MORE MILITARY SATELLITES ON THE WAY
The U.S. military is growing increasingly reliant on satellites to direct precision bombs, relay soldiers' orders, and give a picture of the battleground. But such dependence is only the beginning, the New York Times reports.

12 national-security space launches are scheduled for 2003; only one was conducted last year. On March 10, the military launched a $200 million satellite for relaying voice and data communications. An Air Force GPS satellite is set to be sent into the skies later today.

BW WOWED BY MILITARY TECH
BusinessWeek doing a cover story on "The Doctrine of Digital War?" Cool. BusinessWeek using headlines like "Point, Click...Fire: Awesome technology gets a helluva field test?" Puh-leeze.

Why do hyper-skeptical editors suddenly fall to their knees when military hardware is rolled out?

Go read Drew Park's expose of EDS (in the same issue) instead.

TEN TYPES OF DRONES IN IRAQ
Turn on the tube, and the only drones you'll see operating in Iraq are the Predators and Global Hawks. But there are at least ten different types of unmanned planes being used by the U.S. military in Gulf War II, according to Aviation Week.

Drones listed by the Pentagon included the Army's Hunter, Pointer and Shadow; the Marine Corps' Dragon Eye and Pioneer; and the Air Force's Force Protection Surveillance System, Global Hawk and Predator. The brand-new Silver Fox, first reported here, was not mentioned.

In Afghanistan, only three types of drones were used.

THERE'S MORE: "In the Army of the future, a (3000-5000 person) brigade would bring to the battle no less than 200 unmanned aircraft, ranging from small platoon-class vehicles to larger, high-endurance aircraft equipped with heat-seeking missiles," according to National Defense magazine.

U.S. MILITARY BANS REPORTERS' SATELLITE PHONES
U.S. Central Command has told reporters embedded with military units in Iraq to shut off their Thuraya satellite phones, Reuters says. The phones could be used to zero in on where troops are -- they're equipped with GPS, and have a location-finding system that's accurate to 100 meters. Phones from Thuraya's military-backed rival, Iridium, aren't as precise.

(via /.)

AL JAZEERA HACKERS: LAME
The hacking of al Jazeera's website has many Defense Tech readers wondering: "Is this (the work of) a new breed of patriotic, nationalistic hacker? Or is some tenuous propaganda arm of our own government involved?"

Neither. It's a cry for attention by a couple of no-skills "script kiddies" trying to show off to their sunken-chested pals.

"Every time there is a political target of opportunity, some kiddie will use it as justification for a (website) defacement or DOS (denial-of-service attack)," security researcher Robert Ferrell tells Wired News' Michelle Delio.

"This kind of thing goes on constantly. The only reason it's news at all is because...we happen to be at war with Iraq," he adds. "Al-Jazeera may be a major news service, but a website is a website, whether it belongs to Billy Bob or Time Warner. Knocking one off the Internet isn't a difficult proposition."

But it's a crime, nonetheless. Last year, 18 year-old Robert Lyttle defaced dozens of government websites, supposedly to show how easy it would be for terrorists to gain access to our national electronic infrastructure. The government thanked him with an FBI raid and a house arrest.

At the time, veteran hacker Oxblood Ruffin called Lyttle and his partner "pimply nitwits from the 'burbs out looking for some rep."

He added, "It's just this kind of stupidity that gives hacking a bad name."

NEXT UPDATE: MONDAY MARCH 31
Defense Tech will return on Monday.

AFTER-SCHOOL BEERS BECAME BATTLE PLAN FOR IRAQ
The U.S. military's battle plan for Iraq began as "a what-if session over beers among a handful of Army majors nearly 17 months ago," the National Journal reports in a must-read article.

They were all students at the Army's School for Advanced Military Studies, known colloquially as SAMS, at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where the Army's most promising planners take a graduate course in strategic campaigns. The young majors brainstormed about a march on Baghdad to dispose of Saddam Hussein. In its earliest versions, the plan envisioned a 125-day campaign by a U.S. force nearly twice the size of that now in Iraq.

Maj. Kevin Marcus, a SAMS graduate now attached to V Corps headquarters, helped develop the plan from a back-of-an-envelope exercise into a PowerPoint presentation that within days of being finished ended up on the desk of the president of the United States. Though any military campaign plan of the size of Iraqi Freedom has many midwives—and for this one, they include Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld himself, who prodded planners to think outside the box—Marcus saw it develop from infancy to fruition.

From the very beginning, he says, the need to synchronize a rapid, combined-arms campaign to seize the initiative with "shock and awe"—roughly the modern-day equivalent of armored blitzkrieg warfare—leapt out at planners determined to limit the opportunity for Iraqi forces to employ chemical weapons, wreak environmental havoc, or organize a coordinated defense. In bullfighter parlance, they wanted to go for a quick kill before the bull learned the trick of the cape...

Changes to Marcus' plan may have undermined its effectiveness, however.

Right up until the launch of the war, the plan kept changing... Just days before the war began, U.S. commanders had also seriously considered changing the battle plan to allow for a strategic pause at the key southern crossroads city of An Nasiriya. Such a pause would give U.S. forces time to accept the expected surrender of the 11th Division of the regular Iraqi army that defends that city, and give Republican Guard forces near Baghdad an opportunity to capitulate as well. The plan was dropped at the last minute...

By far the most dramatic and disruptive change to the battle plan, however, was Rumsfeld's decision last November to slash Central Command's request for forces. This single decision essentially cut the size of the anticipated assault force in half in the final stages of planning, and it had a ripple effect on Central Command and Army planning that continues to color operations to this day.

Notably, the Pentagon scrapped the Time Phased Force Deployment Data, or "TipFid," by which regional commanders would identify forces needed for a specific campaign, and the individual armed services would manage their deployments by order of priority. The result has meant that even as Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks was launching the war, forces identified for the fight continued to pour off ships in Kuwait, and not necessarily in the order of first priority.

BUNKER BUSTERS ON BAGHDAD
For the first time in Gulf War II, the U.S. Air Force has hit downtown Baghdad with "bunker busting" bombs. A B-2 stealth bomber dropped two of the 4,700-pound, satellite-guided GBU-28 munitions on a major communications tower on the east bank of Tigris River, according to Ha'Aretz.

The bunker-busters were parts of massive coalition bombing effort last night. Combat aircraft dropped bombs "just about as fast as we can load them," Capt. Thomas Parker, aboard the USS Kitty Hawk in the Persian Gulf, told the paper.

DRONES NOT REALLY "UNMANNED"
Just because they're called "unmanned aerial vehicles" doesn't mean they don't have a crew. StrategyPage looks at the assignments for the three-person team assigned to operate the Predator drone.

IRAQIS CAPTURE BRITISH DRONE
The Iraqi troops claim to have shot down and captured a British Army Phoenix drone near Basra, according to Jane's Defence Weekly.

The truck-launched, 5.5 meter wide Phoenix unmanned planes have been used for nearly five years as reconnaissance planes; they put in over 2,000 hours of flights over Kosovo.

But in Gulf War II, the drones took on a new mission: to identify targets for British artillery, like the AS90 155mm self-propelled howitzer and Multiple Launch Rocket System.

Unlike the Afghan conflict, we haven't heard much about drones getting shot down in Gulf War II. Why not? My guess is that the slow, steady bombing of Iraqi anti-aircraft positions in the months leading up to ground combat have given unmanned planes like the Predator unfettered access to the skies. And, of course, the Iraqis have tens of thousands of soldiers on the ground to worry about. Maybe they can't be bothered with a few robots in the air.

AIR FORCE PROGRAM MAY LET PILOTS SEE IN SANDSTORMS
Nature accomplished earlier this week what Iraq's Republican Guard could not: Blinding sandstorms paralyzed the American air campaign, grounding helicopters and cutting bombing runs by as much as 85 percent in some areas.

But there's an Air Force program in the works that may enable pilots to plow through just about any foe -- even an Iraqi sandstorm.

The solution is an onboard computer that digitally renders the pilots' surroundings when they can't rely on the real one to guide them. It's called "synthetic vision," and its backers are promising that the system will let pilots see in nasty weather, just like night-vision goggles let troopers roam around in the dark.

Read all about it in my latest Wired News story.

