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U.S. May Reduce Non-Military GPS Accuracy
ward99 writes "The U.S. government may be degrading GPS satellite signals, to cripple Iraqi forces' ability to use those systems
during the war. This could potentially reduce accuracy from ~3 meters to
over ~100 meters. Users depending on GPS systems may want to do sanity checks on any data returned by those systems during the war. The U.S.
will do this by increasing the inaccuracies on the civilian C/A code, turning back on S/A (Selective Availability), by having the satellites deliberately and randomly return inaccurate information on where they are. S/A degrades GPS
accuracy to only 100 meters 95 percent of the time and 300 meters the other 5 percent of the time. This will not effect the military P code."
shouldn't have scratched our own satelite project (named Galileo, IIRC)
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
Don't like it, but it's the army's stuff. They can degrade it that far if they want to. Don't like it? Send up your own GPS satalites.
Mod point free since 2001
This may seriously affect my handy-dandy Honda navigation system built into my Odyssey - it already has trouble guessing which road I'm on when the roads are close together - imagine it thinking I'm a block away from where I really am.
" Users depending on GPS systems may want to do sanity checks on any data "
Which sane person would rely on GPS data for something even as trivial as navigation? Incidentally, how does one check GPS data? Against another GPS??
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
This means that my grand dad can get lost in forrest while picking up mushrooms. I can get my legacy faster. :)
Would be interesting to know what the EU would do with Gallileo at this moment in time. I dare say they would follow the US lead, I suppose...
...by having the satellites deliberately and randomly return inaccurate information on where they are.
;)
Isn't that supposed to be terrorism ?
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
Last time they turned off the S/A during the war, cheaper that way using off the shelf gps.
You can always have a radio broadcasting the offsets from a known location to compensate.
my associative arrays can kick your hash - TCL
My guess is that for high-precision locations, the Iraqis already measured them with high accuracy, while for, say, infantry navigation all you really need is 100m accuracy. (Even less for armored forces, of cource)
And given the air threat, I also doubt their forces will change their localtions too much; if it's camouflaged enough to survive the initial attacks, it will probably stay put.
Working for necessity's mother.
Do they really know how much a captain depends on GPS these days, especially when it comes to passing in and out of harbors? I hope this won't wreck another tanker somewhere.
Let me understand this, the head of a German Autoclub says the U.S. military MAY, I repeat MAY, degrade GPS accuracy. No evidence. Just pure conjecture. Consider that GPS has woven itself into our lives. How, it arguably supports critical functions. I strongly doubt that they will do this. While I understand the world's fears concerning GPS because it is run by the military, I put this article in with all FUD.
Civilian planes use GPS, don't they?
What about other critical systems like police, ambulance, fire brigades and so on??
There are plans for building a similar system to GPS in Europe so that we are not too much depending on the american empire. The following page nicely explains the concept. More is available here . This is technically very interesting and should open up new possibilities for navigation. Furthermore being constructed jointly by many partners and nations we can be reasonably sure that it can not be compromised by one weak leader.
Googlefight "Slashdot Troll" against "BSD is dying" 303:229. BSD thus cant die.
John R. Smith, of Peoria (Ill.) drove his brand-new SUV through the security glass doors of his bank, while following his GPS navigator.
"I was only following the indications of this @!!%!! machine -- and it told me I still needed to travel straight ahead for a hundred meters!", Smith tried to explain as he was taken into custody by the Peoria Police Department for "breaking and entering".
The Peoria Intercontinental Bank representatives were unavailable for comments.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
There is a better alternative to GPS named STDMA (Self-organizing Time Division Multiple Access). It is patented with U.S. Patent No. 5,506,587, which you may find HERE.
It is in use in marine navigation. See also HERE and for a tech overview HERE.
Apparently, the US has tried to suppress the system as it may well replace GPS because of better performance and other reasons; one can imagine wartime control may be of importance here.
It's more likely that localized blackout or jamming in the Iraq region will be used, rather than a global downgrade. See here for more.
