102 Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for 7 years?

(1) Unmanned military aircraft: Attack of the drones
(2) US spends $75 billion a year on intelligence
(3) Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for 7 years?

(1) Unmanned military aircraft: Attack of the drones

From: Max <Max@mailstar.net> Date: 23.09.2009 03:07 PM

Sep 3rd 2009
From The Economist print edition

Military technology: Smaller and smarter unmanned aircraft are transforming spying and redefining the idea of air power

http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14299496

FIVE years ago, in the mountainous Afghan province of Baghlan, NATO officials mounted a show of force for the local governor, Faqir Mamozai, to emphasise their commitment to the region. As the governor and his officials looked on, Jan van Hoof, a Dutch commander, called in a group of F-16 fighter jets, which swooped over the city of Baghlan, their thunderous afterburners engaged. This display of air power was, says Mr van Hoof, an effective way to garner the respect of the local people. But fighter jets are a limited and expensive resource. And in conflicts like that in Afghanistan, they are no longer the most widespread form of air power. The nature of air power, and the notion of air superiority, have been transformed in the past few years by the rise of remote-controlled drone aircraft, known in military jargon as “unmanned aerial vehicles” (UAVs).

Drones are much less expensive to operate than manned warplanes. The cost per flight-hour of Israel’s drone fleet, for example, is less than 5% the cost of its fighter jets, says Antan Israeli, the commander of an Israeli drone squadron. In the past two years the Israeli Defence Forces’ fleet of UAVs has tripled in size. Mr Israeli says that “almost all” IDF ground operations now have drone support.

Of course, small and comparatively slow UAVs are no match for fighter jets when it comes to inspiring awe with roaring flyovers—or shooting down enemy warplanes. Some drones, such as America’s Predator and Reaper, carry missiles or bombs, though most do not. (Countries with “hunter-killer” drones include America, Britain and Israel.) But drones have other strengths that can be just as valuable. In particular, they are unparalleled spies. Operating discreetly, they can intercept radio and mobile-phone communications, and gather intelligence using video, radar, thermal-imaging and other sensors. The data they gather can then be sent instantly via wireless and satellite links to an operations room halfway around the world—or to the hand-held devices of soldiers below. In military jargon, troops without UAV support are “disadvantaged”.

The technology has been adopted at extraordinary speed. In 2003, the year the American-led coalition defeated Saddam Hussein’s armed forces, America’s military logged a total of roughly 35,000 UAV flight-hours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last year the tally reached 800,000 hours. And even that figure is an underestimate, because it does not include the flights of small drones, which have proliferated rapidly in recent years. (America alone is thought to have over 5,000 of them.) These robots, typically launched by foot soldiers with a catapult, slingshot or hand toss, far outnumber their larger kin, which are the size of piloted aeroplanes.

Global sales of UAVs this year are expected to increase by more than 10% over last year to exceed $4.7 billion, according to Visiongain, a market-research firm based in London. It estimates that America will spend about 60% of the total. For its part, America’s Department of Defence says it will spend more than $22 billion to develop, buy and operate drones between 2007 and 2013. Following the United States, Israel ranks second in the development and possession of drones, according to those in the industry. The European leaders, trailing Israel, are roughly matched: Britain, France, Germany and Italy. Russia and Spain are not far behind, and nor, say some experts, is China. (But the head of an American navy research-laboratory in Europe says this is an underestimate cultivated by secretive Beijing, and that China’s drone fleet is actually much larger.)

In total, more than three dozen countries operate UAVs, including Belarus, Colombia, Sri Lanka and Georgia. Some analysts say Georgian armed forces, equipped with Israeli drones, outperformed Russia in aerial intelligence during their brief war in August 2008. (Russia also buys Israeli drones.)

Iran builds drones, one of which was shot down over Iraq by American forces in February. The model in question can reportedly collect ground intelligence from an altitude of 4,000 metres as far as 140km from its base. This year Iranian officials said they had developed a new drone with a range of more than 1,900km. Iran has supplied Hizbullah militants in Lebanon with a small fleet of drones, though their usefulness is limited: Hizbullah uses lobbed rather than guided rockets, and it is unlikely to muster a ground attack that would benefit from drone intelligence. But ownership of UAVs enhances Hizbullah’s prestige in the eyes of its supporters, says Amal Ghorayeb, a Beirut academic who is an expert on the group.