THERE'S MORE: An Air Force source believes that synthetic vision will be used more for drones than for manned aircraft. Seeing through a UAV's eyes is already tough; using them in a sandstorm is pretty much impossible. But operating a UAV while looking at a rendered world? That could work.

NORTHERN FRONT AIRLIFT BEGINS; IRAQI TANK COLUMN ENDS
"The U.S. military Thursday began airlifting troops, tanks and equipment for the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division into northern Iraq after about 1,000 paratroopers secured a key airfield in the country's Kurdish-controlled zone," according to CNN.

The U.S. military had originally hoped to send some 60,000 U.S. troops -- including the 4th Infantry Division -- into northern Iraq from Turkey, giving them an option to launch a pincer movement on Baghdad. But the Turkish government rejected the plan.

The airlift begins to give the U.S. the option of that second front. But it won't be ready for another week or so, Reuters reports.

In southern Iraq, British forces destroyed a column of 14 Iraqi T-55 tanks leaving Basra this morning in a "short, sharp engagement," according to the New York Times.

MINES DELAY AID
It's one of the trickiest, most dangerous jobs in a battlezone -- clearing mines from coastal waters. And right now, it's keeping food and medicine from flowing through the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr.

UPI reports that over the last 96 hours, coalition mine-hunters have been trying to map a safe channel through the waters to Umm Qasr. But they're finding a lot of "possible mine contacts" -- objects that may or may not be mines. So they're having to go through the nerve-wracking process of placing mine disposal charges next to these "contacts" and exploding them.

For the moment, there's no high-tech way to do this. Divers have to place the charges by hand -- although sometimes they'll get an assist from a dolphin. The Navy is working on drones that could handle the job; but they're not going to be ready for this war.

THERE'S MORE: There have been major problems distributing aid by land, as well. "Tens of thousands of prepared meals and ration kits of rice, oil, sugar and cereals destined for farms just north of the Iraqi border, had instead been hijacked soon after leaving Kuwait," the BBC reports.

AND MORE: The British aid ship Sir Galahad has finally landed in Umm Qasr with its cargo of humanitarian supplies.

SADDAM'S WEB SITE HACKED
After shakily surviving nearly a week of intense shelling in Baghdad, the Web site of the Iraq government has apparently fallen prey to hackers," Brian McWilliams writes. "Since Wednesday, some visitors to Uruklink.net have been surprised with a red-white-and-blue message that reads, 'Hacked, tracked, and NOW owned by the USA.'"

THERE'S MORE: "Something fishy" is going on with al Jazeera's website, too, a Defense Tech reader notes. So does Slashdot.

PATRIOTS AIM AT FRIENDLY FORCES -- AGAIN
This news is a bit old, but important just the same: Patriot missiles have once again locked their sights on to coalition aircraft, the Washington Post reports.

"A Patriot system about 30 miles south of the Iraqi city of Najaf apparently 'locked on' to an Air Force F-16 fighter and prepared to fire. The F-16 responded by firing a high-speed anti-radiation HARM missile at the battery, destroying its radar dish," according to the paper. "No one was injured in the strike -- and the F-16's response might have saved the crew's lives. But it came a day after a Patriot missile shot down a British Royal Air Force Tornado GR4 fighter near the Kuwaiti border, killing both crew members."

My recent Wired News story has details on the "new and improved" Patriots.

SECRET PAPERS STAY BURIED
Millions of 25-year-old secret documents, set to be declassified next month, will be kept clandestine until the end of 2006.

President Bush's executive order, however, doesn't alter the Clinton Administration's basic structures of declassification. Under that arrangement, about a billion pages of historical documents have been brought out into the open over the last seven years.

(via Secrecy News)

REPUBLICAN GUARD HEADING TOWARDS MARINES
"A large contingent of Iraq's elite Republican Guard headed south in a 1,000-vehicle convoy Wednesday toward U.S. Marines in central Iraq — an area that already has seen the heaviest fighting of the war," reports the Associated Press.

THERE'S MORE: The BBC is saying that "coalition warplanes are attacking a huge convoy of (Iraqi) tanks and armoured personnel carriers which are heading south-east from Basra towards the al-Faw peninsula.

AND MORE: Sandstorms continue to keep the 3rd Infantry's Apache helicopters on the ground, according to CNN. But the weather has eased up enough for fixed-wing airplanes to make close air support strikes, if needed.

NET-WAR DREAMS MATERIALIZING IN IRAQ
For years, military strategists' idea of nirvana has been "network-centric warfare" - the notion that infantrymen, pilots, drones, and generals will all share just about everything they see and hear over a new Internet for combat.

In Iraq, U.S. forces have come closer than they've ever been to reaching this goal. And it's not an entirely positive development.

Check out my Tech Central Station story for the benefits, and perils, of war on "Internet time."

NORTH KOREA: JAPAN SATELLITE LAUNCH WILL TRIGGER "SELF-DESTRUCTION"
The North Koreans have been uncharacteristically muted since Gulf War II began. Now they're getting back to their usual temper-tantrums.

"North Korea warned Wednesday that Japan would face 'self-destruction' if it puts a spy satellite into orbit," AFP reports. "Japan is due to launch its first two spy satellites on Friday, a move approved after North Korea fired a suspected medium-range Taepodong missile over the country into the Pacific in August 1998."

In early March, Pyongyang launched a short-range, anti-ship missile into the Sea of Japan.

THERE'S MORE: India and Pakistan are also reverting to their typically militaristic stances.

India has just test-fired a surface-to-surface 28-foot Prithvi missile, which can carry a one-ton nuclear warhead 93 miles. Pakistan has responded by launching a short-range missile of its own, according to AFP.

THE "E-BOMB" HAS LANDED
"The U.S. Air Force has hit Iraqi TV with an experimental electronmagetic pulse device called the 'E-Bomb' in an attempt to knock it off the air and shut down Saddam Hussein's propaganda machine," reports CBS News' David Martin.

Defense Tech's sources at the Air Force confirm the E-Bomb strike.

The weapon uses a burst of high-powered microwaves to disable electronics and fry circuitry. And it was successful in crippling Iraqi broadcasts -- for a little while. Within a few hours, however, the station was back on air, broadcasting with a weaker signal.

COALITION FORCES AIM TO "FIND AND FIX" IRAQI OPPOSITION
Jane's Defence Weekly has a fascinating analysis of what U.S. and British forces are trying to do over the next few days of the Iraqi campaign. The idea, Jane's says, is to "prepare the battlefield" for the advancing columns of U.S. armor. This is done through a process called "find and fix."

The Apaches of the 11th Aviation Brigade have been in action, trying to find and destroy Republican Guard tanks in the towns and villages south of Baghdad. E-8 Joint STARS surveillance aircraft and Hunter surveillance drones, flying from a forward airfield, are helping this effort, trying to locate Iraqi tank and artillery positions for coalition air strikes.

Once these efforts to 'find' the main Republican Guard positions have been successful, reconnaissance forces, including attack helicopters, will be sent into action to 'fix' them in their positions while the 3rd Infantry Division's three armoured brigades position themselves to strike.

This choreographing of forces on the battlefield is highly complex and tense for US commanders, but thanks to their new 'tactical internet' technology the problem of keeping track of US and Iraqi forces is proving far easier than in the 1990-91 war. Then US commanders had to track the movement of their forces on paper maps from fragmented radio reports. Now all their M1 MBTs have radio tracking devices so their positions are automatically displayed on computer screens in US headquarters.

The 'find and fix' phase of the battle is the most crucial for US commanders because they have a numerically inferior force to the Iraqis and have very exposed flanks and supply lines. If US reconnaissance forces and surveillance assets fail to find the Iraqis or misidentify the main Iraqi defensive positions then the US armoured brigades could be committed in the wrong place, exposing them to counter-attack while refuelling or re-arming. For this reason the US Army commanders are keen to bring up the 1st Marine Division from the Basra region as rapidly as possible. The force has been advancing along the northern bank of the Euphrates in two long columns.

ASHCROFT LIFTS FBI DATABASE LIMITS
"The Justice Department lifted a requirement Monday that the FBI ensure the accuracy and timeliness of information about criminals and crime victims before adding it to the country's most comprehensive law enforcement database," the Associated Press reports.

The system, run by the FBI's National Crime Information Center, includes data about terrorists, fugitives, warrants, people missing, gang members and stolen vehicles, guns or boats. The records -- inaccessible to the public -- are queried increasingly by the nation's law enforcement agencies to help decide whether to monitor, detain or arrest someone...

