Inside the Ring

Night stalkers

One of the ways U.S. forces in Iraq prevent the placement of an improvised explosive device (IED) is to watch the roads.

For surveillance, they use several systems, including the slow-moving AC-130 gunship. The aircraft’s cannons, machine guns and night-sight capability are the perfect systems for locating and killing IED-placing insurgents.

A video we’ve seen shows an AC-130 crew spotting two men who converge in their vehicles on a stretch of isolated road in Iraq. The two look around, and then one carries a weapon into a field, methodically walking off into the distance. It would appear he is calibrating how far to place the IED so our soldiers cannot see it, but close enough so the bomb kills them. The man in the second vehicle follows the same procedure.

In the meantime, the gunship’s crew is describing what it sees and seeks permission to fire. A voice says, “Smoke ‘em.” Gunfire hits the first man, then the second. A third emerges from under one of the vehicles and is killed.

Commanders have said the best way to defeat IEDs is to prevent their placement in the first place. IEDs are responsible for 80 percent of Army casualties.

ASAT silence

Sen. Jon Kyl gave a speech to the Heritage Foundation earlier this week and discussed the fallout from China’s Jan. 11 anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons test that killed a Chinese weather satellite using a kinetic missile warhead.

The Arizona Republican and veteran of the Senate intelligence committee said the Bush administration has the policy to conduct space defense of U.S. satellites but seems to lack the will.

“The question is whether we have the will to implement it,” he said.

“And some recent examples that I’ll cite here point to a flagging enthusiasm, I would put it, for space security,” Mr. Kyl said. “Look to the administration reaction to the Chinese ASAT test. Since the test was reported, there has been no public statement by the president or any Cabinet official, no mention during the State of the Union speech, no congressional hearings have yet been scheduled, no indication has come out of the Pentagon that the space budget is being in any way revisited. The State Department has provided no specific information about what our diplomats are or are not saying in response to the Chinese provocation.”

Mr. Kyl then noted a comment from a State Department spokesman, who questioned what China’s “intentions” were in the test.

“Why do we need to hear from the Chinese exactly what their intentions are?” Mr. Kyl asked. “What intention could possibly be behind the test, save for the capability to blow up satellites in space? Would the State Department believe any alternative explanation if it were given to it?”

White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe confirmed that the administration decided on a low-profile response. “We’ve had Cabinet-level discussions with the Chinese on this that, we think, have been the best course of action,” he said.

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