ft. Bliss "as the service shifts its Future Combat Systems efforts to focus more on individual soldiers and infantry units."

ALSO:

* High Tech Soldier Suit, Crawling Back from the Dead
* Officers Love Their Future Soldier Suits
* Soldier of the Future Gets His Gear On
* The Stink of Tarmiyah
* Video Fix: Land Warrior in Iraq
* Soldiers Hate High-Tech Uniforms
* Why Mil-Porn Sucks
* Israel's Super Soldier Suit
* Land Warrior Revealed!
* How Tech Almost Lost the War
* Undead 'Warrior'
* Army Axing High-Tech Uniforms
* High-Tech Uniforms Finally Head to War

More Air Power for Afghanistan

2008-07-08T11:36:00-07:00

America may not have any extra ground forces to send to Afghanistan. But it can still call in more air power. Unnamed "defense officials" tell CNN that the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln "has moved from the Persian Gulf into the Gulf of Oman so its warplanes can fly missions over Afghanistan."

The nuclear-powered, 97,500-ton ship carries more than 90 aircraft, including the latest models of the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet. It's the ship where President Bush made his now-infamous "Mission Accomplished" landing in 2003.

American casualties hit a new high in Afghanistan last month. And the country, unfortunately, seems to be returning to its status as a pawn in other powers' game. Monday's deadly bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul has been blamed on Pakistan.

After all, "Delhi supported... the Northern Alliance during [its] years of confrontation with the Pakistan-backed Taliban," notes Troy, over at Abu Muqawama.

When the Northerners (Tajik, Uzbek and Hazarah) came to dominate the new government in the wake of OEF [Operation Enduring Freedom], India was a natural partner for the new Afghan government, becoming very involved in aid and reconstruction work as well as efforts to strengthen the capacity of the Afghan Government. In particular, the development of transportation infrastructure, which India is heavily involved in, could go a long way to assisting the economic situation in Afghanistan. On this level, India could certainly be viewed as a strategic target.

Weldon's Firm Lobbied White House to Buy East European Arms for Iraq

2008-07-08T10:04:00-07:00

In may, Defense Solutions, the Pennsylvania-based arms-dealer employing former Congressman Curt Weldon, paid a visit to the White House to discuss weapons sales to Iraq. The company's hope was to convince White House officials that Iraq should buy East European arms, rather than those made in the United States. After meeting with staff in the vice president's office, Defense Solutions CEO Timothy Ringgold sent an e-mail, a copy of which was provided to DANGER ROOM, to some of his colleagues. In it, he sums up his sales pitch. The idea, Ringgold says, is to supply former Soviet Bloc tanks, armored personnel carriers, and fighting vehicles as a "near term solution" for beefing up the Iraqi military.

We learned that the US government has not agreed, but "is considering" providing M1A1 Abrams to Iraq... Our [p]rogram was presented as a near term solution (next 1-4 years) to Iraq's need for wheeled and tracked armor vehicles... to speed the operational readiness of the Iraqi Army...

Should a decision be made to supply Abrams, it doubtful that more than 20 or 30 could be supplied in the first two years... while we could supply [former Soviet bloc armor, like] 500+ modernized T-72s [tanks], 500+ upgraded BMPs [fighting vehicles], and nearly 400 new production BTRs [armored personnel carriers]. We are likely months, perhaps longer from a decision on Abrams. In the mean time, the Iraqi Defense Minister is apparently making no decisions.

Pitching White House officials on your contract is hardly unusual. But it is interesting to note the company's strategies for hawking its East European-origin weapons. "We can go back to Congress," Ringgold wrote. "This won't be easy either, but we could try and set-up a hearing on the topic to send the message to the Iraqi government or to pressure the US Government to demand progress on the immediate equipping of the Iraqi Army etc. along the lines of our solution."

Another strategy Ringgold discussed was to use the press to push the company's sale. "We could try to get a feature article published in a major newspaper, such as the Washington Post," he wrote. The topic of the story: that the troop "surge" in Iraq inadvertently "allowed the Iraqi Government to virtually stop the preparation of the Iraqi Army to take over the fight. In other words, the Iraqis let Americans do the fighting rather than standing up their Army for the job."

In theory, every additional Iraqi unit made ready should have reduced the need for an American unit. As it is, the number of equipped and trained Iraqi units today is about the same as it was a year ago... Whether intentional or not, Iraq’s failure to ready its Army has sustained the need to keep American troops in place longer and is costing American lives.

There are legitimate reasons for Iraq, in some cases, to choose East European weapons over American-origin equipment. The Iraqi army is more accustomed to the logistics and training when it comes to some of these weapons, since they worked with Soviet gear for so long. But the issue here is how these deals have been pushed through, sometimes in questionable fashion, without regard to Iraqi or U.S. interests. Writing at War and Piece, Laura Rozen eloquently sums up the crux of the issue:

There seems to be a pattern of arms dealers with access to East Europe stockpiles getting themselves hooked up with ex US government officials who can grease the way to Pentagon-overseen deals to sell to Iraq, Afghanistan and the markets made available by Bush admin Mid East policy. Quite a bazaar. One former US official comments, "I think they are all scumbags and the reason there is so much confusion is that everyone 'feels' that somehow, somewhere, Weldon is doing what the administration wants him to do."