Critics have noted complaints for years about wrong information in the computer files that disrupted the lives of innocent citizens, and the FBI has acknowledged problems. In one case, a Phoenix resident was arrested for minor traffic violations that had been quashed weeks earlier; in another, a civilian was misidentified as a Navy deserter.

DETECTING NUKE DETECTORS
Radiation detectors are already in place all over America, Wired magazine reports. No one will say where.

But private companies and public security officials do acknowledge a three-tiered placement plan. The first tier is obvious: targets missed in the 9/11 attacks. This includes US government buildings like the White House and the Capitol, as well as made-for-TV targets like sports stadiums and Olympic venues. The second tier: bridges and tunnels leading to urban centers and national border crossings. And the third tier? Everything else. "Every proton and neutron out there deserves to be counted," says Jeff Chapman, a former Department of Energy physicist.

SANDSTORMS MAY SLOW BAGHDAD PUSH
A sandstorm was blowing in over U.S. troops advancing on Baghdad early on Tuesday, Reuters reports, Visibility is down to about 500 meters, making it tough for American Apache helicopters to fly. Those helicopters were part of a coalition assault near Kerbala on Republican Guard armored units. These forces are believed to be the outer ring of Saddam's final defenses.

THERE'S MORE: "Caught between their worry of a humanitarian disaster and stiffening resistance in Basra, Iraq's second-biggest city, the British Royal Marines said today that they had changed strategy and would now take the southern capital by force if necessary," reports the New York Times. "Up until now, coalition forces said they wanted to avoid urban combat in the urban center of Basra, where fedayeen militia forces have been operating."

U.S., BRITISH DISINFO CAMPAIGN REVEALED
Last month, documents supposedly showing Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Niger were exposed as obvious fakes. But these papers, trumpeted by American officials as evidence of Saddam's nefarious designs, weren't the first attempts by Western governments to fudge the truth about Iraqi weapon programs, Seymour Hersh writes in this week's New Yorker.

"Forged documents and false accusations have been an element in U.S. and British policy toward Iraq at least since the fall of 1997," he contends.

(At that time), at least one member of the U.N. inspection team (in Iraq) who supported the American and British position arranged for dozens of unverified and unverifiable intelligence reports and tips—data known as inactionable intelligence—to be funneled to (British intelligence) operatives and quietly passed along to newspapers in London and elsewhere.

'It was intelligence that was crap, and that we couldn’t move on, but the Brits wanted to plant stories in England and around the world,' the former officer said.

Saddam's a bad enough dude in his own right. Why bother making stuff up about him?

U.S.: GPS JAMMERS DON'T WORK
If the Iraqis are using Russian-made Global Positioning System (GPS) jammers, they're having no effect on the American air campaign, U.S. military officials claimed.

"The White House said Monday it had 'credible evidence' of Russian companies selling Iraq night-vision goggles, anti-tank weapons, and technology to jam satellite signals that U.S.-led forces could use to guide bombs and military aircraft," notes AFP.

According to the Washington Post, those firms include Aviaconversiya, which sells GPS jamming gear, and KBP Tula, which makes anti-tank missiles.

Russians officials have called the charges "completely baseless," according to CNN.

If the sales did go down, they're not interfering with American communication or bombing runs, U.S. Major General Stanley McChrystal said.

"In fact, we have been aware for some time of the possibility of GPS jammers being fielded, and what we found is, through testing and through actual practice now, that they are not having a negative effect on the air campaign at this point."

THERE'S MORE: While American GPS-directed bombs have a backup guidance system, StrategyPage wonders whether that backup -- with accuracy up to 100 feet -- is good enough for urban warfare. That could be the difference between a military target and a hospital, the website notes.

CHEMICAL "RED LINE" AROUND BAGHDAD?
Take this one with a big heaping tablespoon of salt: "Iraqis have drawn a red line on the map around Baghdad, and once American troops cross it, the Republican Guards are authorized to use chemical weapons," according to CBS News' David Martin.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't even bother passing along this kind of hearsay. But Martin's a pro's pro, not the kind to stir up rumor.

THERE'S MORE: British troops in southern Iraq have found gas masks in abandoned Iraqi encampments, BBC television reports.

AND MORE: 23 foot-long rockets have been found at a chemical plant near Basra, according to the Scotsman.

OSCARS SECURE
Star-fuckers, breathe easy: there wasn't a single security breach at last night's Academy Awards.

("Unless you count Chicago getting past the good taste detector," a Defense Tech reader quips.)

It's all thanks to a Texas Instruments system, the company is kind enough to inform us.

"The nearly 11,000 authorized attendees, guests and staff were required to wear an ID card, issued in advance of the event, which contained a TI (radio frequency emitter)," according to the electronics maker. "Five-foot tall kiosks, containing a computer monitor, (radio frequency ID) reader, and encased computer server, were placed in strategic locations at the Kodak Theater (where the Awards were being held)... Within one half second of the card being read at the kiosks, security personnel had access to information about the cardholder, including a photograph, name, physical descriptors, security clearances, and the date and time the credentials were active."

Phew!

FIRST DRONE STRIKE IN IRAQ
A Predator unmanned plane, equipped with Hellfire missiles, has attacked an artillery gun outside of the Tigris River town of Amarah. It's the first time a drone has struck a target in the Iraqi conflict. And it's not immediately clear why a drone, and not a manned aircraft, was used in the attack.

2 U.S. HELICOPTERS DOWNED, 30 MORE RETREAT
"With a hail of small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, Iraqi forces downed two Apache helicopters today and forced 30 other helicopters in their brigade back to their base," the New York Times reports.

The Apaches, from the U.S. Army Fifth Corps 11th Attack Helicopter Regiment, had been targeting the Republican Guard's tanks in Kerbala, 70 miles southwest of Baghdad. The helicopters use the sophisticated Longbow fire control radar to target opposing forces.

But the Apaches are suddenly coming under attack from relatively low-technology weaponry...

Brig. General Benjamin Freakly (assistant commander of the 101st Division) said that in an attack like the one on the helicopters, "you have 10 guys lying on top of a building firing R.P.G.'s and small arms. You can go in and bomb that building and reduce it to rubble,'' but at the potential cost of many civilian lives.

The Army now may consider new tactics, such as additional close aerial bombardment, to support the Apaches as they hunt for armored divisions.

NAVY UNVEILS NEW DRONE
The newest drone in the U.S. military's growing robotic arsenal looks like an Apollo-era model rocket, and is small enough to fit in a golf bag. So it probably isn't going to make Saddam Hussein quiver in his bunker.

But the Silver Fox unmanned aircraft could prove useful to military commanders on the ground in Iraq as an airborne chemical weapons detector and a set of eyes over the battlefield.

The Office of Naval Research gave me the first look at the Fox, slated for trial runs in the Iraqi theater.

The 8-foot-long, sausage-shaped drone has a propeller in the front, and detachable wings and tail fins -- all of which fold neatly into a converted golf club bag. It isn't the only tactical UAV slated for testing during the second Gulf War. But the Fox has capabilities the other drones in its class lack.

At 20 pounds and 6 feet in width, the Fox can stay in the air several times longer than the Dragon Eye, the Marines' 5-pound mini-drone with a 45-inch wingspan. And it flies higher -- 500 to 1,000 feet in the air.

Unlike the Eye, however, the Fox can't be thrown in a backpack and carried around by a single Marine. So it's not quite as portable. But all the Eye can do is see. The Fox can not only see but also has a sense of smell, picking up traces of nerve gases and blister agents with a detector developed at Sandia National Laboratories.

Originally, the UAV was built for the most gentle of military purposes -- to monitor whales swimming in the water near Navy ships.

Federal environmental regulations require the Navy to make sure that whales are not in the area when it conducts trial bombing runs or tests of its ultra-loud sonar. The Silver Fox, completed in the late summer of 2002, was supposed to handle that whale-watching mission.

But when the Navy Operations Group -- a technology-minded group of officers, nicknamed "Deep Blue," who work directly for the chief of naval operations -- caught wind of the project, that assignment changed radically. Marine mammals were out. Marines on the ground were in.

My Wired News story has more on the Sliver Fox -- including a picture of the drone.

THERE'S MORE: The Pentagon is looking to invest more than $4 billion in UAVs between now and 2010, reports Washington Technology.