--
CPAN rules. - Guido van Rossum
I mean I know they sold them Anthrax, but didn't know about the GPS euipment ;)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
It is not so well known that the russians have a system similar to GPS. More information at http://www.rssi.ru/SFCSIC/english.html
Because that would defeat the purpose of the military code.
GPS 101:
Every GPS unit stores internally a fairly accurate clock, a database of every GPS sattelite's individual code and its expected position in the sky for something like the next few weeks. This information is updated by syncing with a sattelite every so often. These codes are long enough that based on what portion of the code the receiver is receiving at a given time from a particular sattelite, it can calculate the time elapsed since the signal left the sattelite (by comparing to what portion of the code the sattelite should be transmitting according to its internal clock).
Using time elapsed, and roughly the speed of light (with minor corrections) for the speed of the wave, it can then calculate distance from the sattelite. Given three sattelites, you narrow down your location to one of two points (the maximum number of points of intersection of two non-congruent spheres. Luckily, one of these points is almost always inside the earth or in outer space, so a fourth sattelite isn't needed for that triangulation.
A fourth sattelite is used, however to make corrections for the GPS receiver's internal clock. That is, the receiver assumes its clock is off of the atomic clock in each sattelite by a constante amount, and therefore a fourth sphere won't intersect either of the points of intersection. However, by correcting for a constant time difference, the points of intersection eventually line up, and that is a fairly good approximation of the unit's location.
This means, by telling the sattelitest to vary the rate of transmission of their own unique code in some random way, the accuracy can be made much lower.
Since the system is based on knowledge of the codes, and only the civilian codes are published, the military codes look like just noise.
So there you have it - if the military doesn't give us the necessary information about the sattelites (information that changes every so often), we have no way of using the military-level accuracy.
Apparently the Pentagon sees no compelling reason for an alternative to GPS. Oops, that would be before they checked their GPS units round about now. Oh wait, I forgot, they have their fingers on the buttons, perhaps that why they can't see a compelling reason.
Oops look; those pesky photons might interfere with each other
On the other hand, to be fair, the US could have just degraded the signal without announcing it. At least now ships and planes probably won't be piloted into rocks.
Don't a number of commercial services like onstar use gps to track vehicles?
'Be calm madam, you are not lost. According to us you are floating off the coast of San Diego. You should be fine once high tide rolls in.'
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
S/A has always been a bit of a farce. It can be circumnavigated (no pun intended) if you use Differential GPS.
Basically, you set one GPS receiver up at a known, surveyed location and program that location into the unit. Then when the receiver trilaterates its position based on the information the satellites provide, it does on-the-fly corrections (You say i'm here, but i know i'm here). It can then use that correction algorithm to correct the positions of other receivers.
Of course doing that part on-the-fly is a bit more difficult (read expensive) because now you have to invest in radio communications back and forth between the two or more receivers - but it's often done. There are even services that have base stations set up across the country that sell a subscription-based service for that purpose.
Most times, survey firms just log the data and correct after-the-fact back in the office from the base station (the differentiator) located in the same area.
All in all, S/A only imposes the error to systems that don't have the capability == money to do DGPS.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
I guess we all just pospone that trip to the wilderness to get away from things..
Take a MAP ( remember those things? ) on your next road trip...
After the war the service will return to normal.
Besides, who said we had a right to use GPS anyway?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
GPS is much more important to the US military, which does not have on-the-ground knowledge there. The US should be more worried about the Iraqis jamming GPS signals and other communications.
Of course, so far, it looks like Iraq is pretty feeble militarily. I suspect the war will be over very quickly. Which brings up the question again: why are we going?
I rather like to idea of getting a bunch of people together - going round to military HQ and saying - "can we have our bomb back?"
Before and after the previous Gulf War, we had S/A "jamming" by the military, resulting in "errors" of about 10 to 100m.
During the last GW however, the US military disabled the jamming, because they were unable to produce military grade GPS receivers. They gave "normal" civilian GPS receivers to officers and disabled the jamming, thus defeating the entire purpose of the S/A system...
This was one of the reasons they turned it off a couple of years ago.
Well, it seems the US government isn't too comfortable with that and tries (german link) to make (german link) the EU abandon that project. Naturally the EU doesn't like depending on a US-monopoly for such an important system.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
All you need is the nuclear missile and the 100m doesn't matter anymore.
