Posted on Tue, Jun. 14, 2005
LE BOURGET, France (AP) - Raytheon Co. said Tuesday it has developed a high-powered microwave beam to defend airliners from missiles and is urging the U.S. government to deploy it at major airports to foil possible terrorist attacks.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has already acknowledged concerns about the potential for attacks on jets from shoulder-fired missile launchers. In August, it awarded two $45 million contracts to Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp. and Britain's BAE Systems PLC to develop anti-missile lasers for commercial planes.
But Raytheon, a Waltham, Mass.-based defense electronics supplier, argued in a presentation at the Paris Air Show that its ground-based system is more cost-effective and, unlike the on-board alternatives, already tested in the field.
Its technology, called ``Vigilant Eagle,'' uses a network of infrared sensors to set up a ``protective dome'' around an airport. When a surface-to-air missile is detected, a billboard-sized microwave gun blasts the missile with a high-energy microwave beam, confusing its guidance system and preventing it from finding its target.
Mike Booen, vice president for directed energy weapons at Raytheon Missile Systems, said a prototype had ``proven effective'' in tests but declined to give a success rate.
Tucson, Arizona-based Raytheon Missile Systems has also offered to carry out further trials in the United States or at Iraq's Baghdad International Airport -- where a DHL freighter made an emergency landing last year after being struck by a shoulder-launched missile.
In 2002, two missiles narrowly missed an Israeli charter plane carrying 271 people after takeoff from Mombasa, Kenya. U.S. airports including Los Angeles have since tightened security in response to the threat posed by portable missile launchers, which are readily available for as little as $2,000 on the black market, police say.
Raytheon argues that 70 percent of U.S. inbound and outbound flights could be protected by equipping the busiest 30 domestic airports, at a cost of $25 million each.
By contrast, Northrop Grumman says the cost of its on-board system will work out to less than $1 million per plane -- although both Raytheon and Rand Corp., the defense research group, say the figure could be considerably higher.
The Department of Homeland Security said it does not rule out the eventual deployment of a ground-based system if it were to prove more effective.
``We are open to all technological alternatives,'' said spokesman Donald Tighe.
But Jack Pledger, Northrop's director of infrared counter measures, said deploying a ground-based system to the biggest airports would simply invite attacks at smaller ones as well as leave U.S. flights exposed overseas.
``The money spent on protecting those few bases just drives the threat to another place that is unprotected,'' Pledger said.
Pledger, who was also speaking at the air show in the northern Paris suburb of Le Bourget, said Northrop's prototype system will be tested in a Federal Express MD-11 and a Northwest Airlines Boeing 747 in coming months. The company hopes to obtain certification from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration by the end of the year.
Shares of Raytheon fell 16 cents to $38.93 Tuesday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange.
Saddam and Dujial
6/13/2005 01:02:00 PM
Al-Dujial is an area about 60 KM North of Baghdad in which Saddam was exposed to an assassination in July 1982. It is an agricultural area with plenty of fruits and palm trees gardens. While SH was passing with his covey cars through the area, brave youths from this Shiite populated region, intercepted and attacked him with the rifles, RPGs and guns from the orchards by hiding in between the trees, the ditches and on the top of trees inside the gardens. Some of his guards (10) were killed instantly and he was wounded in his right arm.
SH convoy consist armored Mercedes and other vehicles which are all similar shape for camouflaging. He was sitting in the last car. When attacked, he jumped and hides behind the wreckage of the burned cars. Barzan his half brother was the Chief of the Mukhabarat system which was the most brutal security system especially under Barzan. This system led the operation of the destruction of Dujial.
They immeidatly send army from this system, the army, the security, and the special forces including units from the Baath party and isolated Dujial from the rest of Iraq for many weeks. 1000 men were immediately arrested.
Within few hours later the bulldozers, helicopters and tanks wiped out the area and turned the most beautiful gardens and houses into a desert. Hundreds of families were arrested indiscriminately. The operation was carried out by his half brother Barzan Tikriti. Many peoples died under tortures and the others disappeared until this moment. Those who were executed were children, old men, women and adults. The executions were based on doubts, being Shiites and to terrorize the people that the punishment facing them if they think to attack SH is terrible and extraordinary which will burn the every thing.
Since that time until the fall of the regime in March 2003, Dijeel exposed to sever punishments. The youths from Dujial were not allowed to enter the universities, they have no rights to request any basic right, they stripped out of any services, and were then not given any job in the state or the army or police or high education and so on. Simply they lived in a prison called Dujial inside a bigger prison called Iraq.
More than 450 Dijeeli victims were killed. About 200 family vanished and no one knows where! He changed its name from Dujial into Al-Fares which means (the Knight)! The name Dujial is by the river Dujial which is a diminutive term derived from Dujial which is the River Tigris.
Two days ago the Iraqi Special Tribunal asked SH and his thugs who appeared in the video today about the events of Dujial in which they killed indiscriminately innocent people and wiped out the area by leveling its gardens, houses, and killing even sheep and other animals stood in their way!
Saddam answered that he was not responsible for it but done by those who are responsible for the security of the President which have nothing to do with him. However his half brother Barzan gave evidence before convicting Saddam as the top leader for this atrocity and others. Barzan was one of the most brutal members of that regime after Saddam and Ali Chemical.
The nightmare of the people of Al-Dujial continued for more than 21 years and only ended by the fall of the regime 2003.
Saddam and all the bloody killers have to stand in front of justice as soon as possible; today before tomorrow.
http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/