NAVY THRWARTS IRAQI HARBOR MINING PLOY
"Navy ships in the Persian Gulf have headed off an attempt to mine the main entrance to Iraq's principal port, seizing three tugboats carrying more than 130 mines," the Virginian-Pilot reports.

The seized mines included "contact" mines, which float on or near the water's surface and explode when struck, and "influence" mines, which are detonated by sound or vibration from ships passing nearby.

Clearing mines in coastal waters is an acknowledged Navy weakness.

The service has purchased a fleet of about two dozen mine-hunting and mine-clearing vessels and converted the amphibious assault ship Inchon into a mine countermeasures command ship. But the Inchon was crippled by an engine room fire in 2001 and later decommissioned. The Navy is in the process of leasing an Australian-built catamaran to serve as a countermine command ship. In a report last year, the House Armed Services Committee noted that deficiencies in mine warfare have been the subject of a series of reports by the General Accounting Office, Congress' watchdog agency. The committee pumped an additional $18 million into the Navy's budget for research and development of new countermine equipment.

FIGHTING AT NASIRIYA CLAIMS AT LEAST 20 U.S. TROOPS
At least 20 American soldiers are missing or have been killed after what American commanders are calling "the sharpest engagements of the war."

Members of the U.S. Army's 507th Maintenance Company took a wrong turn and drove without an armored escort into the town of Nasiriya, along the Euphrates River. Their convoy was attacked by Iraqi tank fire. At least a dozen members of the 507th are missing.

Later, the New York Times reports, "Marines attacked the city, and during a fierce battle with about 500 Iraqi defenders, a rocket propelled grenade struck a troop carrier, witnesses said, killing up to 10 soldiers."

THERE'S MORE: According to the BBC, there has been heavy fighting in Northern Iraq, near the city of Irbil. The battle was between Iraqi soldiers trying to defect and a loyal army unit, the BBC says.

AND MORE: Kuwaiti officials are saying that an American Patriot missile has once again intercepted an Iraqi missile over the emirate. This would be the 13th missile fired at Kuwait since the fighting began.

AND MORE: Former military policeman Phil Carter has a fascinating analysis of the factors that lead to the ambush at Narisiya.

HUNT FOR SADDAM'S TOXINS BEGINS
American forces have begun searching for Saddam's storehouses of chemical and biological weapons. But with months to prepare for their arrival, the soldiers are unlikely to find Iraqi toxic stockpiles any time soon.

Troops from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division are scouring a suspected chemical plant in Najaf, south of Baghdad. And they're pressing two Iraqi generals for information about weapons of mass destruction. In western Iraq, American special operations forces found documents…that also could lead to chemical or biological weapons facilities," according to the Associated Press.

AFP reports that "the Pentagon said late Sunday that reports of allied forces having discovered a 'huge' chemical weapons factory in central Iraq were 'premature.'"

THERE'S MORE: No chemicals at all were found at the Najaf site, NBC reports. According to CNN, Pentagon officials now believe the plant there was abandoned long ago.

BRITS FIRE NEW BUNKER BUSTERS
"British Tornado warplanes have dropped new bunker busting missiles on key targets in Iraq," according to Agence France-Presse. The Storm Shadow missiles, used for the first time ever in combat today, have a range of about 250 miles. They're conventionally armed, and use GPS and infrared sensors to locate targets.

When striking bunkers and other "hardened" targets, the missile will hit "at the estimated optimum dive angle," according to the Federation of American Scientists. Storm Shadow has two charges. The first penetrates the target's shell; the second is detonated after a pre-selected delay.

NEW ARMOR FOR GULF WAR II
U.S. forces have an armored vehicle in Iraq that they lacked in 1991, according to StrategyPage. The four wheel ASV-150 (Armored Security Vehicle.) was introduced in 2002 for military police work. But since, then, it's been used mostly for "convoy protection and showing some muscle when the locals get unruly." A four-man crew operates the 40mm automatic grenade launcher and 12.7mm machine-gun mounted on the 20-foot long, 8-foot wide vehicle.

HAND-HELD TRANSLATOR FOR TROOPS
"In the current conflict (in Iraq), (American) military personnel will have to rely on human interpreters and weathered pocket dictionaries to communicate with refugees, wounded civilians, prisoners and combatants," Wired News reports. But in a year or so, U.S. troops may get a hand-held device, "Interact," that will let them be heard in Arabic.

Speak one of a number of key English phrases into Interact -- "where does it hurt?" "ID, please" -- and the device "spits out an audio translation with just a two-second delay and no need for the speaker to pause," according to Wired News.

"Interact" is far from perfect -- voice recognition is one of the most inexact of arts. Both people have to be willing to talk, and background noise will screw up an interpretation.

But after a demonstration for military brass last week, 'we had to pry our demo model out of their hands,' the CEO of Interact's maker, SpeechGear, says.

PATRIOT DOWNS U.K. PLANE
An American Patriot missile has accidentally shot down a Royal Air Force Tornado fighter plane, the BBC reports. The two crewmen in the plane, based at the RAF Marham base in western England, are missing and presumed dead.

THERE'S MORE: The American advance towards Baghdad has slowed, as Marines have encountered pockets of resistance in areas earlier thought pacified. In the port city of Umm Qasr, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit were caught in a four-hour firefight with Iraqi defenders. An airstrike from a Harrier jet ended the battle.

At Nasirya, on the Euphrates River, 5,000 US Marines are battling at least 500 defending Iraqis for control of the main route through the town. Dozens of American casualties are being reported.

"What looked to be a benign ride into this city to quietly secure its major bridges turned into a firefight as Iraqi tanks, soldiers and secret police darted through the streets, turning their mortars, artillery cannons, rockets and rifles at advancing marines," according to the New York Times.

Resistance in Basra -- also previously thought sedated -- has also been stiff.

PRECISION BOMBS ON TARGET
For years, the Pentagon has been talking up the precision of their laser- and satellite-guided bombs. If initial reports out of Baghdad are right -- 3 Iraqi civilians killed, 200 wounded -- then there's dramatic evidence of just how smart these smart bombs really are. Of course, any civilian death is a tragedy. But three dead, after hundreds and hundreds of bombing runs is a level of accuracy unseen before in wartime.

IRAQ'S SECOND CITY FALLS
American and British forces have taken Basra, Iraq's second largest city. "Hundreds" of soldiers surrendered, the BBC reports. The rest folded after a day-long siege.

Basra has had a long history of animosity towards Saddam's regime. The city rose in revolt after the first Gulf War in 1991.

CNN reports that near the city, "demolition teams from the 1st Battalion of the 7th Marines were using anti-armor TOW missiles, grenades and other explosives to blow up abandoned Iraqi T-55 battle tanks and armored personnel carriers hidden in earthen berms."

U.S. forces immediately went on the move after capturing Basra, rolling towards Baghdad.

THERE'S MORE: Two British Royal Navy Sea King Mark 7 helicopters have collided, killing all six British servicemen and an American officer on board. The incident happened a day after 12 soldiers died when a U.S. CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crashed in northern Kuwait.

The Sea Kings -- based aboard the HMS Ark Royal, an Invincible-class aircraft carrier -- are surveillance craft. They're designed to protect ships by keeping tabs on low-flying aircraft ducking beneath conventional radar.

AND MORE: The Iraqis are burning huge pools of oil on the outskirts of Baghdad, according to the BBC. They're hoping to confuse incoming fighters and missiles with the smoke billowing from the oil fires.

HUMAN EYES ABOVE IRAQ
The Predator and Global Hawk spy drones have gotten all the attention lately. But manned spy planes are still handling the bulk of surveillance over Iraq.

J-STARS (Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar Systems) planes "will search hundreds of miles of terrain, looking for moving tanks and low-flying aircraft," ABC News reports. "Airborne Warning and Control planes — AWACs — with rotating 35-foot radar antennas will spot any high-flying Iraqi jets, which have yet to venture into the U.S.-dominated skies. Along with the radar planes, so-called Rivet Joint aircraft will monitor the radio airwaves, eavesdropping on the frequencies used by Iraqi military commanders."

And then, of couse, there's the ageless U-2: nearly fifty years old, and still patrolling the skies at 70,000 feet.