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
For all your GPS news and status.
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/gps/default.htm
yes, www.dotcomforwardslash.com is my real URL.
The reality is that in the time period since S/A was turned off many businesses have become dependent on the GPS. If S/A were to be turned back on worldwide, then that would provide one more reason to oppose the war. COnsidering the current political climate, both in the US and worldwide, I can't see this happening.
It's essentially the same thing. The accuracy is degraded by offsetting the clock just a little bit. We're talking errors of only miliseconds here so you can still set your watch by GPS, but it's enough to throw in an uncertainty volume into the computed position. Remember that the position is actually calculated by the GPS device through the differences in received timestamps (simple version of how it works).
This has been discussed before.
Look at
http://www.igeb.gov/sa.shtml
They say it will NEVER be turned back on
also see
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Of course - I forgot that the American chiefs of staff have a strict policy of inform and consult with the German auto club.
Carpe Daemon
GlobalSecurity.org has posted an interesting FAQ on the war and GPS. It's located here . It was written by Richard B. Langley from the Dept. of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering at the University of New Brunswick. It's a good read and answers a lot of questions about GPS and general and possible routes the military can use.
--Nyght--
It has been the policy of the Interagency GPS Board that Selective Availability would never be turned back on, mainly because there are so many civilian users the rely on the more accurate signal since it was turned off. It would be a huge public relations blunder for the government if it did.
p ort/2003/iraq-and-gps_faq.pdf.
But before SA was turned off, the Air Force had to develop a capability called "Selective Deniability" that would allow it to alter the accuracy of GPS signals over designated theater of operations. I seriously doubt that SA will be re-enabled systemwide.
Someone on a listserv I belog to send the URL of this PDF dated 13 March, 2003 that adddresses some of those questions. The URL is http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/re
Actually, most units have a 12-channel parallell receiver, so it can do a pretty job and narrow your
position within 9 meters. 4-channel GPS units are things of the past (or used sometimes when size
matters more than accuracy).
Also, there are a "new" addition to the GPS system called WAAS (wide-area-augmentation-system) which
uses differente sattelites (this ones being geo-stationary) to send differentials information about
the GPS's sattellites signals. This way, a civilian WAAS-enabled unit like mine (garmin etrex vista)
can have an accuracy of about 3 meters, in theory. I find WAAS pretty dodgy and dont tend to use it
much because of higher battery comsumption and higer CPU usage, for a small improvement in the
accuracy (I mostly use the GPS in the car, so...)
cheers.
``If a program can't rewrite its own code, what good is it?'' - Mel
While it's hard/impossible to obtain a receiver that can directly use the P code, it IS possible for a civilian receiver to use the encrypted P code for additional accuracy without decrypting it.
i n.htm and http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/iessg/gringo/
The civilian C/A codes are only broadcast on one frequency. Both the C/A and P codes are pseudorandom bit sequences designed to have a very high peak in their self-correlation function. (Effectively turning the CW transmitters on the satellites into high-power pulse transmitters as far as SNR requirements at the receiver.) The encrypted P code has a much lower peak in its self-correlation function, but it STILL has a peak.
The C/A code is only broadcast on one frequency, while the P code is broadcast on two frequencies. Why? Because one of the leading sources of error in GPS reception when SA is turned off is the fact that the ionosphere delays the signal. Fortunately, the ionospheric delay is a linear function of the frequency. (I.e. a signal at 1.7 GHz is delayed 1.7/1.2 times as much as a signal at 1.2 GHz). So, a military receiver can measure the delay between the two frequencies, and from that calculate the ionospheric delay.
Now go back to the fact that even the encrypted code has a peak in its self-correlation function. A high-end civilian (usually surveying) receiver can receive the encrypted P-codes and correlate them (since they happen to be identical). Since the self-correlation peak of the encrypted code is much lower, the signal strength must be higher than that for unencrypted codes and the process is SLOW, but it can be done. Receivers capable of this cost $$$$$$. (For example, in the GPS lab at Cornell University, they have only 1-2 dual-frequency receivers, while they have plenty of single-frequency receivers on ISA cards to allow for advanced postprocessing of data.)