So, was the administration giving a nod and a wink to Weldon and Defense Solutions? I'm not so sure, but that's certainly the impression the company would like to make.

[Image: U.S. Government]

ALSO:

U.S. Air Dominance Prevents Iran Attack?

2008-07-08T08:59:00-07:00

The Christian Science Monitor surveys the usual experts, and declares that a U.S. attack on Iran is "not coming soon." So does that mean the Israelis might bomb Iran's nuclear facilities on their own? They might be able to pull off a preventive strike. But Robert Kaplan, writing for the Atlantic, doesn't think the Israelis will do it. And he's got a counter-intuitive reason why: "because of the on-going Iraq war, the U. S.' controls the airspace over the entry points to Iran: in Iraq and in the Persian Gulf."

Thus, an Israeli attack on Iran could probably only happen with U. S. connivance… As a sort of a last hurrah, one might speculate that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney would let Israel bomb Iran with a wink and a nod. But I do not believe that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates would do so...

Bottom line: precisely because the U. S. dominates the airspace around Iran, it has checkmated itself. Israel will find it very hard to pull America’s chestnuts out of the fire in Iran. An Israeli attack is, in the last analysis, still unlikely.

According to CSIS' Tony Cordesman, Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen told the Israelis last week that they did not have an American green light to go hit Iran.

(Photo: airforce-technology.com; good aim: War & Piece)

ALSO:

Super Suit for Sale on eBay

2008-07-08T08:38:00-07:00

Troy Hurtubise spent seven years and $150,000 to build an armored get-up that would let him survive a grizzly bear attack. The idea was to let him study the animals up close. But while the Ursus Mark VI suit scared off a bear or two, it never quite provided the required protection. Now, despite a movie documenting his exploits, Hurtubise is deep in debt. So he's auctioning off the Ursus Mark VI. Right now, the winning bid stands at US $1675.00.

But we probably need to pass $40,000 before Troy's debts associated with the Suit are cleared and he can personally benefit from the proceeds. Serious bids only please. Shipping not provided. Pick up is in Toronto or Burlington, Ontario. Item only being sold "as is-where is."

It's not the suit-maker's first auction. You can buy the Ursus Mark VI for yourself, the eBay page suggests. Or you can give it to a museum. Or you can give it back to Hurtubise, "if you want to be his hero!"

ALSO:

Chad = 'Pacific War for Helicopters'

2008-07-08T07:12:00-07:00

That’s how French Army Colonel Jean-Yves Bouillaud describes his battalion’s mission in eastern Chad. Bouillaud commands the EUFOR (European Force) Multinational Aviation Battalion, a mélange of French, Austrian, Polish and Russian pilots flying an equally eclectic mix of helicopters.

The unit is based at Abeche, near the border with Sudan. Right now, there are just six choppers – all French at the moment, since the Polish and Russian aircraft are still deploying – to cover a region the size of Texas. Hence the comparison to World War II’s vast Pacific theater.

It’s the battalion’s job to ferry people and supplies to the remotest EUFOR outposts, to scout for bandits threatening refugees and aid workers and, if necessary, to attack the bandits with rockets, guns, missiles and snipers firing out the choppers’ side doors.

The current birds are a mix of French Gazelles and Pumas, both designs with their roots in the 1960s. They’re simple, tough, easily repaired and they can cope with Chad’s intense heat and powerful sandstorms.

I tried to imagine a more modern chopper in this environment – say, a French Tiger or NH-90 – and had visions of high technology plummeting from the sky with sand fouling up the electronics. The Poles and Russians are bringing Russian-made Mil Hips, another ‘60s design that is renowned for its durability. EUFOR’s intentional tech backwardness reminds me of the Aussies in East Timor. The Aussies postponed retirement of old Kiowa choppers because the aged birds were better than anything else in Timor’s hot, humid climate.

It’s a good thing the U.S. Army ditched its plans for a fleet of high-tech, stealthy RAH-66 Comanche choppers, instead opting for more, cheaper, tougher UH-72s and ARH-70s. What we need in this age of persistent, low-intensity conflict is not small fleets of ultra-sophisticated aircraft, but larger numbers of simpler birds that we can fly through the mud and sand, hit with hammers and wrenches, cram into the cargo holds of C-130s and fly mercilessly for months at a time in searing heat.

Back to Bouillaud. The key to his unit’s success in the coming year won’t be high technology, but something far more basic: trucks. Because of the vast distances involved in patrolling eastern Chad, the choppers need lots of refueling points scattered all over the map.

For that, EUFOR outfitted Bouillaud’s unit with lots and lots of trucks, to the point where the battalion looks like a hybrid chopper-trucker unit. The mechanics ride out in big convoys, set up fuel bags and pumps and await the thirsty birds swooping down from Chad’s scorching blue sky.

(Photo: me)

Five for Fighting 7/8/08

2008-07-08T06:37:09-07:00

* Car bombs way down in Iraq...

* ...Troop withdrawal in the works?

* IAEA Chief: Never mind that new Iran nuke timeline

* Air Force won't buy sats

* Body armor shenanigans continue

Military UFOs: The Truth (Updated)

2008-07-08T00:01:00-07:00

It's official. What the conspiracy theorists have been saying for years is true: There are UFOs out there in space -- operated by the US military, and manufactured by Boeing in El Segundo, California at a cost of over $1.9 billion. (And you thought it was Lockheed?)

