Advanced Surveillance Tech for Unmanned Drones Credited In Iraq

mathoda writes "Investigative reporter Bob Woodward states that America has developed secret capabilities 'to locate, target and kill key individuals in groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni insurgency and renegade Shia militias, or so-called special groups. The operations incorporated some of the most highly classified techniques and information in the US government.' The LA Times now reports, 'As part of an escalating offensive against extremist targets in Pakistan, the United States is deploying Predator aircraft equipped with sophisticated new surveillance systems that were instrumental in crippling the insurgency in Iraq, according to US military and intelligence officials.' Part of the capabilities appear to be that the unmanned flying drones can track targets even inside of buildings." Update by J : Bruce Schneier's readers have some thoughts.

Comments

We do

[Anonymous Coward]

the problem is that the enemy is using children. They surround themselves with their family and then when we hit they claim that it was all innocents. Simply put, in every hit that we have done in Pakistan, it has involved at least 1 top ranking A.Q. person. We would have preferred to not take out the family, but had little choice. And yes, the A.Q. is FULLY aware that they are being targeted in all places.

OK, I've had enough

[greyhueofdoubt]

Air Force here- spent a lot of time around Predators and the equipment they are discussing. This article did not come as a surprise to me at all; in fact, I would say that this story was a non-story. Airborne weapons and avionics are designed to be modular and interchangeable. Outside of the actual flight computers, there is no reason that electronics like, for example, a laser targeting pod from an F-16 can't be mounted on an F-15. Heck, even the mounting hardware is the same.

This story is yet another "We're doing X, but IN SPAAAAACCE!!!" or "We're doing Y, but on WEEEEEEEED!!!".

This article could be about installing a Sony CD deck in a chevy. OMG!!!

I don't know what it is about the predator that gets /. stories up to 400-600 comments. Transformers was a movie. Robocop was a movie. These things are simply unmanned, remotely-piloted aircraft. They are slow and ungainly and prone to malfunction*. We've been using unmanned, remotely-piloted aircraft as drones since the early cold war. Your paranoia about the coming police state would be better spent on issues like voting machines and unconstitutional laws- you know, things that actually matter at this point. When the predators start coming for you, it will be because your elected officials passed laws to make it legal to hunt you down. Make your votes count this year.

*Need proof? here is a picture of one that decided to taxi off the runway and crash for reasons known only to it and the predator god: http://homepage.mac.com/hylic/vacation/index4.html

This was not uncommon during the time I spent there.

-b

Re:Does anyone else find it erie that we're

[anti-pop-frustration]

What cartoon was it? A guy dies and goes to heaven expecting his virgins and low and behold, there they are: a bunch of geeks at their computers.

It's far worst than that in the cartoon. They are playing Magic: The Gathering.

Fusion Cells

[Crass Spektakel]

Oh, Slashdot is last on the news...

The fusion cells are here, the definite answer to asymetric terrorism, the "blitzkrieg" of the 21st century.

Its been all over the net the last year (militaryphoto, strategypage, longwarjournal, sicherheitspolitik and others) and centers around a new geek approach about hunting the bad guys down: Small teams with lots of freedom to move and as many toys to play with as they like. And also more secrecy than anything ever before. Think of "Mission Impossible", the classic series from the seventies, just with hundreds of teams in operation.

I am pretty surprised that the geek world hasn't had fusion cells in their focus earlier, it is the ultimate geek military unit.

How much is propaganda?

[RustinHWright]

I'm guessing most. From the sensor grids along the Ho Chi Minh trail to the Sargent York gun, our military has a long and embarrassing history of promoting assorted, "can't tell you because that's a secret" crap, most of which turns out to be a combination of defense contractor welfare and those contractors acting out the fantasies of tech-illiterate military and political decisionmakers. (See SDI, aka "Star Wars".)

And remember the source here. Whatever he was in 1972, Woodward has been the asshole buddy of the Bush administration for a very long time now, who, whatever his attempts to make himself look good now may be, played a key role in sabotaging the career of CIA agent Valerie Plame to back Bush administration policy. Not to mention having helped the Reagan administration use Casey as cover for many of their most egregious crimes. Frankly, anybody getting repeated positive endorsements from folks like Peggy Noonan isn't somebody whose word I'm going to trust.

Re:How much is propaganda?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

played a key role in sabotaging the career of CIA agent Valerie Plame to back Bush administration policy

Are you sure you aren't talking about Novak? The guy who actually published the details on Plame that Cheney was shopping around? I thought I read that Woodward specifically chose not to take Cheney's bait.

Re:Does anyone else find it erie that we're

[budgenator]

The Predators actually have very limited offensive capabilities such as 2 Hellfire missiles, normally what happens is the Predator paints the target with a laser designator and a near by gunship shoots the bird to nail the target. After the smoke clears the troop ship puts boots on the ground to do cleanup, damage assessment and take care of any squirters that manage to jump the arrow. If the Predators shot the mission, they would have to spend way too much time returning to base for re-loading and only shoot as a last resort

Re:Asymmetric warfare

[mfnickster]

We have had more of our troops KIA in one month during Viet Nam as we have had during the whole Iraq war.

Sorry, but that's just false. We never lost more than 3000 men in Vietnam in a single month. The most KIA was 543 in April 1969.

http://members.aol.com/warlibrary/vwc24.htm

Contrast this with the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in World War I, in which over 26,000 American soldiers died in one battle. That's almost half as many as the entire Vietnam war.

Re:Asymmetric warfare

[mfnickster]

Oh, I wouldn't leave out the Civil War (in many ways deadlier, because Americans died on both sides). I only brought up Meuse-Argonne because it's considered the "deadliest battle" in U.S. history. By contrast, trying to make Iraq (or even Vietnam) seem like especially bloody wars is kind of pointless.

WWII brought the U.S. about 7 times as many casualties as Vietnam:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_casualties_of_war

Heck, more U.S. soldiers died at Iwo Jima than have died in Iraq to date!

BTW I'm not trying to downplay the sacrifices made by our troops in Iraq. They are in a tough situation, and in many ways have gotten a raw deal from the Pentagon on deployment compared to U.S. soldiers in other wars.