FIRST LOS ALAMOS, NOW SANDIA
Losing the keys to your apartment: totally annoying. Losing the keys to Sandia National Laboratories, one of the most important weapons research centers in the world? That's a potential national security disaster.

For years, security problems have plagued Los Alamos National Laboratory. Now they seem to be spreading to its research sisters, as well.

In a case with eerie similarities to the ongoing Los Alamos scandals, two investigators at Sandia National Laboratories were told they were "on thin ice" after their inquiries into security breaches went too far. And when master keys providing access to every Sandia lock disappeared, a third security official was told "to fake the investigation" into where the keys went, according to a letter sent on March 11th by Senator Chuck Grassley to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

Thankfully, the keys were later recovered, Sandia president Paul Robinson told reporters this week.

Robinson said that two investigations of his lab had recently been completed: an internal Sandia assessment, and an examination of the lab's security force by the National Nuclear Security Administration. The people who protect Sandia have been accused of stealing government property, including lab-owned computer parts and software. There are allegations of major discipline breakdowns -- a dozen security police officers were observed eating, watching TV, and sleeping on duty. And then there are those keys.

A third investigation is due to be completed in late April.

CNN SQUASHES REPORTER'S BLOG
CNN has put the kibosh on the blog of correspondent Kevin Sites. He had been giving minute-by-minute updates of what he saw in northern Iraq at Kevinsites.com.

"I've been asked to suspend my war blogging for awhile," Sites writes. "But I don't want let you down -- I'm chronicling the events of my war experiences, the same as I always have, and hope to come to agreement with CNN in the near future to make them available to you in some shape or form, perhaps on this site."

IRAQ STILL ONLINE
The U.S. could unplug Iraq from the Net with ease. Brian McWilliams, writing in Salon, asks: why hasn't it?

Maybe, he muses, "the U.S. is leaving Iraq's e-mail systems intact to provide a conduit for communication with Iraqi military and government leaders willing to turn on Saddam Hussein. In January, U.S. officials acknowledged sending e-mails to Iraqi officials as part of their prewar 'psychological operations.'"

"SHOCK AND AWE" BEGINS
"A series of large explosions rocked Iraq's capital sending plumes of smoke and fire into the skies over Baghdad as the intense coalition air assault got underway," CNN says.

"Pentagon officials told CNN's Barbara Starr that Friday is 'A-Day,' the day a promised campaign of 'shock and awe' is to hit Iraq," the channel adds.

The bombings began around 1pm EST, both in Baghdad and in two cities to the north, Kirkuk and Mosul.

"Every single building is in flames," according to a BBC correspondent in Baghdad.

The U.S. will hit "several hundred targets... over the coming hours," according to Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Richard Myers.

THERE'S MORE: The Navy says they've launched 320 Tomahawk cruise missiles during the latest assault.

According to the Associated Press, "The radar-dodging Tomahawks were fired from the guided missile cruisers USS Cowpens, USS Bunker Hill, USS Shiloh, USS Mobile Bay, the destroyers USS John S. McCain, USS Higgins, USS Oscar Austin and USS Milius; and two submarines USS Colombia and USS Montpellier."

The USS Kitty Hawk launched two radar-jamming EA-6B Prowlers to support bombers aiming for targets over Baghdad. About an hour later, the ship sent F/A-18 Hornet and F-14 Tomcat fighters loaded with 500-pound, 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound precision bombs to support ground troops in southern Iraq.

GUSSIED UP PATRIOTS: ANY BETTER?
The star of Gulf War I has gotten a face lift and is being prepped for a leading role in the sequel. But it's unclear whether the Patriot missile system will be able to improve much in 2003 on its two-left-feet performance of 1991.

To defense analysts, the original Patriots' stumbles were no surprise.

"They were never designed to take out missiles," said Victoria Samson, a researcher at the Center for Defense Information. "They were built to take out airplanes, which are considerably slower-flying."

The old Patriot didn't hit its target directly. Instead, it detonated a blast fragmentation warhead nearby.

The new version of the Patriot, the PAC-3, is an altogether different species from its predecessor. In defense jargon, it's a "hit-to-kill" weapon -- meaning it actually strikes its target, rather than just exploding in the neighborhood. The missiles use rocket motors, not little wings, to steer. And each missile has its own built-in radar to help it determine a target's location in flight; the old Patriots have to rely almost solely on ground-based radar.

But these improvements haven't necessarily lead to drastically better performance, yet. Early-stage developmental trials went well -- the Patriots hit their targets 10 out of 11 times. But more realistic operational assessments were less than stellar, with only two "kills" in seven tries.

My Wired News story has more details on the inner workings -- and track record -- of the new Patriots.

THERE'S MORE: One Defense Tech reader says that the original Patriot was actually "designed for missle defense, but it was recast as an anti-aircraft missile when the ABM (anti-ballistic missile) treaty came into effect."

WAR PROMPTS DIGITAL MAYHEM
"The onset of the Iraq war is prompting a flood of cyberattacks and malicious e-mail worms, as hackers of all stripes and colors (pro-Islamic, antiwar or just plain malicious coders) seize an opportunity to wreak online havoc," reports the Washington Post.

"At least three e-mail viruses that their authors claim were released in response to the war have started making rounds on the Net," according to my Wired News partner-in-crime, Michelle Delio.

So far, the war-related worm in widest circulation is Ganda. (The worm) arrives with one of several different subjects and messages, all with references to the current military action and political situation.

One variation claims the attachment contains pictures of Iraq taken by U.S. spy satellites; another purports to contain a pro-America screensaver and urges people to display it to show support in the war against terrorism. Others come with messages claiming the attachment is either an anti-George W. Bush or pro-peace screensaver.

Once the attachments are opened on PCs running Windows, Ganda behaves like many other e-mail worms, e-mailing itself to all the addresses in the infected machine's Outlook contact list. It also scans the machine for security software -- such as McAfee, Norton or Sophos antivirus products -- and shuts them down.

MORE BOMBS OVER BAGHDAD
Another 50 cruise missiles pounded Baghdad overnight, according to BBC television. But things may about to get a whole lot rougher for the Iraqi capital. Mammoth B-52 bombers have taken off from an airbase in Gloucester, the BBC says.

THERE'S MORE: U.S. and U.K. ground forces continue to make inroads, too. According to CNN, they've taken the western Iraqi airfields H-2 and H-3 -- the latter considered a potential biochem weapons site -- as well as oil fields in the south, near Basra. The Faw Peninsula on the Persian Gulf coast has also been taken. And the port of Umm Qasr is expected to fall shortly.

SADDAM STRATEGY: FLOOD THE ZONE
Saddam flooded Iraq's rivers to deter Iranian advances during the their 1980's conflict, CNN reports. And there's concern at the Pentagon that he might try the same trick again now.

"Iraq could cause catastrophic flooding of portions of the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys, either by releasing large amounts of water from dams or by destroying them, (causing) major humanitarian crises in parts of Iraq," a Pentagon statement says, according to CNN.

"Parts of southern Iraq routinely flood in March and April because of heavy rainfall and snow melting in the north," CNN reports. "Some areas that are already under water could be impassable for four to six weeks, even without additional flooding."

IRAQ'S BIG GUNS HOLSTERED: HOW COME?
Why has Saddam only used his second-rate missiles so far? That's the question Slate's Fred Kaplan is asking.

He replies on a report saying that Saddam used Soviet-made FROG missiles in yesterday's attack. "The Frogs have a range of just 70 kilometers—less than half the range of Scuds," Kaplan writes. "Frogs also can carry about half the payload of Scuds, and they tend to be even more wildly inaccurate (falling, on average, about one-third mile from their targets)."

But if earlier reports -- which said that Saddam would concentrate his defense around Baghdad -- are to be believed, then the answer to Kaplan's question is simple: Saddam's waiting for American troops to come closer to the capital before unleashing his deadliest weapons.

4 DOWN, 50 PATRIOTS TO GO?
The U.S. military better hope that there aren't many days like this in Kuwait. Because if the reports are true -- that four Patriot missiles were used today to fend off incoming Iraqi missiles -- then the U.S. has less than a two-week supply of Patriots left.

Lt. General Ronald Kadish, who heads up the Missile Defense Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that the American stockpile of new, PAC-3 Patriot missiles is somewhere in the "mid-fifties."

So if four missiles are already gone… Well, you do the math.

More on Patriots tomorrow in Wired News.