Check it out for yourself. But be warned: UFOs are rarely what they seem...

"The U.S. Navy began replacing and upgrading its ultra-high frequency (UHF) satellite communications network during the 1990s with a constellation of customized satellites built by Hughes Space and Communications Company, which is now Boeing. Known as the UHF Follow-On (UFO) series, these 601 model satellites support the Navy's global communications network, serving ships at sea and a variety of other U.S. military fixed and mobile terminals."

It's not clear who decided on the name. But lines like "the UFO spacecraft has proven to be a very flexible platform for the evolution of critical advanced DOD [Department of Defense] communications services" are certainly eye-catching. Maybe the idea was give a little zing to an otherwise-ordinary project. Kind of like the product-tracking company that calls itself Alien Technology; the latest headline on their website is about a deal with "The Largest Sock Manufacturer In Europe."

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the House of Lords here in London due to give their decision on an extradition case involving Gary McKinnon. He's the British hacker whose online spree allegedly involved breaking into 73,000 US government computers, including the Army, Navy and NASA -- all in search of flying saucers.

McKinnon's approach could have been more rigorous, as he explained to British journalist Jon Ronson:

"The Americans have a secret spaceship?" I ask.

"That's what this trickle of evidence has led me to believe..."

"What were the ship names?"

"I can't remember," says Gary. "I was smoking a lot of dope at the time. Not good for the intellect."

In an interview with Wired News last month, McKinnon claimed that NASA satellite imagery of the Earth frequently contains pictures of UFOs which are airbrushed out of the final image. By hacking into a NASA computer, he says he managed to get a peek at one.

I had remote control of their desktop, and by adjusting it to 4-bit color and low screen resolution, I was able to briefly see one of these pictures. It was a silvery, cigar-shaped object with geodesic spheres on either side. There were no visible seams or riveting.

Unfortunately, he did not manage to save a copy of this picture.

All of which leads me to believe that, impressive as McKinnon's hacking skills may be, his information may be a bit suspect. He started from the point of believing that the US government was covering up UFOs. Therefore, a strange object on a satellite image is an alien spacecraft. When he finds a file marked 'non-terrestrial officers,' he assumes they must be spacemen. The names of ships not listed elsewhere must refer to a secret fleet spaceships.

In reality, there are people out there calling their satellites UFOs, dubbing tracking devices Alien Technology and indulging in other mischievous acts of naming. And Pentagon documents are invariably written as a dense thicket of acronyms and jargon -- they probably wouldn't a term anything like as lucid as 'non-terrestrial.'

Intelligence gathering requires intelligence, and I'm not convinced McKinnon has shown too much of that. But he has managed to embarrass a lot of people responsible for security, so if the Lords do decide to hand him over, I suspect he really will be facing a 70-year sentence.

And if you think you've found UFOs on the internet... double-check.

Update: By a curious twist of fate, this post itself briefly became part of the whole conspiracy theory, as seen from AboveTopSecret:

Censored 'Wired' Blog?
I was randomly googling 'ufo' thru google news and this page description came up:
Military UFOs: The Truth
Wired News - 14 hours ago
What the conspiracy theorists have been saying for years is true: There are UFOs out there in space -- operated by the US military, and manufactured by ... the page tho comes up as '404' page not found
...i have unable to find the blog entry through the Wired site... was it removed?

You couldn't make it up.

ALSO:

Most Awesomely Bad Military Acronyms 2

2008-07-07T19:12:00-07:00

We knew the military had an awesomely bad collection of acronyms. But we had no idea how many of 'em were this naughty. Here are a bunch, suggested by DANGER ROOM readers:

CEXC ("sexy"): Combined Explosives Exploitation Cell
suggested by BGG

PSS-SOF ("piss off"): Precision Strike Suite for Special Operations Forces
suggested by CF

ASTAG (sound it out yourself): Army Science and Technology Advisory Group
suggested by DD

ASRAAM (this one, too): Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile
suggested by Richard

DILDO: Direct Input Limited Duty Officer
suggested by SWO Daddy

PENIS: Practical Exercise, Not Involving Soldiers
suggested by Armor

What else should we include on our list of Most Awesomely Bad Military Acronyms ("MAMAs," for short)? Send us your suggestions, or leave 'em in the comments below.

Army Blogger Shut Down, Promoted

2008-07-07T13:41:00-07:00

Less than two weeks ago, "LT [Lieutenant] G," an outspoken Army blogger in Iraq, was ordered to stop posting to his site, after he openly criticized his bosses on-line. Now, the guy has been promoted -- and decorated for his actions in combat.

"LT G is no longer a lieutenant. On July 1, he was promoted to the rank of captain," writes the blogger's fiancee, on his former blog. In what I understand was a hilariously awkward ceremony, the Army...

honored multiple members of [G's unit,] the Gravediggers, as the entire platoon received awards for actioning into a firefight (I was unaware that actioning was a real word, but I am only passing on what CPT G told me). The cavalry guys received Combat Action Badges, while the infantry guys received Combat Infantry Badges. Same award, just different names for different branches...

G also has a new commanding officer. Could an eventual return to blogging be in the cards?

