Obscure Spy Technology Will Play Big Role In Iraq

Newhouse.com | April 9, 2003 | Chuck McCutcheon

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WASHINGTON -- An obscure, ultra-sophisticated form of spying technology is expected to play a large role in ferreting out any suspected chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.

Measurement and signatures intelligence, known in spy circles as "MASINT," identifies the production of weapons through computer analysis of infrared and radar sensors. Targets include, among other things, chemical contents of smokestack discharges from weapons factories.

"When this is all over and done, I think that MASINT will be very important in trying to determine where there are (weapons of mass destruction) caches," said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA Iraq analyst who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

Kevin O'Connell, an intelligence analyst for the RAND Corp., a national security think tank, agreed that the technology could be of use in spotting not only potential production sites but places where weapons may have been tested.

"It's one of the things that gives us a comparative advantage over our adversaries," O'Connell said. "It's a unique set of tools that are driven by science and technology."

MASINT gained some publicity in connection with the prosecution of former FBI counterintelligence specialist Robert Hanssen, who was sentenced last year to life in prison without parole for selling secrets to Russia. Hanssen is believed to have turned over sensitive documents describing how the technology can be utilized, according to court documents.

Intelligence experts say MASINT has been an often overlooked form of gathering information, especially compared with data gleaned from human spies and telephone eavesdropping. An office within the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, which does spying for the military, is the focus for uses of MASINT.

Several experts declined to provide specifics on how the technology might be deployed in Iraq, citing national security concerns.

"It's a capability that I think we can use to our advantage, but I'd rather not talk about it until we use it," said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla.

But news accounts and other published reports have noted the technology was developed in part as a response to shortcomings in intelligence collection during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

MASINT can track weapons by their sounds, heat, radiation, chemical traces or other physical evidence.

One form of MASINT, telemetry intelligence, picks up the signals that a missile or warhead sends to a ground station during test flights. The information includes details on the missile's thrust and fuel consumption.

Another form, radar intelligence, analyzes the deflection of radar waves to obtain information about flight paths, velocity and the angle of descent of airborne objects.

Gen. Tommy Franks, who as commander of the U.S. Central Command is overseeing the war in Iraq, has said MASINT also can help the military in assessing damage after battles.

MASINT sensors generally are located on ships, planes and satellites. But Pollack said placing them on the ground in Iraq "will make things a lot easier."

"Even so," he added, "we're going to have to rely a great deal on humans in the form of Iraqi military personnel and scientists coming forward and saying, `Here's where you need to start looking.' The problem we had with the (U.N. weapons) inspectors was not that they didn't have the capabilities, it was that we didn't even know where the heck to send them."

The amount of money devoted to MASINT is classified, but Congress has pushed to enlarge it in recent years. A 2001 Senate Intelligence Committee report said the panel "has allocated a significant amount of resources over the last two years to bolster MASINT capability."

A national terrorism commission chaired by former Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III recently called for a further upgrade "through an expansion in research, development, test and evaluation of reliable sensors and rapid readout capability."

[KriegerGeist]

Ihear and read about people trying to find the underground tunnels, some of which contain undergroung prisons that the people believe their relatives are locked up without food or water now. they are desperate to find them.

My question is: don't we have some sort of ground radar thechnology for finding underground tunnels and bunkers from above? I thought that geologists use them or something...

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[olinr]

My question is: don't we have some sort of ground radar thechnology for finding underground tunnels and bunkers from above?

Yes, it is called "HARP"!

[Libertarianize the GOP]

I think you answered Geist Krieger's question but addressed your reply to me.