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Iraqi Drones May Target U.S. Cities
FoxNews ^ | Feb. 24, 2003 | FoxNews

Posted on 02/24/2003 1:18:27 PM PST by FairOpinion

Edited on 04/22/2004 12:35:35 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

WASHINGTON

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: biological; chemical; cities; defense; drones; dronesus; homeland; iraq; nuclear; terrorism; uav; weapons; wmd
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To: FairOpinion
Distribute 12 ga shells, 000 buckshot, full-bore choke.

Might recommend a mask in case you hit the little bugger, but better than spraying your entire city with Saddammabugs, eh.

21 posted on 02/24/2003 1:36:36 PM PST by sam_paine
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To: FairOpinion
So what would one of these things look like?
22 posted on 02/24/2003 1:37:00 PM PST by knak (kelly in alaska)
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To: Centurion2000
Even with 10% success rate SH's teams have just hit 50 cities with a litre of anthrax EACH for 50 million dollars in weapons deployment costs.

All victims in the region take doxycilin and fully recover, attack fails.

Of all the things we need to worry about, this is pretty low on the list.

23 posted on 02/24/2003 1:38:35 PM PST by stimpyone
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To: MississippiMan
MM:"These things could be assembled and launched from a tiny stretch of quiet road almost anywhere, then controlled by a person in a trailing car. Scary. "

-----

Precisely. I think it's much easier to do and much harder to detect, than they are presenting it. The scenario that was described in an article about a plane spraying anthrax over LA is also not as far fetched as one woul like to believe.
24 posted on 02/24/2003 1:39:05 PM PST by FairOpinion
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To: knak

One possible RPV that could do the job.

25 posted on 02/24/2003 1:39:46 PM PST by Centurion2000 (Take charge of your destiny, or someone else will)
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To: stimpyone
All victims in the region take doxycilin and fully recover, attack fails.

Of all the things we need to worry about, this is pretty low on the list.

Replace Anthrax with weaponized smallpox and they might as well have dropped nukes.

26 posted on 02/24/2003 1:40:29 PM PST by Centurion2000 (Take charge of your destiny, or someone else will)
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To: FairOpinion
Nope. Over on Sheryl Crow's forum, folks are agreeing with the Washington Post article about the emerging world view that Bush is a greater threat than Saddam.
27 posted on 02/24/2003 1:41:52 PM PST by rintense (Go Get 'Em Dubya!)
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To: Centurion2000
Oh, great! Now we'll all be shooting kites out of the air!
28 posted on 02/24/2003 1:42:11 PM PST by alley cat
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To: FairOpinion
New York is full of liberals that have already forgotten and dismissed 9/11 as an abberation wholly attributable to GWB.
29 posted on 02/24/2003 1:42:18 PM PST by witnesstothefall
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To: Fred Mertz; da_toolman
This seems to me to be good reason to carry a 12 gauge 24x7
30 posted on 02/24/2003 1:42:38 PM PST by phasma proeliator (it's better to die with honor than to live without it)
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To: stimpyone
"All victims in the region take doxycilin and fully recover, attack fails."

-----

IF It's anthrax. But what if it's nerve gas, mustard gas, not to mention smallpox, which wouldn't even be detected for several days, until people are starting to show up in hospitals. By that time they also infected thousands of others.

And smallpox vaccines are still not available to the general population...

31 posted on 02/24/2003 1:42:54 PM PST by FairOpinion
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To: MississippiMan
These things could be assembled and launched from a tiny stretch of quiet road almost anywhere

Or the deck of a ship...

32 posted on 02/24/2003 1:43:09 PM PST by Nexus
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To: FairOpinion; Incorrigible; wonders; Smogger; Destro; getoffmylawn; Ranger; a_Turk
There is absolutely zero chance of this type of attack against an American city. If US intelligence is seriously concerned about this Islamic entente airborne assault scenario then the West is in some real trouble now.

In a 1995 issue of Albania Briefings Mr D publishing one of the first pictures of a US Predator drone as it based from Gjader, Albania to conduct reconnaissance against Bosnian Serb mobile forces during the Bosnian war. Iraqi drones much less sophisticated now than even those early US models. Launching such an attack would be impossible for a team of Islamic entente sappers in the US.

Much more likely is a Kamikaze style wave of hundreds of drones being launched against US troop buildups in Kuwait. Armed with chemical weapons, only a handful of these getting through would put the US into a real jam. Current air-defence systems in place are not calibrated for such slow moving targets -- what is needed of course are scores of the old Quad fifties to negate this threat in theatre...