ALSO:

* Bosses Delete Outspoken Army Blog
* Leading General Tells Troops to Start Blogging
* Air Force Backtrack on Social Network Ban
* Navy Hearts Blogs
* Military Report: Secretly 'Recruit or Hire Bloggers'
* Coast Guard Fires Blogger
* Coast Guard Hates the Internet, Maybe
* If You're Gonna Get Blocked by the Air Force...
* Who Gets Through the Air Force's Blog Block?
* Facebook Threatens Soldiers, Canada Says
* Army: Wikis Too Risky
* U.S. Starting to Wake Up to Media War?
* Top General: Let Soldiers Blog
* U.S. Enlists Arab Bloggers for Info War
* Bloggers vs. Terrorists?
* Army Gearing Up for Info War (Finally)
* Terrorists Keep Blogs, Too
* Army Bullies Blogger, Invades YouTube
* British Military Gags Blogs
* Army Audit: Official Sites, Not Blogs, are Security Threat
* Military Security Threat: Bogus Bomb-Zapper's Bogus Countermeasure
* Military Hypes, Bans YouTube
* Petraeus Hearts Milblogs
* No More YouTube, MySpace for U.S. Troops
* Milblogs Boost War Effort
* Pentagon Whispers; Milbloggers Zip Their Lips
* Clarifying the Blog Rule Clarification
* Army to Bloggers: We Won't Bust You. Promise.
* Army's Blog Rebuttal
* Stop Those Leaks!
* Strategic Minds Debate Milblog Crackdown
* Milblog Bust: AP Gets Snowed
* Army: Milblogging is "Therapy," Media is "Threat"
* Urban Legend Led to Army Blog-Bust?
* New Army Rules Could Kill G.I. Blogs (Maybe E-mail, Too)
* Reporters = Foreign Spies?
* Army's Info-Cop Speaks

"Sky Walker" Drone Will Mimic Albatross

2008-07-07T13:00:00-07:00

The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding work on a biologically inspired drone that mimics the flight of the albatross.

The unmanned aerial vehicle, called Sky Walker, is being developed by the Morpheus Lab, which supports NASA Langley. "The grey headed albatross routinely circumnavigates the globe during its migration," says lab director Dr. James E. Hubbard, Jr. "They can make the 13,000 mile trip in about 48 days by exploiting energy available in the atmosphere."

The key to the Sky Walker is taking advantage of convective energy in the atmosphere to enhance the drone's endurance.

Chad's God-Awful Combat Rations

2008-07-07T12:03:00-07:00

Forget the heat, the sandstorms, the crushing boredom and even the scorpions, spiders and snakes ... the worst thing about being a peacekeeper out in the eastern Chadian desert is: the food.

Especially if you happen to be Polish, or a guest of the Polish contingent.

God bless those brave Poles. A hundred troops from the new NATO member and staunch U.S. ally flew to Iriba, eastern Chad, in April to begin building a large base for follow-on forces. In July these new forces will begin patrolling around Chad's sprawling refugee camps. Their lives will be austere. But for the Polish advance party, life is positively primitive. They crap in holes. They sleep on cots in tents that have a habit of blowing away in the wind. And for half their meals they eat the same God-awful Polish military combat rations.

Each ration pack contains: dried tea, dried coffee, lots and lots of sugar, plus two -- that's right, TWO -- different types of canned, processed, pureed meat and four tiny, rock-hard biscuits (pictured). You can almost force down the smoother of the two meats if you can find mustard or ketchup and a couple slices of bread. But the chunkier meat looks, and tastes, like roadkill. One night over a dinner of rations, one Irish soldier speculated, in total seriousness, that the rations had been stored in a bunker since the Cold War and dragged out because, after decades of storage, they were finally going bad.

On the plus side, rumor has it that each biscuit contains just enough fiber to counteract the gut-clogging effects of the canned meat.

(Photo: me)

ALSO:

FBI Headquarters Can't Handle 'Sensitive Info'

2008-07-07T10:00:00-07:00

The FBI has had all sorts of embarrassing infrastructure issues, in recent years: G-men without e-mail, computers gone missing, crook-catching database projects falling apart. The latest insult comes from a Senate Appropriations Committee report, which notes that the Bureau's headquarters "does not meet the... criteria for a secure Federal facility capable of handling intelligence and other sensitive information."

The FBI "has the lead responsibility for domestic surveillance of foreign intelligence and suspected terrorist targets. So it seems like a rather crippling defect that the J. Edgar Hoover Building... cannot satisfy government standards for storage and use of classified intelligence records," Secrecy News' Steven Aftergood observes, ever-so-dryly.

The Commitee wants the Government Accountability Office (GAO) "to review the Hoover Building and associated off-site locations, and provide a analysis of the FBI's ability to fulfill its mission and security requirements under the present circumstances." Given the Bureau's less-than-stellar track record of cooperating with the GAO, such an investigation may take a long, long time.

ALSO:

Forgery Alleged in Weldon Firm's Iraqi Arms Deal (Updated)

2008-07-07T09:07:00-07:00

Pennsylvania-based arms-dealer Defense Solutions has already worked on a number of questionable ventures in the new international weapons bazaar. It negotiated a partnership with Russia's state weapons agency, which is on a U.S. government blacklist; it's looking to arms deals in Libya, which is still under specific sanctions on weapons sales. Now the company -- which employs Curt Weldon, a former Congressman under FBI investigation -- wants to corner the market on Ukrainian-supplied armored personnel carriers to Iraq. But a Ukrainian official says his signature has been forged on a document claiming there's an agreement with Defense Solutions.