U.S., IRAQ IN MISSILE DUEL
"U.S. Patriot missiles knocked two Iraqi missiles out of the sky Thursday, hours after two others landed without injury near the U.S. forces' main logistics center in the Kuwaiti desert," CNN reports.

The U.S. military believes the Iraqi weapons are the short range al Samoud missiles. But they're not entirely sure.

THERE'S MORE: Fighting on the ground is intensifying, as well. LAV-25 light armored vehicles from the Marine First Division locked horns with Iraqi armored personnel carriers. The Marines "engaged and destroyed" the Iraqi vehicles using "25-millimeter chain guns, a type of machine gun, and TOW guided missiles," according to the New York Times.

AND MORE: A second wave of airstrikes has hit Baghdad. Seventy-two missiles have struck altogether. But the massive, so-called "shock and awe" campaign is on hold, however, until a battle assessment can be made, CNN reports.

GRUNTS TO GET BUNKER-FRYING BOMBS
It is among the most horrific weapons in any army's collection: the thermobaric bomb, a fearsome explosive that sets fire to the air above its target, then sucks the oxygen out of anyone unfortunate enough to have lived through the initial blast.

Last year, the U.S. military used such weapons for the first time in combat, to incinerate suspected underground al-Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan. In the next few months, the U.S. Army will start putting this sweeping power in the hands of individual soldiers.

My Wired News story has the details.

THERE'S MORE: As several readers noted, the Russians have used single-soldier thermobarics in the past. But the Russian "wet" thermobarics were considered by American military scientists to be too dangerous for our troops.

CIA HAD FIX ON SADDAM
Why did the U.S. strikes on Iraq start yesterday? Because CIA spooks thought they had a fix on Saddam, the Washington Post reports.

Hussein and others in "the most senior levels of the Iraqi leadership," ordinarily among the most elusive of men, had fallen under U.S. surveillance. The unforeseen glimpse of the enemy was not expected to last, and so presented what one administration official called "a target of opportunity" that might not reappear. Not only did the agency know where Hussein was, according to the official's description of (CIA Director George) Tenet's briefing, but it believed with "a high probability" that he would remain there for hours to come -- cloistered with his war council in an isolated private residence in southern Baghdad...

In the first hours after hearing Tenet's report, Bush and his senior national security advisers tore up the carefully orchestrated schedule of violence that the U.S. Central Command had honed for months...

When Bush signed the launch order at 6:30 p.m., it included a hasty improvisation. The first shots would strike through the roof and walls of an anonymous Baghdad home, and deep beneath it, in hopes of decapitating the Iraqi government in a single blow.

IRAQ ATTACKS BEGIN
The American attack on Iraq started about an hour ago, CBS News is reporting. F-117 stealth bombers carrying GBU-27 “bunker buster” bombs and Tomahawk cruise missiles -- likely sub-launched -- began hitting Baghdad shortly before dawn.

CBS' David Martin labelled the initial strike -- reportedly aimed at the Iraqi leadership -- a "half-measure," similar to the air attacks launched by the Clinton Administration against Iraq. But there's sure to be more to come.

Fighting on the ground has broken out as well, according to the Evening Standard. British and American forces targeted the the southern seaport of Basra, and became engaged in a "fierce" firefight. "At the same time," the paper reports, "allied troops were flooding into the demilitarised zone on the Iraqi border with Kuwait 40 miles away to take up positions for an all-out invasion."

THERE'S MORE: The Associated Press has a good round-up of the weapons used in this first strike. And Government Executive reports from the USS Bunker Hill, which launched some of the Tomahawk missiles in this opening attack.

PENTAGON GADGET FETISH QUESTIONED
As America is poised to launch into a high-tech war in Iraq, a growing group of military thinkers is questioning the U.S. military's reliance on gadgetry.

U.S. precision weapons, Predator drones, and the like were less responsible for recent victories in Afghanistan and in the first Gulf War than is generally assumed, they argue. And increasing American dependence on technology leaves U.S. troops dangerously vulnerable to low-tech attacks.

In Afghanistan, the conventional wisdom goes, all it took was a handful of Special Forces, some spy sensors, and a few thousand smart bombs to roll over al Qaeda and the Taliban. But that's a myth, according to Army War College professor Stephen Biddle.

Predator drones and other advanced spy sensors were only sporadically effective in Afghanistan, Biddle argues in a recent study.

Before the battle of Takur Ghar -- one of the bloodiest in the Afghan campaign -- a massive U.S. reconnaissance effort "focused every available surveillance system on a tiny, 10-by-10 kilometer battlefield," Biddle notes. But despite all the technology used, Americans couldn't find more than half of the al Qaeda positions there before the fight.

Smart-bomb attacks did little to alter the equation, either. In the battles of Takur Ghar and Bai Beche, day after day of American precision bombing failed to take out dug-in al Qaeda defenders. Only American and Northern Alliance ground forces could evict bin Laden's troops from their positions.

That's evidence, in Biddle's eyes, that Afghanistan was a "surprising orthodox" military campaign, one determined largely by in-close, on-the-ground effort of our allies' infantry...

Check out my Wired News story for more.

FULL MOON OVER IRAQ ERASES U.S. NIGHT FIGHT EDGE
If U.S. troops move into Iraq this week, the Virginian-Pilot reports, they will have to sacrifice one of their most important technological advantages: night vision. The full moon has just passed over Iraq. And the bright moonlight acts like "a spotlight" in the desert -- making American night vision technology close to useless, according to the Cato Institute's Chuck Pena.

In the aftermath of the first Persian Gulf War 12 years ago, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, now retired, argued that America's night-vision capability was "the single greatest mismatch of the war.''

It could be just as important this time, said Dr. A. Fenner Milton, who heads the Army's night-vision development program, based at Ft. Belvoir near Washington. Whereas American units relied on a relative handful of spotters equipped with night-vision scopes in 1991, more sophisticated viewers are now in the hands of virtually every soldier and Marine likely to see combat, Milton said.

Iraq may have some night vision gear of their own -- Soviet-made stuff that's widely available online.

But none of that equipment comes close to matching that carried by the Americans, said Tim Brown, an analyst at the defense consulting firm GlobalSecurity.org. Details visible at 100 meters using a Soviet viewer can be seen at 500 meters with American equipment, he said. Also, the Soviet equipment has such a limited field of vision that the user may feel he's looking through a straw.

"It's like the difference between a disposable camera and a professional-grade Nikon,'' Pena said.

U.S. CHEMICAL PLANTS OPEN TO TERROR ASSAULTS
A successful terrorist attack at the Kuehne Chemical Company, just nine miles from nine miles from New York's Times Square, could endanger the lives of up to 12 million people. But the plant, which manufactures deadly chlorine and sulfur dioxide gases, is woefully unprotected, reports Salon's Jake Tapper. And efforts to beef up security at this and similar facilities have been blocked time and time again by the chemical industry.

BACK TO ORANGE
The terror threat warning level will soon be going back up to orange, or "high" risk of attacks, MSNBC television reports. This is the third time that the level has been ratcheted up. But the increase still doesn't make the country much safer.

As noted last month, local authorities and private businesses are the ones most directly responsible for maintaining security over our national infrastructure -- dams, power plants, and the like. And going to orange doesn't obligate these entities to change their security plans in the slightest.

In his speech tonight justifying military action in Iraq, President Bush said Coast Guard patrols would increase, and so would security at airports. Terrorist attacks, he emphasized, were "not inevitable."

THERE'S MORE: CNN reports that Operation Liberty Shield -- the Bush Administration's new homeland security push -- will include a number of defense measures beyond those dictated by the orange alert status.

"Security is being increased at chemical facilities, nuclear power plants, key electrical grids, bridges and subways," says CNN. "The Agriculture Department is alerting food producers to step up their security -- such as inspecting all vehicles and escorting all visitors -- and is helping monitor feedlots, stockyards, and import and storage areas. Imported food will also come under increased scrutiny by the Department of Health and Human Services, which is asking health departments and medical care providers to report unusual diseases or disease patterns."

ARMY PREPS SMART MORTARS
While laser-guided bombs are grabbing headlines in the run-up to Gulf War II, researchers at Picatinny Arsenal are busy developing precision mortars for future combat.