As far as SA - Even when SA is on, it's possible to get millimeter accuracy from a civilian receiver, using the same techniques needed to get millimeter accuracy from a civilian receiver with SA off. The most important thing is a "reference receiver" nearby - One whose location is precisely known. This receiver can measure all of the errors generated by the satellites, which can be used later to postprocess the data from a remote receiver and correct it.
In addition to clock dithering, SA puts errors in the satellite ephemerides (The description of their orbits). It's possible to download precise (even better than non-SA) ephemerides from various standards organizations for post processing.
Want to try post-processing yourself? Until recently, the answer was "tough luck" with the exception of expensive receivers and the Delorme Earthmate. Only the Earthmate allowed the user to capture raw pseudorange data (The data needed to obtain a navigation fix) for later processing. Fortunately, some people found out that it was possible to obtain pseudorange data from 12-channel Garmin civilian receivers by using some undocumented commands. See http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dmilbert/softs/g12r
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
For those who aren't familiar with WAAS, it's the Wide Area Augmentation System. It's like DGPS on speed. It's run by the FAA. They have a dozen receiving location scattered around the country, at precisely surveyed locations. They measure the difference between where the GPS satelite says they are, and where they actualy are, and then transmit that information to geostationary satelites, which then beam the info back to earth. In a nutshell you get 3m GPS accuracy.
:)
AFAIK there is no provision for reducing the accuracy of WAAS without just turning it off. The FCC would really like to use WAAS to enable planes to do instrument landings at airports without ILS. Of course the FAA can just turn it off anytime...
WAAS works great though. I've left my GPS on auto-detailed track mode, and I've inadvertantly created a highly accurate map of my campus just by walking around with my GPS in my pocket
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Oh Yeah. I forgot. The Europeans have always done such a good job cleaning up.
Kosovo. Thousands of innocents murdered in their own backyard, but they're incapable of bringing themselves to do the right thing, until the U.S. steps in.
Or, perhaps that failure was just a lack of European intestinal fortitude.
It's so typically European. They'd rather have stable despots than the liberation of millions of people. This isn't only a recent development.
The cowardly response to the above will be that stability is better than chaos where millions may starve.
But that's a position that is could only be held by people who've been protected for the last 50 years by the American Taxpayer. A people, I might add, that have for several decades now not known what it's like to live in fear of tyranny.
How many hundreds of trillions of dollars have Americans spent to maintain the current European lifestyle? This is money that was spent on European defense, but ultimately, allowed the Europeans to neglect their own defense spending and focus on domestic needs.
The only reason western Europe has the luxuary of looking down its nose at the U.S. today is that they've essentially been a collection of welfare states of the United States for the last half century.
I for one hope we bring an end to that situation very, very soon. Let the Germans and French worry about their own security. And if the Russian experiment with democracy fails, let's see how critical these same people will be of America then.
Britain aside, NATO has become nothing more than a Welfare program for Western Europe. We stand by them when the Russians are at the door. But where are these folks when we tell them we need them? It's a one-way relationship. One that the American people need to reexamine.
The very threat of military retaliation by the United States allowed western Europe to remain free during the cold war.
Let's see how the European economies do when they have to increase their portion of defense spending, to offset the end of American subsidies. (The only reason European countries have been able to spend so little of their Gross Domestic Product on defense these past five or six decades)
Europeans complain of "The American Empire," as a previous post put it. But I for one would love to see a time arise when my country could go back to being an isolationist one. But ultimately, the same spineless folks who complain about the U.S. today, will be the same ones clamoring for our help tomorrow.
It reminds me of something the comedian David Letterman said after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He had a list of the top 10 things the French were doing to prepare for German reunification.
Number one was "Practicing Blowing kisses while marching backwards."
-dj
- dj
Yep I can see it now...
"Honey, it told me to turn left here. We're on 4th St. We are supposed to be on 5th St. Damn the government. DAMN THEM FOR TURNING ON S/A!!!"
"Didn't you see the sign?"
"I was on the phone. Besides, that SUV blocked my view."
