Posted on 05/09/2003 9:23:58 AM PDT by Tancredo Fan
Fort is proposed HQ for UAV program
Kolbe, others hope post can help with border security
BY BILL HESS
Herald/Review -- Sierra Vista, Arizona - 5/8/03
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe said Fort Huachuca's involvement with unmanned aerial vehicles makes Southern Arizona the best location for a UAV border security program.
He and six other Republican members of the Arizona congressional delegation sent a letter Wednesday to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge asking him to start a UAV program to help secure the borders with Mexico and Canada.
The Army post, which is the designated Department of Defense Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Center, would be the logical place to put such an operation, Kolbe said this morning.
"They (the fort) have been in the UAV business a long time," he said. "It clearly is the logical place to put a UAV border system."
The restricted airspace and clean electro-magnetic environment exists and it would be difficult to find them elsewhere in the country, the congressman said.
The post also has the infrastructure to support UAV operations, including the capability of the tactics, techniques and procedures developed on the post that can be shared with other federal law enforcement agencies responsible for protecting the borders, Kolbe said.
Although U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., also sent a letter to Ridge seeking a UAV program at the Las Cruces International Airport, Kolbe said substantial infrastructure would have to be constructed there.
Kolbe said that in Las Cruces the airspace is not restricted, and the electro-magnetic environment is not clean. Airspace availability and a good electro-magnetic environment already exists in and around Fort Huachuca, and with the Intelligence Center at the post, the elements needed for good training and operations already are available, he said.
There is no need for highly sophisticated UAVs, like some the military uses, Kolbe said.
What is needed are simple, less expensive aircraft that can be flown to monitor the border, he said.
The key is having a place that already exists for the training and development and that is the fort, he emphasized.
Additionally, the different units on the post are involved in synergistic operations that can be extended to support other federal law enforcement agencies, the congressman said. Libby Army Airfield, the Intelligence Center, the Electronic Proving Ground, the Joint Interoperability Test Command and the Network Enterprise Technology Command can provide support.
They also will benefit by learning new things as well, Kolbe added.
According to the letter, "Fort Huachuca already conducts significant UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) operations and benefits from an average of 340 flying days available annually in the region."
The Cochise County Board of Supervisors has agreed to lease 400 acres near Whetstone to establish a test center for unnamed aerial vehicle development. The proposed site will be used for contractors who want to develop and test UAVs.
Besides Kolbe, Sen. John McCain and Reps. Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, J.D. Hayworth, Rick Renzi and John Shadegg signed the letter.
Kolbe said U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl sent his letter to Ridge. The two state Democratic representatives in Congress, Ed Pastor and Raul Grijalva, did not respond if they wanted to sign the letter, Kolbe added.
Not really, I was looking for the link, after finding a story out of Mexico yesterday that JackelopeBreeder posted:
"This new action by ABP is worrisome in that it contributes to promote hatred and racism against immigrants in the region" indicated Lemus when indicating that the US government has the obligation to prevent it.I have Jan. 7th circled on my calendar. That's the day my zip code ended up in Pastor's district and no longer in Shadegg's!(MALDEF, Coalition of Human rights of Arizona, and LULAC were all quoted as being outraged not only by ABP but by the notion that the US gov't might use these planes to "spy" on illegal aliens!)
We had one of them a number of years ago (actually we've had several but this one was newsworthy) and the crashing UAV hit and killed some cow. The rancher was pissed and was well reimbursed.
A few years ago we had one lose its programming and the controllers couldn't gain control. Word was that it ended up in the Sea of Cortez.
When my brother worked out at the UAV site as a programmer they had one crash into the building next to his. It happened at night, luckily, or people would have been hurt or killed. It went right through someone's desk area destroying everything.
Flaky little buggers but we love them anyway.
The person who programmed waypoints added an extra zero to a set of Lat/Long coordinates. The guidance system couldn't resolve that particular waypoint, so it took up a preprogrammed heading (something like 225 degrees true) and did indeed end up in the Sea of Cortez!
My condolences. Pastor is more dangerous than Grijalva, because he's quieter and smarter. Grijalva is a bumbling sideshow. But Ed Pastor...scheming behind the scenes. If they ever close Yuma MCAS, he'll simply plant the Mexican flag over Southwestern Arizona. For now, he has to contend with all them pesky Gyrene Pilots and their support people in Yuma. And they aren't too thrilled with him...
"It is completely illegal that private groups use the airspace for functions exclusively reserved to US authorities", Katherine Culliton, lawyer for Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Foundation (MALDEF) said to Notimex
It's really laughable, isn't it, when you hear these jerks starting ranting about how no one is allowed to report on them, how no one is allowed to impede their invasion, and on and on. "You damn gringos got no right to stop us!!". It's comical. It goes along with Allan Wall's articles: basically, the folks who populate Mexico simply think we have no right to a border. Frankly, they've been fairly successful at convincing our own government that that's true!
Everyone should read Allan Wall's great articles! He tells the truth of what's happening in Mexico because he lives there.
Speaking of American Border Patrol did you see Glenn Spencer on Buchanan and Press yesterday? He was debating that abominable do-gooder Robin Hoover, that stooge who puts out water stations for the illegals, coyotes, and drug runners, over that frivolous lawsuit brought by the relatives if a bunch of invaders who expired in the Yuma area a couple of years ago.
Hoover made this statement during the show, according the the transcript:
The very first stations that we put out there carried with them a requirement from the Department of Interior that we actually have a public information program in Mexico detailing the exact location with maps to would-be crossers so that they would know where to cross into the United States, so that they could protect natural resources at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and steer migrants away from wilderness areas that needed to be protected.
Interesting. The feds are, or were in 2000, aiding the invasion. Remarkable. In any event, Hoover ought to be locked up for a long, long time.
Pastor and Grijalva were recalled to Mexico City for consultations on how to defeat this new aerial threat to their invasion plans. More news in 15 on Radio-Reconquista...
I nominate you for quote of the day!
No. It would immediately be declared racist by the ACLU, SPLC, ADL, LULAC, MEChA, NAACP, Vicente Fox, Vicente Fox's dog Pedro, His cat Tia, and his mother-in-law, La Terrorista de Guanajuato.
Following which Jorge Bush, Michael Chertoff, John Ashcroft and Viet Dinh would launch a coordinated Federal investigation (under the PATRIOT act) against the racist, evil Americans who thought they had a right to have a border, a country, a Constitution, a nation, and arrest them for multitudinous egregious crimes against the Sovereign and Great Nation of Mexicans whether Enclosed By Their Borders or Not.
Buenos Bye-Byes, America. :(
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