MQ-9 Reapor UAV armed with hellfire missiles over Iraq
Last month, Bob Woodward revealed during an interview on 60 minutes [CBS], the existence of a top secret US military program that was behind the dramatic reductions in violence in Iraq over the past few months [I'm talking in the relative sense here]. Bob was on air talking about his new book "The War Within". In his book, he compares this secret program to the Manhattan project, the famous 1940's multibillion dollar project that ended up making the first atomic bomb. The new Manhattan project as Woodward calls it involves some esoteric technology [acc. to him] that enables UAV's to track and target terrorists from afar. When asked about the nature of this tech, he declined to comment citing security issues. But the funny thing is, as many commentators have noticed, the pentagon has been remarkably forthcoming about their STTW [See Through The Wall] and CTTL [Continuous Clandestine Tagging, Tracking, and Locating] technology development over the past few years. Generally people were dismissive of his claims accusing him of sensationalism in order to promote his new book.
But that doesn't sound right. Bob Woodward [pictured left] doesn't need this sort of cheap publicity. This Pulitzer winning journalist is close to being journalism royalty. In 1972, Woodward along with Carl Bernstein brought to light the mothership of all political scandals, the infamous Watergate incident that resulted in the resignation of President Nixon [a latter day Bush]. I wouldn't go into the details here but I would recommend that you watch the movie "All The President's Men" with Woodward played by the ubercool Robert Redford. In addition to that Woodward is an associate editor at The Washington Post. So much for him making tall tales. The US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley too acknowledges in the book's foreword about the existence of such a project. "All I have to do is point the sensor at him," said a military officer familiar with the system, "and a missile can be off the rail in seconds." [LA Times]Scores of Iraqi insurgent leaders are dying inside their safe houses struck by missiles fired by Predator drones flying often miles away. I think he is onto something. Something significant is happening here. Let me give you a run down of possible candidate technologies :
Heat Sensing
Good for direct sensing. Ruled out for STTW as the sensors are not sensitive enough to detect through walls. But this tech is still relevant it can be used for identifying known terrorists, since each individual has a unique thermal signature. Although I wonder what will happen if they come down with a fever?
RFID tags
Thousands of insurgents were captured and released repeatedly over the past 5 years. It is likely that RFID chips could have been implanted on their bodies. But then again this would require the detectors to be present at close proximity due to the low power of embedded RFID chips.
Remote mobile phone tracking
A technology that was used by the special forces from the 80's onwards. The following is an excerpt from a Register article on CTTL -
the ability to track or even remotely activate phone handsets: there are credible reports - for instance in this book, by respected UK defense hack and former British Army intelligence-corps operator Mick Smith - that quite amazing mobe trickery was in use by US spec-ops elements as long ago as the 1980s. It's now common advice even among biz security types to remove mobile phone batteries during sensitive meetings, and serious criminals or terrorists would nowadays completely discard any phone that might have come to the notice of the authorities.
Radar
One of the more plausible STTW technologies, a lot of research has been done in using low frequency ultra-wideband(UWB) radar to detect human bodies. Refer to this US Army Research Laboratory report on Human body radar signature : [pdf]
Tera-Hertz radiation sensors
This one is my favorite because I seem to be the only one talking about it. I remember T-rays from a Discovery Channel documentary a few years before. This technology relies on submillimeter terahertz radiation emitted by all human bodies & objects. Although prototypes like ThruVision are being developed for airport security scanners, they operate at short distances. But instead of relying on ambient t-rays, researchers have come up with semiconductor t-ray lasers that can be carried on handheld devices. But the problem remains that current t-ray lasers will operate only at -100°C. Maybe that is the breakthrough that the military had, the creation of small mountable t-ray lasers & detectors that operate at higher temperatures. A Los Angeles Times report have already talked about US military drones being fitted with unspecified devices onboard. According to the report - "The devices are roughly the size of an automobile battery, but are heavy enough that outfitted Predators in some cases carry only one Hellfire missile instead of two." The effect of these devices, according to a former U.S. military official interviewed by the Times, is that insurgents, even indoors, "are living with a red dot on their head."
Though a Manhattan type project could have taken place, it is doubtful whether it is the only the thing that helped quell the violence in Iraq. The "Anbar Awakening" movement was also pivotal since it saw Sunni tribal leaders allying for the first time with the US Army to fight "Al Qaeda In Iraq". And no less significant was the still holding ceasefire agreed to by the Mahdi militia of Moqtada Al-Sadr. It may turn out that the most significant effect of STTW technologies used in Iraq is in making terrorists feel helpless and terrified. But this type of technology could raise some serious questions about privacy if employed during peace time at a time when governments all around the world are slowly assuming the role of "Big Brother".
Another trend that I see here is the increasing reliance on drones by the US military in Iraq, Afghanistan & and even in the border regions of good ol' Pakistan :). Drones like the Global Hawk & The MQ-9 Reaper are so much in demand that General Dynamics is facing difficulty producing enough on time. All that is missing is a lil' bit of AI on the drones & and also our beloved Skynet, that human loving benevolent AI military system that takes over the world by killing over half of humanity in the Terminator series. Boy, I can't wait for Terminator : Salvation to come out !!