As heise already reported yesterday a US spokesman at the EU denied that the US would anything mentioned above.
See (lazy me, cut and paste from a google news post):
l ity.htm/ gps_pdd.htmS _SA_Event_QAs.pdf
http://www.igeb.gov/sa.shtml
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/gps/selective_availabi
https://www.peterson.af.mil/GPS_Support/documents
http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/FGCS/info/sans_SA/docs/GP
In short, NO, they won't degrade GPS.
I dunno what's more disappointing, that some lamer submitted this to slashdot, or that more of you supposedly "Educated" geeks don't challenge the idea.
Erik
The Interagency GPS Executive Board (IGEB) was established in 1996 by a Presidential directive to manage the Global Positioning System (GPS) and its U.S. Government augmentations. The IGEB is a senior-level policy making body co-chaired by the Department of Defense and the Department of Transportation.
The IGEB have a statement on their website about Selective Availability.
Of course they could change this policy, but for the moment it looks like SA will not be turned on.
that the US turned off SA in the first place to neuter the Galileo project by reducing its perceived need.
Well, the second time the US turned SA off was for that reason.
This article is really amusing because of the fact that the government actually turned SA OFF for the last Gulf War, as there was a shortage of military GPS receivers and soldiers were ordering civilian units mail-order.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
In the FAA air traffic simulator where I work, we have recently done studies preparing for what would happen if the GPS satellites were disabled (on purpose or jammed from a terrorist). NATCA (the controllers union) has developed procedures for what to do when this happens. Most aircraft would fall back to their backup navigation systems, assuming such systems would work on the route they were currently on. Less than 2% would even need attention, and it would be minor intrusion at that -- just enough to get then to where they can fly on their own. Even in the future, when some of the current systems are removed, it won't be much more of a problem.
;)
So you can feel just as safe flying as you currently do
----- I hate sigs.
I for one couldn't care less if hikers' GPS accuracy is reduced to 100m, but for the industry I work in (Precision Agriculture), this presents a huge problem. Many of our clients used DGPS back in the day, and in some areas where it is freely available (along the coast, mostly), still do. However, most do not. 3m was already bad enough, but 100m is a real problem. I'm sure there are other industries being affected by the use of SA as well.
I've built up so much character I have an alter-ego
Isn't that a bit like saying. It isn't your car - the money used to buy it was given to you by your employer.
Well, no.. its more like you split the cost of your car and its maintainence with 200 million other people. And also you elected a driver and split the cost of this as well. You're not allowed to drive the car, but you can be one of the mechanics but you have to give up some of your rights as a passenger. You also have some input as to where the driver takes you, but this is split between all the people as well. This might have to be a larger vehicle, because 200 million people don't fit that easilly into a car; in which case everyone has to spend a little bit more.
#!/
According to this article, nothing needs to be done to the satellites at all. Jammers can be deployed to scramble civilian GPS signals over a localized area.
After all, when's the last time you've seen a GPS receiver with a dish antenna? Ground-based signals can logically affect them just as easily as sky-based.
All I want is a kind word, a warm bed and unlimited power.
Some Garmin receivers already support WAAS, which is a DGPS variant that uses data from geostationary satellites.
Kinda of hard to knock those out...
Also, terrestrial DGPS is not likely to be targeted by a missle for use in the USA.
DGPS isn't too expensive - Almost any civilian GPS receiver can apply the corrections if they are supplied, and receivers for the Coast Guard broadcasts are only $150-200 I believe. (And have been homebrewed for less.) If you have some form of wireless internet connection, do a search for dgps-ip - Essentially RTCM correction data that can be obtained by connecting to a port on a dgpsip server.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
This article says that the DOD has better ways to achieve this end, so you can stop crying. But, if degrading the signal worldwide were the only way to degrade it for the Iraqi military, they would be correct to do so.
