Fox News alert: US fears Iraq has transported GPS guided drones to America

Fox News Channel | 02/24/03 | Brett Baird

[Pokey78]

Drones or pieces of drones that have GPS mapping may have been sent to Iraqi agants in US to spray chem or bio weapons over US cities.

[tracer]

You'll be lucky to be able to see the stars through the haze and smog from LA for celestial navigation. Unless you launch your escape pod and sail into the sunset.

As for sextants, no need to start another religious thread.... 8~)

[duk]

9-11 demonstated the KISS concept very well,Keep It Simple Stupid.

[tracer]

No, Clinton is a misguided drone....

[mhking]

I'm not saying that some people are headed off the deep end

Rephrase - some people are headed off the deep end, but you can't oversimplify the matter either...

[af_vet_rr]

I don't worry either, I have a hard time believing this story - there are much cheaper, easier, and reliable ways for terrorists to deliever weapons.

[Tennessee_Bob]

They'll just re-encrypt it. Only good thing under Clintoon was turning off SAP.

[adx]

Any idea on how fast these drones are? IIRC, don't commercial GPSs cut out if the receiver is moving too quickly (built in to prevent the use of commercial GPS for this very thing?)? Also, I'd probably use more than one means of getting positional data (like RinaseaofDs wrote, use Loran C or a similar radio direction-finding method). The skill level needed to do systems integration is pretty much EE undergrad/entry-level BSEE stuff.

[Iris7]

Sorry, Cat, but "simple" anthrax dispersal methods like throwing the stuff around in a subway, explosive dispersal of packets, etc. have a kill likelyhood in the dozens or hundreds per packet. A full fledged aerial dispersion of anthrax of the quality used in the letters in 2001 could be expected to kill one to three million people with only hundreds of pounds of agent if the weather was "right" and the "crop dusting" accurately placed (within a few hundred yards.)

[freeper12]

>> don't worry either, I have a hard time believing this story - there are much cheaper, easier, and reliable ways for terrorists to deliever weapons.


Right, like strapping some dynamite to your chest and walking into a public place...I find the whole gps drone thing ridiculous...K.I.S.S.

[Fred Mertz]

I took time from work to stay home and watch Powell's last big speech to the UN. I was a little surprised when he went into a fairly detailed discussion of his concern that the terrorists/Iraq might utilize UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) to dispense bio/chem WMD over populated areas in the US.

It was also slick of Powell to use that grainy video footage of a FRENCH Mirage jet dispensing a mock chem/bio load in training over Irag.

[Freedom4US]

Sometimes I swear the inmates are running the asylum.

[Tennessee_Bob]

No - only way encrypting the GPS network would affect the military was if they were using privately purchased systems. The military systems have the ability to work with the encryption. The GPS systems available to the public (like the one I own) can't decrypt the signals.

[Blue Scourge]

Hey, I wasn't pointing that post at you....I just hit the reply button and it happened to be yours. I was just putting the quote up because frankly I thought it was funny. I know that all of this is possible, but it doesn't worry me. Anyway, no harm done, I'm with you actually on thinking it is just a wee bit blown up.

[Blue Scourge]

Hey, I wasn't pointing that post at you....I just hit the reply button and it happened to be yours. I was just putting the quote up because frankly I thought it was funny. I know that all of this is possible, but it doesn't worry me. Anyway, no harm done, I'm with you actually on thinking it is just a wee bit blown up.

[Catspaw]

Both of those methods sound a whole lot simpler than putting up a GPS guided missle or drone.

[wildbill]

They better have great and solid sources for this or Fox is going on my list of not-to-be-believed media.

The last thing we need is for tabloid shouting in a time of near war.

[Travis McGee]

The anthrax hypothetically exchanged in Prague would have fit into a film can. What did you think, it was in a steamer trunk?

The hypothetical relationship between Iraqi intelligence and AQ is critical. Iraqi intelligence agents can (and would) cache sealed boxes in the USA, no questions asked. That's what agents do, among other things. And they would obey, because they are constantly tested. Fail to comply with orders, when you return to Bagdad, you die, horribly, along with your family. So getting a sealed box into the USA and hidden is a trivial exercise, you must agree. At least as easy as bringing in cocaine.

The AQ side of the equation is to serve as the firing device. If and when Saddam decides, he has only to tell AQ the location of the sealed caches, and they will do the rest. Forget drones, it could be as simple and fool proof as glass jars filled with anthrax to toss into subways and sports arenas. Anthrax could also destroy our postal system utterly, instead of 3 grams, they could easily mail 10,000 grams in hundreds of leaky boxes and envelopes via USPS, UPS and FedEx on the same day. Result: no postal service for weeks or months.

So to summarize, Saddam uses his intelligence service plus AQ as a "dual key firing system". One to preposition WMDs, (not even knowing what is in the sealed boxes), and AQ to "fire" them when and if they are given the cache locations.

Iraqi intelligence PLUS Al Queda is a perfect symbiotic relationship for Saddam's purposes.

[duk]

It will have the DEBKA flavor for a long time.

[mumbo]

...the receiver is moving too quickly (built in to prevent the use of commercial GPS for this very thing?)?

Nope. Mine works in commercial jetliners.

[Archangelsk]

I'll take some heat for this. I'm quickly becoming tired of FOX's breathless war anouncements. They are usually of no substance and whenever I see them posted here they are anything but fair, balanced or first - more like panicked, hysterical and without merit.