One of the contracts aggressively pursued by Defense Solutions was a foreign military sale potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars to provide the BTR-3E, a Ukrainian-produced armored vehicle, to Iraq. Defense Solutions marketed itself, according to documents provided to DANGER ROOM, as having an arrangement with Ukraine to be the only supplier of the BTR-3E to Iraq. Defense Solutions' claim to exclusivity was supported by a letter bearing the signature of Andri Veselovsky, Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister, and addressed to Ambassador Stephan Minikes, a senior advisor to Defense Solutions. The letter claimed Ukrspetseksport, the Ukrainian state weapons export agency, and its subsidiary, Ukroboronservice, were on board with the exclusive deal.

Such an arrangement would have virtually guaranteed Defense Solutions the lucrative contract, knocking out any competing arms brokers.

But the February 2008 letter from Andri Veselovsky to Defense Solutions is of dubious origin. In an e-mail to DANGER ROOM, Veselovsky, whose name and signature appears on the letter and is now Ukraine’s Ambassador to the European Union, denies signing the letter.

“I would like to officially state that the signature on the letter attached in your e-mail is NOT mine,” he wrote DANGER ROOM, after reviewing the document.

Asked in a recent interview with DANGER ROOM whether he was familiar with the February letter from Veselovsky, Defense Solutions CEO Timothy Ringgold initially replied: “Yes, absolutely,” adding that Defense Solutions had sought out additional confirmations from the Ukrainian government to prove it had an exclusive deal. But after I told Ringgold that Veselovsky had denied signing the letter, Ringgold then said he was unsure about the whole matter. Asked why Veselovsky would deny signing it, he replied: “I have no idea.” Later in the interview when asked again about the letter, Ringgold suddenly said he was now unsure whether he had ever seen the letter, saying: “I don’t remember there being a letter. I remember there being an e-mail.”

Ringgold’s claim is that his company was essentially misled by the Ukrainians. He said that their agreement was with a subordinate company, Ukroboronservice (he provided DANGER ROOM with a copy of his company's signed agreement with Ukroboronservice). Ukrspetseksport, the parent company, did an “end run” around them, according to Ringgold. “You’re getting to the heart of one of the challenges of being an American company in a different culture, an Eastern bloc country,” he said.

So what about the origin of the February 2008 letter, which Veselovsky denies signing? Ringgold for his part, pointed the finger at Minikes, who he said provided it to Defense Solutions. Minikes did not respond to phone and e-mail messages left for him, asking him for comment.

To read more about the dealings of Defense Solutions, and former Congressman Curt Weldon's involvement in the company, read this story on Wired.com.

[Image: armyrecognition.com]

Update: Timothy Ringgold, the CEO of Defense Solutions wrote DANGER ROOM to express some objections with this post. His letter, with our answers, follows......

Ringgold writes: Your article of July 7, 2008 11:07 a.m. has a number of significant inaccuracies, not he least of which deals with your allegation of forgery:

As I informed you during our phone conversation, I have no knowledge of a "letter" from Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister, but I am aware of an email dated February 25, 2008 received from the Deputy Foreign Minister. Since I spoke with the Deputy Foreign Minister after receiving it, I think it safe to conclude the email was genuine.

[DR: The forgery allegation is not ours; it is Veselovsky's. He stated quite clearly it is not his signature on the letter. When asked about the Veselovsky letter during the interview, Ringgold acknowledged it, until he was told the Veselovsky denied signing it.]

Ringgold writes: As Defense Solutions is unaware of any "letter" allegedly from the Deputy Foreign Minister, has never claimed to have such a letter, never used such a letter, and never seen such a letter from you or anyone else -- AND I told you that in plain language -- your article is flat wrong to report "Defense Solutions' claim to exclusivity was supported by a letter bearing the signature of Andri Veselovsky, Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister,.....". We have never made such a claim.

[DR: See above. During a lengthy phone call, Col. Ringgold first acknowledged the Veselovsky letter; the letter is available in the post. Now, Ringgold says it's an "e-mail" from Veselovsky.]

As reported to the US Government, our claim of exclusivity is based on the signed, sealed, and registered documents from the Director General of State Company Ukroboronservice. As you were also informed, but failed to report, Defense Solutions was directed to work solely with State Company Ukroboronservice by the Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States. The Director General of the parent company UkrSpetsExport (misspelled in your article) confirmed that State Company Ukroboronservice had the authority, granted in writing, to conduct negotiations with Defense Solutions, Inc.

[DR: Ukroboronservice is under Ukrspetseksport. The article doesn't challenge Defense Solutions' agreement with Ukroboronservice; it raises the issue of whether the company has an agreement with the parent agency, Ukrspetseksport. As for misspelling, well I'm afraid that "UkrSpetsExport" is also transliterated as Ukrspetseksport (that's what a fancy East European studies graduate degree and two years living in Ukraine gets you!); in fact, that's the proper transliteration. Both spellings are used on official Ukrainian websites.]

Ringgold writes: Your claim that Defense Solutions was using forged documents to promote its claim of exclusivity to provide the BTR-3E1 (the nomenclature also misreported in your article) is wrong, you were told it was wrong, and you reported it anyway knowing it was wrong.

