US Army Eyes Mobile Laser Weapon For Tactical Missile Defense

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http://www.spacedaily.com/news/laser-03k.html

This is the same system that Pentagon acquisition chief Darleen Druyun (who is under investigation for sharing sensitive data with Boeing) introduced in 1998 with the approval of former Northrup-Grumman executive, Secretary of the Navy- James Roche.

The Bush administration has based its foreign policy on the assumption that during its tenure it will be able to deploy defenses to protect the United States from strategic missiles. This is a pipe-dream and a boondogle for the Space defense industry which is dominated by Lockheed, Boeing, and Northrup-Grumman, a subsidiary of Lockheed. And the administration is lousy with former executives from these companies.

Among them:
Peter Teets, who presently serves as the director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), undersecretary of the Air Force, and chief procurement officer for all of military space, controlling a budget in excess of $65 billion, a figure that includes $8 billion a year for missile defense and $7 billion annually for NRO spying. Teets, is the former president and chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin who retired from the company in late 1999.
To date, it is believed that the NRO has provided slightly more than $500 million each to Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

James Roche, Secretary of the Navy, worked for Northrop Grumman and its predecessor, Northrop. Northrop Grumman is a major participant in the Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter team.

Stephen Hadley, the flunky bungler who took the fall for the Niger uranium lie, was a Lockheed consultant.

Full list of the Bush administration's corporate connections:
http://www.opensecrets.org/bush/cabinet.asp##1

[htuttle]

1. Ka-Ching!

Wow. That's going to cost a bundle!

[ender]

2. will they be mounted on frickin sharks?

[Code_Name_D]

Sharks are a protected specises

How about man eating tuna instead.

[underpants]

7. We had to use Seabass

[Thor_MN]

12. Better not be Chilean Sea Bass aka Patagonian Toothfish!!!

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/08/27/toothfish.pirates.reut/index.html

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3. Yes! Yes! Sharks with frickin lasers!

Why not! It's unlikely to even get to a working prototype stage for years. They have time to mount it on frickin sharks.

[GreenArrow]

4. Prototype already in action?

A nightmarish US super weapon reportedly was employed by American ground forces during chaotic street fighting in Baghdad. The secret tank-mounted weapon was witnessed in all its frightening power by Majid al-Ghazali, a seasoned Iraqi infantryman who described the device and its gruesome effects as unlike anything he had ever encountered in his lengthy military service. The disturbing revelation is yet another piece of cinematic evidence brought back from postwar Iraq by intrepid filmmaker Patrick Dillon.

In the film, al-Ghazali, whose english is less than fluent, describes the weapon as reminiscent of a flame thrower, only immensely more powerful. It is unclear what principle the weapon is based on. Searching for a description, al-Ghazali said it appeared to be shooting concentrated lightning bolts rather than just ordinary flames. Drawing on his many years as a professional engineer, al-Ghazali speculates that radiation of some kind probably figures into the weapon's hideous capabilities. Like all men in Saddam's Iraq, al-Ghazali was compelled to serve in the Iraqi equivalent of the Army National Guard and fought in three wars over the past thirty-odd years. Via email, he told me he has seen virtually every type of conventional weapon employed in battle, and is well acquainted with their effects on people and machines, but nothing in his extensive combat experience prepared him for the shock of what he saw in Baghdad on April 12th.

http://www.rense.com/general40/secret.htm

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5. Hmm....I don't know...

Given the incredibly high vehicle attrition rate around Baghdad (it's littered with burned out and broken down vehicles, both Iraqi and American), they'd be REALLY stupid to wheel a top secret prototype into that mess. What if it broke down and they had to leave it under fire?

[underpants]

9. 2/24/03 LATimes-W requests testing waiver for Star Wars

this is more of the "if we know the answer is going to be NO! we will bypass having the question asked" childish s**t.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-missile24feb24,1,5024689.story?coll=la%2Dhome%2Dheadlines

Missile Defense Waiver Sought

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is proposing to exempt the Pentagon's controversial missile defense system from operational testing legally required of every new weapons system in order to deploy it by 2004.

Buried in President Bush's 2004 budget, in dry, bureaucratic language, is a request to rewrite a law designed to prevent the production and fielding of weapons systems that don't work.

If the provision is enacted, it would be the first time a major weapons system was formally exempted from the testing requirement.

The Bush administration announced in December a goal of having a limited ground-based system operational in Alaska and at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California by Oct. 1, 2004.

[terryg11]

6. don't have a proven working prototype

but I'm sure we already own a hundred or so. you know, good faith money

[underpants]

8. Yes Winnebagos of fraud waste and abuse

About as effective as Saddam's Winnebagos of Death.

[Robb]

10. Interesting, but not LBN

Northrop Grumman was downselected for MTHEL weeks ago, which is no surprise since as you mention they were the primary contractor for the THEL ACTD (advanced concept technology demonstration) three years and change ago, after TRW dropped out.

Aaaand, FWIW, THEL actually worked rather well. Although it's still a long way from global missile defense.

[fla nocount]

11. Better watch where that things pointed.

It might accidentally go off during testing and bring down the shuttle or something.