Traditional mortars can go as much as 70 meters astray, according to Lee Bickley, who runs the PGMM ("Precision Guided Mortar Munitions") program at Picatinny. Half of these guided weapons will strike within a meter of the target.

"You'll use just one round instead of a hundred… to take out bunkers and light armored vehicles," Bickley says.

PGMMs were one of several munitions, weapons, and fighting vehicles the military displayed for the media today at Picatinny Arsenal, the Army's lone research and development center for armaments and ammunition.

The PGMM rounds will fly about 7 kilometers. And they should be fielded by 2008, Bickley estimates.

More on my Picatinny trip Wednesday on Wired News.

AIR FORCE ORDERS SPECIALISTS TO STAY
Are you an Air Force test pilot, intelligence officer, or anesthesiologist looking to get out of the service? Tough luck. Officers and enlisted men, reservists and active duty airmen in dozens of specialized fields have been ordered to stay -- indefinitely.

Polynesian cryptologic linguists, judge advocate officers, flight nurses, historians, ordinance disposal experts, and fire truck repairmen are among those told to stick around until the war on terror has subsided. Individual waivers to the rule will be offered through the Air Force Personnel Center.

In January, all Marines were ordered to stay in the service; at least 14,000 people were affected by that command. Last month, the Army said that soldiers involved "in an unspecified operational plan" in the Middle East would also be prevented from leaving.

1991 RELICS HAUNT 2003 COMBATANTS
One of the biggest dangers facing U.S. soldiers in Gulf War II: unexploded bombs and mines, leftover from Gulf War I and other Iraqi conflicts.

Millions of mines have been planted in Iraq over the past 20 years, the Washington Times says. "As many as 2,500 people have been killed by mines in the Kurdish region since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Mines caused 81 of the 1,364 total U.S. casualties" in that conflict.

U.S. bombs, still live a dozen years later, are also a major problem. "Perhaps the most dangerous ones," the paper reports, "are the individual bomblets packed into cluster bombs dropped by American and allied planes during the Persian Gulf war. Because of their small size, they easily can go unnoticed. Tens of thousands of such bombs were dropped in the 1991 Gulf war."

CHEMICAL AGENTS BROKEN DOWN
Derek Lowe provides clear descriptions of the eight chemical agents most likely to be used by Saddam. Lowe, a "medicinal chemist," also lists each toxin's effectiveness and likelihood of use. VX, the deadliest of the nerve agents, is Lowe's biggest fear.

IRAQI BIOWEAPONS MADE IN VIRGINIA
Where did Iraq get nearly all of the germs for its bioweapons program? Virginia.

According to documents obtained by the New York Times, the American Type Culture Collection, a biological supply house in Manassas, Va, provided the Iraqi government with the vast majority of its biotoxins. The rest were obtained from the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

A spokesperson for the Virginia firm said that the shipments of anthrax and other poisons were okayed by the U.S. government.

"A.T.C.C. could never have shipped these samples to Iraq without the Department of Commerce's approval for all requests," said Nancy J. Wysocki, vice president for human resources and public relations at the American Type Culture Collection.

SECURITY SAGES SAY "SO WHAT" TO NET TERROR
Computer security experts gathered in Hannover, Germany to say what Defense Tech has been reporting for months: that the threat of "cyber-terror" is a load of hooey.

"If (terrorists) want to attack they will do it with bombs like they always have," said security guru Bruce Schneier.

In December, Jim Lewis, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called cyber-strikes "weapons of mass annoyance."

Schneier added, "Breaking pager networks and stopping e-mail is not an act of terror."

Nevertheless, such attacks have generated a seemingly endless stream of media and government warnings. Schneier blames the Bush Administration for this.

"The hype is coming from the U.S. government and I don't know why," he said.

MARINES FOWL PLAN FLIES AGAIN
The Marines have a new set of feathered friends.

Only days ago, Operation Kuwaiti Field Chicken -- the Marines' plan to use poultry as living biosensors -- ended with the birds' untimely death.

"It is unclear why the chickens died," the Associated Press reports. "Some believe they had the flu. Others said chickens were simply not meant to live in the desert."

So the Marines are trying again, this time with a heartier bird: the battle-tested pigeon. As was the case with chickens, the idea is for the pigeons to serve as the military equivalent of canaries in a coal mine. If Saddam sets off biological or chemical agents, the birds will feel it first, giving the humans some time to don protective gear.

Chief Warrant Officer Rob Garcia, 34, of West Paterson, N.J., said, "We've got the pigeons. Hoorah!"

KAZAA = AL QAEDA?
Trading those Avril Lavigne MP3s may be putting money into the pockets of Osama bin Laden, a Justice Department official says.

Deputy assistant attorney general John Malcolm told the House Judiciary Committee that there's a connection between file-sharing and organized crime. And, as everyone knows, the Mob funds terrorism, according to Malcolm.

"When subcommittee chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) asked Malcolm for examples of cases where file trading was connected to terrorism," IDG News Service reports, "Malcolm said he couldn't give concrete examples."

Shocking.

(via 3DGPU)

PENTAGON PLEDGES NOT TO USE "TIA"
The Pentagon will continue developing Total Information Awareness (TIA), its ultra-intrusive uber-database program. But it won't use the system, a senior defense official told the House subcommittee on terrorism.

According to Defense News, Assistant Defense Secretary for Homeland Security Paul McHale said the military would turn TIA over to civilian law enforcement agencies when it is ready for use.

Later in the day, McHale added that TIA would also be given to the tooth fairy, the Hamburgler, and Hanukkah Harry.

"The Pentagon is in the business of spending billions on programs that we have no intention of ever using," he continued. "We do it all the time. Stop laughing."

MOBILE MINEFIELD: MAXIMUM MALICE
Landmines are already some of the nastiest weapons there are. But they could soon become downright diabolical. Because the Defense Department is developing mines that can talk to one another, and move themselves around in order to cause maximum harm.

To neutralize a minefield, mine-clearers traditionally haven't had to pick up every last one of the explosives. They just had to clear a path to allow people and vehicles to pass through lethal areas safely.

A new group of mines renders this tactic obsolete. The munitions of the "Self-Healing Minefield Program" use tiny radios and acoustic sensors to stay in constant communication with each other. If some of the mines are removed, the ones that remain can "hop" hundreds of meters away, if needed, to rearrange themselves and to close the gaps.

"The minefield acts more like a fluid, and less like a static obstacle," said Dr. Tom Altschuler, who, until recently, oversaw the Self-Healing Minefield for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Check out my Tech Central Station story for more on the Self-Healing Minefield.

LASER TRUCK IN ARMY'S SIGHTS
The Army is asking Congress to fund a six year, $500 million effort to strap a high energy laser on to the back of a ten-ton truck, according to Periscope.

The weapon would be used to shoot down enemy missiles and artillery. In ongoing tests in the Israeli desert, a fixed version of the Tactical High Energy Laser has consistently been able to fry multiple Katyusha rockets at once.

So far, about $250 million has been invested into the program.

CHICKENS OF WAR LAY THEIR FINAL EGGS
Operation Kuwaiti Field Chicken -- the Marines' plan to use poultry as living biosensors -- is cooked, for now. The chickens are dead, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Just more than a week after 43 chickens were brought here to ride into battle with the Marines, all but two have died.

Most were buried in the soft sand outside of regiment headquarters. Small, wooden tombstones mark their graves. There is one for Captain Popeye, one for Pfc. King, another for Lance Cpl. Pecker and, finally, one marking the grave of The Unknown Chicken.

The plan was to use the chickens the way miners once used caged canaries to warn them of poisonous gas underground. If the Marines moved into southern Iraq during a war, the chickens would be an early signal if Iraq launched biological or chemical weapons.

"Nobody knows why they died," said Griffin, 26, of Houston. "I just heard that they were boxed up really tight when they arrived and they started dying from the moment they got here. And it didn't help that nobody here really knows anything about chickens."

CHEMBIO SUITS COULD KILL
"Thousands of U.S. and British forces are set to invade Iraq wearing heavy rubber overboots and a padded suit that will ward off chemical attacks but will likely kill some of them from heat exhaustion," Reuters reports.

Temperatures in Iraq can climb as high as a hundred degrees, making prolonged wearing of the cumbersome Mission Oriented Protective Posture (or "MOPP") gear dangerous.