[DR: We reported Defense Solutions' side of the story, including the fact that Ringgold denied knowing about the letter and that the company also showed DANGER ROOM a copy of an agreement with Ukroboronservice. Like the case of the Libyan sales proposal, which Ringgold denies knowing about it, we acknowledge there are claims and counter-claims involved with the company's dealings. Finally, the BTR-3E1 is a variant of the BTR-3E. In the case of this story, noting the exact variant was not relevant.]

ALSO:

New Ride for China's 'Elite' Cops: Segway

2008-07-07T08:16:00-07:00

American companies like Cisco and IBM have been blasted, for helping the Beijing regime keep its grip on China. Will Dean Kamen and the makers of the Segway transporter come under similar criticism, now that "Chinese elite anti-terror police officers are wheeling into action ahead of next month's Beijing Olympics on [their] two-wheeled scooters?" The Daily Mail presents the photographic evidence for this new union of thought-controlled contraptions and thought-controlling Communists:

(Way to roll: RYP, who quips, "Ya gotta love a country that turns a Segway into a tool of oppressing the masses... I can envision a drunk man with shopping bags trying to block their path."

Biometric Scans Find U.S. Crooks in Iraq, Afghanistan

2008-07-07T07:21:00-07:00

Since 9/11, the U.S. government has fingerprinted, iris-scanned, and face-captured hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Horn of Africa. Some have been insurgents or detainees; some prospective policemen, or just ordinary folks looking to get back into their homes. "Hundreds have turned out to share an unexpected background, FBI and military officials tell the Washington Post. "They have criminal arrest records in the United States."

Maybe it's just the law of averages, working itself out; scan enough people, and some of 'em are going to have been in trouble with the law. (Especially when some of the biometric databases are built on Saddam-era criminal records.) Maybe it implies more sinister connections between jihadists, worldwide.

In December 2001, for instance, an FBI team was sent to Afghanistan "to fingerprint and interview foreign fighters as if they were being booked at a police station," the Post recounts.

...[When] they analyzed the results, they were surprised to learn that one out of every 100 detainees was already in the FBI's database for arrests. Many arrests were for drunken driving, passing bad checks and traffic violations, FBI officials said.

Phil Carter says there's a "tremendous opportunity" here, to combine the information gathered up by law enforcement and the data collected by the military. And he's right, of course. You could imagine a kind of global version of New York's famous policing strategy, where arrests for small crimes lead to the capture of serious terrorists. But you could also envision some truly heinous violations of civil liberties; driving after a few beers could lead to accusations of being in bed with Osama.

(Good eye: Kris)

ALSO:

Five for Fighting 7/7/08

2008-07-07T02:00:00-07:00

* U.S. pulls uranium from Iraq...

* ...reconsiders sonic blasters for China

* Prosthesis turns thoughts into words

* Jammers helped free Colombia hostages

* NYPD unveils news anti-terror boats

The Microwave Scream Inside Your Skull

2008-07-06T07:00:18-07:00

The U.S. military bankrolled early development of a non-lethal microwave weapon that creates sound inside your head. But in the end, the gadget may be just as likely to wind up in shopping malls as on battlefields, as I report in New Scientist.

The project is known as MEDUSA – a contrived acronym for Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio. And it should not be confused with the Long Range Acoustic Device and similar gadgets which simply project sound. This one uses the so-called "microwave auditory effect": a beam of microwaves is turned into sound by the interaction with your head. Nobody else can hear it unless they are in the beam as well.

The effect has long been a laboratory curiosity, with no application. But, over the years, the military has been intrigued. The idea (dubbed "the telepathic ray gun") was mentioned in a 1998 US Army study, which turned up in a recent Freedom of Information Act document dump. Five years later, the Navy decided to put some R&D dollars into the project. Now, as I note on the New Scientist website, Dr. Lev Sadovnik of the Sierra Nevada Corporation has provided more details.

There are health risks, he notes. But the biggest issue from the microwave weapon is not the radiation. It's the risk of brain damage from the high-intensity shockwave created by the microwave pulse. Clearly, much more research is needed on this effect at the sort of power levels that Dr. Sadovnik is proposing. But if it does prove hazardous, that does not mean an end to weapons research in this area: a device that delivered a lethal shockwave inside the target's skull might make an effective death ray.

Dr. Sadovnik also makes the intriguing suggestion that, instead of being used at high power to create an intolerable noise, it might be used at low power to produce a whisper that was too quiet to perceive consciously but might be able to subconsciously influence someone. The directional beam could be used for targeted messages, such as in-store promotions. Sadovnik even suggests subliminal advertising, beaming information that is not consciously heard (a notion also spotted on the US Army's voice-to-skull page). While the effectiveness of subliminal persuasion is dubious, I can see there might be some organizations interested in this capability. And if that doesn't work, you could always point the thing at birds. They seem to be highly sensitive to microwave audio, so it might be used to scare flocks away from wind farms -- or shoo pigeons from city streets.

ALSO:

Exclusive: Ex-Congressman at Center of Arms Deals Between Russia, Libya, Iraqi Army

2008-07-03T15:39:38-07:00

Former congressman Curt Weldon is helping broker deals between Russian and Ukranian weapons suppliers and the Iraqi and Libyan governments as part of his new job with a private American defense consulting firm, Wired.com has learned.

Weldon, who is currently being investigated by the FBI over alleged corruption during his time in office, visited Libya in March to discuss a possible military deal, according to a letter describing the trip from Weldon to Defense Solutions CEO Timothy Ringgold. In May, Weldon, together with Ringgold and another company representative, traveled to Moscow to discuss working with Russia's weapons-export agency on arms sales to the Middle East.

Read the full article on Wired.com....

ALSO:

DANGER! Fourth of July Science Friday, C-Span Washington Journal

2008-07-03T12:00:00-07:00

For those of you looking looking for an atomic fix on July 4, I'll be talking about nuclear tourism on NPR's Science Friday at 3 PM. For the early birds out there, Nathan Hodge and I will also be talking nukes on C-SPAN's Washington Journal at 7:30 AM.

Happy Fourth of July!

Chad's Courteous Phone Thieves

2008-07-03T09:44:00-07:00

If you've ever spent an entire day trying, and failing, to make one important phone call, as I just did here in sunny Chad, you might understand how tenuous communications are in a place like Central Africa.

So it's no wonder that Thuraya satellite phones are among the hottest items in the whole region ... and why these handy little phones are at the top of bandits' and rebels' wish lists.

Thefts of cars and phones are among the most frequent security incidents in eastern Chad. The U.N., which oversees scores of aid groups here, has reported more than a hundred in the past couple years. What's funny is that some of Chad's largest rebel groups -- those targeting President Idriss Deby's corrupt regime -- are sometimes quite polite about their crimes.

My friend Alfy Burger, who works for aid group CARE in Chad, describes how rebels often will steal a group's SUV, with a Thuraya inside, then call the group on the Thuraya to confirm whom they just robbed. If the respondent says they're with an aid group, the rebels often will apologize and promise to return the vehicle as soon as they're done with it. "But they always say, 'Sorry -- I'm keeping the Thuraya,'" Alfy says.

Not all of Chad's armed parties are so nice. There are dozens of rebel groups, each with their own aims. Some target Deby. Others are based here in Chad, sometimes in refugee camps, but cross the border into Sudan to attack Khartoum and its forces in Darfur. Plus, there are bandits with no particular political grievance. And then there are marauding Chadian army soldiers, who are perhaps most dangerous in some places because they can move around in the open and justify anything they do as state prerogative.

So when you're an E.U. peacekeeping force (French soldier pictured) whose job it is to protect aid workers and refugees from all threats, how do you decide who's a threat? Carefully, according to one Irish soldier I spoke to. Sometimes you have to wait until they open fire.

Which is exactly what happened two weeks ago in Goz Beida, in eastern Chad. Someone opened fire on an Irish patrol. Exactly who they were, is hard to say. The Irish fired a few rounds into the air ... and the bad guys scampered.

(Photo: me)

ALSO:

Mullen Agrees with Obama on Iraq, Afghanistan?

2008-07-03T09:02:00-07:00

Did the country's top uniformed military leader endorse the Obama plan for Iraq and Afghanistan yesterday? In a briefing at the Pentagon, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said he wants more troops in Afghanistan -- but can't get 'em until forces are taken out of Iraq:

Let me also say just a word about Afghanistan. I am and have been for some time now deeply troubled by the increasing violence there. The Taliban and their supporters have, without question, grown more effective and more aggressive in recent weeks and as the casualty figures clearly demonstrate...

I've made no secret of my desire to flow more forces, U.S. forces, to Afghanistan just as soon as I can, nor have I been shy about saying that those forces will not be available unless or until the situation in Iraq permits us to do so.

There's no easy solution, and there will be no quick fix. More troops are necessary, and some of our NATO allies have recently committed to sending more of their own, but they won't fully ever be sufficient. We need and are pursuing a broader interagency international approach, one that includes infrastructure improvement, foreign investment and economic incentives, and I'm hopeful these efforts will begin to pay off in the near future. But we all need to be patient. As we have seen in Iraq, counterinsurgency warfare takes time, and it takes a certain level of commitment. It takes flexibility.

Obviously, Mullen hasn't openly embraced Obama's call for a large-scale troops withdrawal. But, even so, the Chairman's remarks sound an awful lot like Barack Obama has been saying for a while, to my ears. Here's an example:

It is not too late to prevail in Afghanistan. But we cannot prevail until we reduce our commitment in Iraq... providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our efforts in Afghanistan. This increased commitment in turn can be used to leverage greater assistance - with fewer restrictions - from our NATO allies. It will also allow us to invest more in training Afghan security forces, including more joint NATO operations with the Afghan Army, and a national police training plan that is effectively coordinated and resourced.

A stepped up military commitment must be backed by a long-term investment in the Afghan people. We will start with an additional $1 billion in non military assistance each year - aid that is focused on reaching ordinary Afghans. We need to improve daily life by supporting education, basic infrastructure and human services. We have to counter the opium trade by supporting alternative livelihoods for Afghan farmers. And we must call on more support from friends and allies, and better coordination under a strong international coordinator.

Funny, the other day you had team Obama endorsing a second term for Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Now you've got Mullen giving Obama cover for his positions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hmmmmm...

Anyway, over at Abu Muquwama, "Dr. iRack" notes that Mullen has been making similar warnings about Afghanistan for months.