Iraqi drones attacking the US mainland? Someone needs to double check and make sure this isn't an early April 1st hoax...

The forces of freedom on the move. Europe trembles.

33 posted on 02/24/2003 1:43:45 PM PST by Fusion
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To: sam_paine
'Distribute 12 ga shells, 000 buckshot, full-bore choke.

Might recommend a mask in case you hit the little bugger, but better than spraying your entire city with Saddammabugs, eh."

I've already got my own - BUMP
but I could use a 10 gauge...

34 posted on 02/24/2003 1:44:51 PM PST by phasma proeliator (it's better to die with honor than to live without it)
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To: Fred Mertz
During my "spook" days, I did the first comprehensive anti-UAV analysis for the European Tactics and Analysis Team (ETAT), a joint-service working group that analyzes threat systems and employment tactics in that geographic region. My analysis focused on Serbian tactics against Allied UAVs over Kosovo in 1999. The report remains classified, but here are a few, generalized highights:

First, UAVs can be knocked down fairly easily with a concerted effort--and the right weapons. As I recall, NATO lost 16 UAVs in Kosovo, including U.S. Predators and a high-speed Franco-German model (CL-228?). Most of the losses occured in an area where UAVs operated frequently. The weapons of choice were anti-aircraft guns (23/60 mm, along with heavy machineguns), or man-portable SAMs. One area in southern Kosovo was nicknamed "the triangle of death" because so many losses occured in that area.

Secondly, the Serbs understood the importance of UAVs before the war began, and made a concerted effort to engage them. They even staged an air defense exercise to refine their anti-UAV tactics. However, despite these losses, the UAVs still "got through" and accomplished their mission.

I'm not sure how much credence I put in these Iraqi UAV reports, but clearly some bigwigs are worried. My biggest concern is that our air traffic control/air defense system is simply not geared for slow-moving, low-flying targets. A UAV with a Predator signature won't even register on radar at low altitude, because of its low RCS, its slow speed, and ground clutter. Additionally, we have virtually nothing to engage them with, aside from a few Stingers and Avengers now deployed in the D.C. area.

35 posted on 02/24/2003 1:45:29 PM PST by Spook86
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To: Fusion
These are NOT fairy tales. It's real:

"But Powell said U.S. intelligence sources found that one of Iraq's newest UAVs went 310 miles nonstop on autopilot in a test run. That distance is over the 155 miles that the United Nations permits, and the test was left out of Iraq's arms declaration.

Officials tell Fox that there is solid intelligence that Iraq has tested many different types of sprayers on these drones to disperse chemical and biological weapons. "

36 posted on 02/24/2003 1:47:57 PM PST by FairOpinion
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To: FairOpinion
But some experts say that even if the UAVs do get assembled for use in the United States, the chances that they could cause widespread damage are low.

Not if there's a swarm of them!!

37 posted on 02/24/2003 1:48:45 PM PST by marvlus
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To: Spook86; Squantos
Thanks.
38 posted on 02/24/2003 1:48:58 PM PST by Fred Mertz
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To: FairOpinion

Peters said in order to go undetected in the air, the UAVs would have to be small -- and therefore would not be able to carry too much of a harmful substance, and they would have to fly over densely populated areas if they want to achieve maximum casualties.

But because many large metropolitan areas such as Washington have air traffic watchers keeping an eye out for any nearby planes that have not filed a flight plan, the UAVs likely would not succeed in a large-city attack.

Actually, I disagree about the difficulty of detection.

Air traffic control radars typically operate in a "interrogate-response" mode. The ground based radar set sends out a interrogation pulse. Transponders aboard military, civil, and most general aviation airplanes receive this signal, and broadcast a coded response containing the aircraft's tail number and (usually) altitude.

ATC radar can operate in a "skin-paint" mode, which is the classic "radar" where the unit detects radio waves reflected from Things In The Sky. In addition to aircraft, the skin-paint mode also detects flocks of birds, rain, and sometimes anomalous propagation or more succintly, thin air. In addition, the lack of altitude and ID information places a severe workload on controllers. Therefore, primary radar wasn't used that often. Perhaps it is nowadays, but I have no knowledge of that.

Now, this discussion does not touch on military or police air-defense search radar, of which I have zero knowledge.

39 posted on 02/24/2003 1:49:47 PM PST by Chemist_Geek ("Drill, R&D, and conserve" should be our watchwords! Energy independence for America!)
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To: Centurion2000
Great, I've seen something like that in my son's closet.
40 posted on 02/24/2003 1:50:02 PM PST by knak (kelly in alaska)
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