"Running, with weapon and full field gear, or carrying very heavy loads such as ammunition, for example, under conditions of high ambient temperature...will inevitably result in a very significant number of heat casualties in a short time," wrote Globalsecurity.org's Bernard Fine in a recent study.

U.S. military planners say they'll be ready to fight, regardless. American troops have had plenty of time to train for combat in protective clothing. And they'll fight at night, if needed, to minimize the heat.

Eric Taylor -- a former Army Chemical Corps captain and current chemistry professor -- isn't buying the Pentagon's preparedness argument. He notes over at Soldiers for the Truth that troops are supposed to have 40 hours per year of nuclear/biological/chemical warfare training. But new recruits are only required to have four hours of such exercises, followed by a mere two hour annual refresher course.

THERE'S MORE: "An Army audit completed last July found that most units selected at random were not well-trained in using the protective gear," reports the Boston Globe. "18 of 25 randomly selected units at two bases were not adequately prepared to use their protective equipment."

NUKE LAB CHIEFS LOOK BACK IN ANGUISH
Some of Los Alamos' current and former managers are beginning to have second thoughts about the firing of Glenn Walp and Steven Doran, the former police chiefs hired to look into corruption at the lab.

In Congressional testimony yesterday, lab lawyer Frank Dickson said, "I believe the laboratory should have attempted to work through the difficulties" with the pair.

Security chief Stan Busboom, Dickson's former subordinate, went even further.

"It was the stupidest damn thing in the world to fire those guys," he told Peter Stockton, a senior investigator for the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, shortly before the hearing began.

THERE'S MORE: Joseph Salgado, the lab's former second-in-command, told Congress yesterday that Los Alamos employees often treat taxpayer dollars like "Monopoly money."

"LAST MAN STANDING" STICKS TO HIS GUNS
To Glenn Walp, the ex-cop brought in to stamp out corruption at the world's most important nuclear research center, it was obstruction of justice.

To Frank Dickson, the powerful chief attorney of Los Alamos National Laboratory, it was just a way of staying informed about an ongoing investigation of the facility.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee will decide who's telling the truth. Committee members heard statements from Dickson and several other current and former lab officials Wednesday in an attempt to sort out allegations of fraud, mismanagement and shoddy security at Los Alamos.

In his congressional testimony, Dickson agreed with Walp that he ran investigations parallel to the FBI's probes into fraud and theft at the troubled lab. He also admitted that he urged the FBI to speed up its investigations and that he tried to enter a top-secret facility where illicit goods were being kept -- a move that could have tipped off suspects that they were being watched.

But where Walp saw efforts to interfere with the FBI, Dickson claims there were only attempts to keep lab management in the loop about the investigations.

Check out my Wired News story for more on the Los Alamos hearings. And click here to learn more about what's been going on at the troubled lab.

"SMOKING GUN" MADE WITH DUCT TAPE
"A remotely piloted aircraft that the United States has warned could spread chemical weapons appears to be made of balsa wood and duct tape, with two small propellers attached to what look like the engines of a weed whacker," the Associated Press reports.

Iraqi officials presented Western journalists Wednesday with the sad-sack drone -- believed by some to be the undeclared weapon serious enough to trigger war. Saddam's government isn't known for its forthrightness, of course. But this is a pretty sorry looking "smoking gun."

LOS ALAMOS' LAST MAN STANDING
Give Frank Dickson, general counsel of the beleaguered Los Alamos National Laboratory, some credit: He's a survivor.

Allegations of discrimination and espionage in the 1990s swallowed up a generation of lab-management staff; Dickson remained. Accusations of corruption and mismanagement have forced his bosses to resign and his subordinates to relinquish their responsibilities; Dickson hung on.

Now, the nuclear weapons lab's new director has proclaimed that he's ready to "drain the swamp" and give it a fresh start. But Dickson, singled out by Los Alamos whistleblowers for repeatedly interfering with FBI investigations into lab shenanigans, clings to power -- for now.

My latest Wired News story has the skinny on Dickson's machinations. Additional articles on the ongoing scandals at the nuclear lab are here.

THERE'S MORE: Los Alamos employee Lillian Anaya tried to buy a souped-up Ford Mustang with a lab credit card. When she was caught, Glenn Walp -- one of the former police chiefs brought in to the lab to root out corruption, then fired when he found out too much -- confiscated 20 boxes of evidence; the FBI wanted to take a look.

According to Walp, Dickson immediately tried to get into the boxes -- and let Anaya's boss and close friend have access, too.

Now, anybody that's watched a cop show or remembers the O.J. Simpson trial knows that's not kosher.

Evidence is only useful if its integrity is preserved; if it's tainted, the evidence can be called into question. That's why you don't pick up a murder weapon with a bare hand. Or let someone's boss rifle through papers that might provide clues in a case of fraud.

But such behavior was commonplace for Dickson, Walp and others say.

AND MORE: Dickson, in his Congressional testimony, says he now regrets the decision to fire Walp. He believes he should have made more of an effort to work with him and fellow investigator Steven Doran.

MILITARY E-MAIL CURBED
The American military has haltingly started an uneven effort to monitor and restrict U.S. troops' e-mails.

The New York Times reports that "the Air Force warned last week that it might limit or start blocking electronic messages because some people had sent home sensitive information, including digital images that might have compromised unit safety. The Navy has said that on submarines, it is monitoring all e-mail traffic. And the Army, while generally maintaining open access to e-mail, is restricting some Internet connections from certain bases."

The question the paper doesn't ask is: why did it take so long for the services to start clamping down on such a potential security sieve?

U.S. TESTING "MONSTER BOMB" TODAY
The U.S. Air Force will put the 21,000-pound "massive ordnance air burst" bomb to the test this afternoon in the Florida panhandle.

Based on the 15,000-pound BLU-82 "Daisy Cutter" -- used to clear jungle in Vietnam and caves in Afghanistan -- MOAB is dropped from a C-130 transport plane, and guided by satellite.

MOAB, nicknamed the "monster bomb" and "Big BLU," ignites a slurry of ammonium nitrate and powdered aluminum in the air, creating a terrifyingly large explosion, rivaling a nuclear bomb in its intensity.

MOAB is expected to be ready for the Gulf War II, if this test at Eglin Air Force Base is a success.

THERE'S MORE: CNN has video of the Eglin test.

MILITARY RELIES ON COMMERCIAL TECH
It used to be that the military would develop technologies, and the civilian world would eventually put them to business use; the global positioning system is one of many examples of this. But now, the armed services are beginning to rely more on technologies that began as commercial products, says the New York Times.

The Defense Department, for instance, brought the Iridium global satellite phone network back from the brink of extinction. The Marines, Air Force, and Navy are purchasing wearable computers from a Virginia commercial concern. And Itronix, a Spokane, Washington computer maker, "has adapted to military specifications (a laptop) that can withstand deluges of four inches of rain an hour and temperatures ranging from 10 below zero to 140 degrees Fahrenheit," according to the Times.

IRAQ SCRAPS "NEW" DRONE
Iraq tried to dismantle a previously undeclared drone last week after it was discovered by U.N. inspectors, the Washington Post reports.

The inspectors found two converted Czech L-29 training drones last Tuesday when they visited the Ibn Fernas Center in northern Baghdad -- where the Iraqi regime has been destroying those suspect Al Samoud 2 missiles. When they returned to the flight-test site the next day for another look, they found the Iraqis taking one of the drones apart.

As noted before, there have reports for over a decade that Saddam was trying to turn these trainers into delivery vehicles for chemical weapons.

PEACENIKS TO POPE: BECOME "ULTIMATE HUMAN SHIELD"
Anti-war movements usually attract quite a number of, shall we say, eccentric ideas. But this has to be one of the strangest pleas for peace ever: activists are begging the Pope to go to Baghdad and become "the ultimate human shield."

Dr. Helen Caldicott, a former Harvard professor, is urging people from around the globe to e-mail, fax, call, and snail mail the Vatican, and ask the Pope to "travel to Baghdad and to remain there until a peaceful solution to this crisis has been implemented."

The idea, Caldicott writes, is that the Bush Administration wouldn't risk a bombing campaign in Iraq if the Pope's life were in danger.

There's been no official word from Rome in reaction to Caldicott's entreaty.

But new-age guru Deepak Chopra said late last month that he'd join John Paul II and the Dalai Lama in Baghdad, if the two spiritual leaders were willing to place themselves in harm's way.