Talking heads like Michael O'Hanlon worry that that moving troops from Iraq to Afghanistan might "throw away what you've been able to succeed in doing in one place in the hope that you might help a mission where you're having relative failure elsewhere." And, frankly, a drawdown makes me nervous, too. (Although, a little less so lately, since Iraqi forces have been stepping up.)

To Dr. iRack, "thinks this represents a false, zero-sum way of thinking.

Indeed, this is the danger of assuming that we need to max-out our presence in Iraq to "win" there (whatever that means), and not thinking about how a gradual, conditional redeployment from Iraq might be leveraged to generate success in Iraq and free up resources for Afghanistan. O'Hanlon and others who appear to share this view (including McCain) are stuck in the "all in" in Iraq until "victory" mode without a way to actually get there... or avoid defeat in Afghanistan.

ALSO:

Video: Unmanned Quad-Rotorcraft

2008-07-03T07:00:00-07:00

Get ready for reports of UFO sightings. This video shows, which is a lot of fun to watch, shows STARMAC, the Stanford Testbed of Autonomous Rotorcraft for Multi-Agent, described as "a testbed of 6 quadrotor helicopter unmanned aerial vehicles that fly indoors and outdoors to experiment with autonomous agent algorithms."

Spies Want a Second Life of Their Own

2008-07-03T04:09:00-07:00

First, American spooks said they wanted to scour Second Life and other virtual worlds for terrorists. Then, they said that kids who hang out in those digital spaces may be unfit to join the intelligence community. Now, the country's spies want to build a Second Life of their own. And they want it to have a time machine.

The project, dubbed "A-SpaceX," is designed to create a host of "synthetic worlds" where intelligence analysts can not only share data with one another, but "also with themselves and their previous states of thought about a problem. Analysts will be able to explore their own past thinking about the data as well as enabling the proactive exploration of how that data might change in the future," according to a military announcement. The effort is a collaboration between the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the newly-formed Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA).

"We cannot control the types of problems that future analysts might face. We cannot control the demands for understanding information and the pressure for faster decision making," the announcement adds. "We can, however, provide the analyst with an environment that encourages creativity, reasoning, collaboration with internal and external experts... within a multi-dimensional information rich synthetic world.

However, unlike players of World of Warcraft or Eve Online, A-SpaceX's analysts will be able to turn back the clock, and see how they arrived at conclusions. "We believe a key dimension of exploring changing data will be the ability to manipulate time in the synthetic worlds – in effect turning these worlds into Time Machines," the announcement notes. And those machines ought to be able to go forward, as well. "Proactive analysis could be explored by applying predictive models that look forward in time and suggest indicators leading to future events."

This new effort builds on A-Space, an intelligence community collaboration tool that's under development. When completed, it is supposed to allow spooks to instant message, blog, share documents and photos, trade competing hypotheses, and do Facebook-style social networking.

However, A-SpaceX goes several, several steps further -- designing a whole virtual world for spies, not just their answer to MySpace. Which leads some in the intelligence community to be downright skeptical of the program. "They can't do plain old forensics right and they're going to develop a mechanism that rolls the clock backwards and forwards based on multiple inputs?" one source asks. "It should be good R&D, but its just that: no chance this becomes operational in a meaningful timeframe."

An open planning meeting for A-SpaceX is scheduled for next Tuesday, July 8th, in College Park, Maryland. Originally, folks were going to be able to "attend" the meeting "via a web simulcast and via Second Life." But those plans had to be scrapped.

ALSO:

Army Funds Wild New Rotorcraft Concepts

2008-07-03T00:01:00-07:00

The Pentagon loves to study future aircraft concepts, but finding the money to build them is another matter. Another problem is getting more the military services to work together.

For years, the Army and the Air Force have gone back and forth on concepts for a heavy lift aircraft that can takeoff and land on undeveloped airstrips, transporting weapons and equipment.

Now called Joint Heavy Lift, or JHL, both the Air Force and Army have signed on to this requirement, which is looking at a number of rotorcraft concepts. And, little surprise, they're funding more studies to see what sort of rotorcraft might work best. "The first of three contracts to extend previous concept definition and analysis (CDA) work for another two years has been awarded, with the others to follow over the next week or two, says the Army’s Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD)," Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. "Contracts are being awarded to Bell-Boeing for the Quad Tilt Rotor, Karem Aircraft/Lockheed Martin for the Optimum Speed Tilt Rotor and Sikorsky for the coaxial-rotor X2 High Speed Lifter."

Another idea, but this one funded by NASA, is the Variable Diameter Tilt Rotor (VDTR), discussed at some length by Graham Warwick in a blog post on ARES (he also wrote the article on the contract awards).

Joint Heavy Lift, under various guises, has been around for a while now. What's new? Last time around, the focus was on carrying something that could fit in a C-130, but well, times have changes and the Army's multi-billion dollar Future Combat System, the system that needs to be carted to the battlefield, has gotten gained weight. Now, Aviation Week report, the requirement is around 30 tons.

It would be amusing to trace the history and names of all the concepts that have been considered for this intratheater cargo aircraft requirement. For fun, you could scroll through Globalsecurity.org's pages on the concepts and programs under future rotorcraft and heavy lift, of which there are many.

[Image: Bell Helicopters]