It'll be interested to see if they actually turn SA back on or not. And if they do, will it be world-wide or can they really selectively turn regions off? Of course, as you want to hit 3+ satellites at a time, that will still effect a lot more that Iraqi. For example, right now Salman Pak (Iraqi Bio-war site) can see:
GPSBIIA-16(PRN01) GPSBIIA-25(PRN03) GPSBIIR-03(PRN11) GPSBIIR-06(PRN14) GPSBIIR-04(PRN20) GPSBIIA-12(PRN25)Turning SA on these 6 Satellites would screw up GPS in Iraqi - and a large portion of that hemisphere.
www.faa.gov has already got NOTAMs posted regarding inaccurate GPS readings and not to rely solely on GPS for IFR flight.
Now correct me if I'm mistaken here, but wouldn't deliberately decreasing the accuracy of GPS signals essentially create a further handicap for this person who uses the equipment in his day to day life to function more like a "normal" person. Somehow that just seems wrong to me.
And on the up-side, it's great news for people who don't want the rental car companies tracking where they drive.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
IIRC, differential GPS is where you correct for clock error by using a fixed point with a very accurate latitude/longitude measurement as one of your "sattelites".
First of all, differential GPS operates with differences of a signal phases, not the timestamps.
Second, DGPS was the one and only high-precision ("tenths of millimeter") method available before Us army decided to remove all artificial noice from the signal in 2000. It is a static method though and requires two nodes to sit tight on their spots for at least few minutes to accumulate enough redundant data.
Thirdly, there is a kinetic methods that apply to a processing of noise GPS signals by moving objects. I dont remember all math behind it, but it works out into automatic cancellation of phase measurements error and gives a decent location and speed accuracy even with S/A on. Not suitable for high speed objects (such as missles), but more than enough for driving around.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
The official sites to monitor if you're worried:
www.igeb.gov: The IGEB is a senior-level policy making body chaired jointly by the Departments of Defense and Transportation. Its membership includes the Departments of State, Commerce, Interior, Agriculture, and Justice, as well as NASA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Right after 9/11/01, they posted (still there) this: "GPS Selective Availability (SA) has not been used since its deactivation by the President on May 1, 2000. At that time, the United States Government stated that it has no intent to ever use SA again. There has been no change in this policy."
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/gps/default.htm is the official source for notices to civilian GPS users about schedule satellite outages, etc. They have nothing related to S/A being turned back on, and they certainly would if it were going to happen.
We can jam or dither the civilian code over the theater if we need to.
Most GPS systems don't use local tranbsponders. Only systems where accuracy is crucial and cannot be dependent upon the US military's whim use local transponders that send very accurate signals. Such configurations are used, for example, on some airports to guide planes to the tar strips. The accuracy of such systems can be measured in centimeters.
Before people point out that ILS does that without depending on GPS at all: True, but the paths that ILS can guide airplanes along are not very flexible. Difficult-to-reach airports like those situated in valleys gain a lot of alternative approach paths by using the GPS-based system.
From New Scientist
Jammers can be deployed on mountaintops or tall antennas, but it is probably most economical to place them aboard aircraft. Langley thinks the US might also use "spoofing", in which fake signals fool the GPS receiver into thinking it is somewhere else.
Cool, make the enemy think they are about 500 miles east from where they really are.
Where the hell are we? This can't be right! According to this we are 300 miles out in the Gulf.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
The comapny I am currently working for (an Env. Engr. firm) requires 15m accurracy for field work. We work with a number of large energy companies, state and federal regulatory bodies and we even are working with DOD and Army Corps of Engineers. If we cannot get good readings, we (and our clients) are out of compliance. Also, doing groundwater studies with 100m to 300m accurracy is also unreasonable.
GPS has become so embedded in our society, that this move just isn't viable anymore, IMO.
Is anyone else in this same situation?
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
The early news discussions were predicting the war would cost about $200 billion. That's about $1000-2000 per American taxpayer. Of course, that doesn't count the cost of taking that money out of the civilian economy, which had better things to do with it. If they'd really wanted to take out Saddam because he was a mean nasty ugly guy, a Mossad hit squad could have probably done it for $5-10M, and the CIA could have probably done it for well under a billion, without the need to kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians or risk the lives of large numbers of US soldiers.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"I know the card says the hole is a 104-yard par 3, but the GPS says I'm 523 yards away. Better pull out the driver to be safe."
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin