Posted on 03/12/2003 3:26:26 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
U.S. Information Warriors Wrestle With New Weapons
The U.S. Air Force has just tested its largest bomb, the 22,000-pound MOAB, or Massive Ordnance Air Burst. While the Air Force may be able to employ this huge weapon against Iraq in a traditional "iron on target" method, the service is wrestling with new doctrine and new weapons never before employed in war.
For example, Air Force information warriors recently rejected a planned cyber attack against Iraqi financial computers. Military officials had planned to attack the Iraqi banking and financial network during the opening phase of the USAF campaign against Saddam Hussein. The cyber attack is designed to shut off Saddam's supply of cash.
However, planners later rejected the idea because the Iraqi banking network is linked to a financial communications network located in France. According to Pentagon sources, an information warfare attack on the Iraqi financial network might also bring down banks and ATM machines in Europe as well.
"We don't have many friends in Paris right now. No need to make more trouble if Chirac won't be able to get any euros out of his ATM machine," commented one intelligence source on the rejected plan.
The Air Force frustration in designing cyber attacks against Iraq even made a rare public appearance. USAF Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper openly vented his feelings about cyber warfare during a recent public interview.
"Anybody who thinks they've got their arms around information warfare and information operations, please stand up. I'd like the briefing right now," said Gen. Jumper.
U.S. cyber war planners intended to penetrate the Iraqi military command and control network at the highest levels. The U.S. military wanted to obtain Iraq's equivalent of air tasking orders, ground tasking orders and the e-mail for the senior Iraqi leadership.
"It turns out that their computer systems extend well outside Iraq," stated a senior Air Force official during an interview with Aviation Week and Space Technology.
"We're finding out that Iraq didn't do a good job of partitioning between the military and civilian networks. Their telephone and Internet operations are all intertwined. Planners thought it would be easy to get into the military through the telephone system, but it's all mixed in with the civilian traffic. It's a mess."
U.S. cyber warriors are hoping to hack into Iraq's Kari and Tiger Song air defense networks. France sold the Kari system to Iraq during the 1980s and it continues to provide the bulk of Iraqi air defense controls. The system relies on French-made computers linking mostly Russian made radars through a series of local command sites.
The fiber optic Tiger Song air defense network was installed in Iraq during the 1990s by China in violation of the U.N. ban on weapons sales to Baghdad. The Chinese network has been bombed several times, suffering only a slight degrade in service until Iraqi engineers could repair it.
Tiger Song is a more widely distributed network than the French Kari system and is similar to the Internet, allowing Iraqi mobile radars and missile units to link into the network from pre-positioned fiber optic sites. Both systems are linked together, with the French Kari network providing the overall command and control.
U.S. warriors hope to be able to penetrate the Kari and Tiger Song systems through computer links from the Internet or Iraqi phone system. The Tiger Song network is reportedly also cross-linked with an Iraqi oil pipeline communications network that employs microwave communications links. U.S. forces could tap into the Tiger Song system using the microwave links.
Another alternative is for U.S. Special Forces teams to penetrate Iraq and plant active electronic taps into the Iraqi systems. The Tiger Song network of fiber optic lines is much more difficult to attach hardware electronic taps to. However, U.S. cyber warriors may be able to use the same pre-positioned link points that Iraqi air defense units utilize.
U.S. cyber warriors also have some new hardware weapons in their arsenals. It is rumored that the U.S. has deployed three new energy weapon systems to the Gulf as special warheads for cruise missiles. One such new weapon is an HPM, or High Power Microwave bomb system that produces an extremely powerful burst of microwave radiation.
The HPM warhead is designed to strike Iraqi communication, radar, computer and electronic networks. The HPM warhead is a "non-lethal" system and will not harm humans located within the microwave burst area.
Another weapon is the EMG, or Explosive Magnetocumulative Generator warhead that generates a gigantic magnetic field that can disable all electronics within a short radius.
The process of creating the magnetic field in an EMG generator requires a coil wrapped in a belt of explosives, shaped to create an implosion. Before detonation, current is sent through the coil, which creates a small magnetic field for a split second. The explosives are then detonated to "squeeze" the coil rapidly and create an extremely high magnetic field.
In military form, the EMG is a conventional warhead that produces a magnetic pulsed field equal to a small nuclear bomb. EMGs can knock out computers, radios and radars and fry a wide variety of electronic devices. The U.S. version, an EMG warhead-equipped Tomahawk cruise missile, was used in "non-lethal" strikes against Serbian radar and command posts.
Another version of the Tomahawk used in the 1991 Gulf War deployed small spools of carbon-carbon fiber thread over Iraqi power plants and electric grids. The fiber spools unwound and fell over the live wires. The resulting shorts blew most of the Iraqi electric power grid for the remainder of the war. Iraqi efforts to clear the spools and restart the electric plants were foiled by desert winds, which blew more spools back into the live wires.
Serbian forces have also felt the Tomahawk "lights out" warhead filled with carbon-carbon thread. The U.S. Air Force was so impressed with the non-lethal warhead that it has installed it in a special GPS guided version. Small "submunitions" that are deployed by the GPS bomb over the intended target dispense the USAF carbon-carbon spools.
Gee, what a surprise.
I am in favor of saying oops later.
Why on Earth would anyone be concerned about that? If you can get Iraq and France in one operation then I'm in favor of it. Hell, I would be in favor of bombing Paris at this point!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.