Eyes wide open

How effective are UAVs? In Iraq, the significant drop in American casualties over the past year and a half is partly attributable to the “persistent stare” of drone operators hunting for insurgents’ roadside bombs and remotely fired rockets, says Christopher Oliver, a colonel in the American army who was stationed in Baghdad until recently. “We stepped it up,” he says, adding that drone missions will continue to increase, in part to compensate for the withdrawal of troops. In Afghanistan and Iraq, almost all big convoys of Western equipment or personnel are preceded by a scout drone, according to Mike Kulinski of Enerdyne Technologies, a developer of military-communications software based in California. Such drones can stream video back to drivers and transmit electromagnetic jamming signals that disable the electronic triggers of some roadside bombs.

In military parlance, drones do work that would be “dull, dirty and dangerous” for soldiers. Some of them can loiter in the air for long periods. The Eagle-1, for example, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and EADS, Europe’s aviation giant, can stay aloft for more than 50 hours at a time. (France deployed several of these aircraft this year in Afghanistan.) Such long flights help operators, assisted with object-recognition software, to determine normal (and suspicious) patterns of movement for people and vehicles by tracking suspects for two wake-and-sleep cycles.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, almost all big convoys are preceded by a scout drone.

Drones are acquiring new abilities. New sensors that are now entering service can make out the “electrical signature” of ground vehicles by picking up signals produced by engine spark-plugs, alternators, and other electronics. A Pakistani UAV called the Tornado, made in Karachi by a company called Integrated Dynamics, emits radar signals that mimic a fighter jet to fool enemies.

UAVs are hard to shoot down. Today’s heat-seeking shoulder-launched missiles do not work above 3,000 metres or so, though the next generation will be able to go higher, says Carlo Siardi of Selex Galileo, a subsidiary of Finmeccanica in Ronchi dei Legionari, Italy. Moreover, drone engines are smaller—and therefore cooler—than those powering heavier, manned aircraft. In some of them the propeller is situated behind the exhaust source to disperse hot air, reducing the heat signature. And soldiers who shoot at aircraft risk revealing their position.

But drones do have an Achilles’ heel. If a UAV loses the data connection to its operator—by flying out of range, for example—it may well crash. Engineers have failed to solve this problem, says Dan Isaac, a drone expert at Spain’s Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology, a government research agency in Madrid. The solution, he and others say, is to build systems which enable an operator to reconnect with a lost drone by transmitting data via a “bridge” aircraft nearby.

In late June America’s Northrop Grumman unveiled the first of a new generation of its Global Hawk aircraft, thought to be the world’s fastest drone. It can gather data on objects reportedly as small as a shoebox, through clouds, day or night, for 32 hours from 18,000 metres—almost twice the cruising altitude of passenger jets. After North Korea detonated a test nuclear device in May, America said it would begin replacing its manned U-2 spy planes in South Korea with Global Hawks, which are roughly the size of a corporate jet.

Big drones are, however, hugely expensive. With their elaborate sensors, some cost as much as $60m apiece. Fewer than 30 Global Hawks have been bought. And it is not just the hardware that is costly: each Global Hawk requires a support team of 20-30 people. As the biggest UAVs get bigger, they are also becoming more expensive. Future American UAVs may cost a third as much as the F-35 fighter jet (each of which costs around $83m, without weapons). The Neuron, a jet-engine stealth drone developed by France’s Dassault Aviation and partners including Italy’s Alenia, will be about the size of the French manned Mirage fighter.

Small drones, by contrast, cost just tens of thousands of dollars. With electric motors, they are quiet enough for low-altitude spying. But batteries and fuel cells have only recently become light enough to open up a large market. A fuel cell developed by AMI Adaptive Materials, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, exemplifies the progress made. Three years ago AMI sold a 25-watt fuel cell weighing two kilograms. Today its fuel cell is 25% lighter and provides eight times as much power. This won AMI a $500,000 prize from the Department of Defence. Its fuel cells, costing about $12,000 each, now propel small drones.

Most small drones are launched without airstrips and are controlled in the field using a small computer. They can be recovered with nets, parachutes, vertically strung cords that snag a wingtip hook or a simple drop on the ground after a stall a metre or two in the air. Their airframes break apart to absorb the impact; users simply snap them back together.

With some systems, a ground unit can launch a drone for a quick bird’s-eye look around with very little effort. Working with financing from Italy’s defence ministry, Oto Melara, an Italian firm, has built prototypes of a short-range drone launched from a vehicle-mounted pneumatic cannon. The aircraft’s wings unfold upon leaving the tube. It streams back video while flying any number of preset round-trip patterns. Crucially, operators do not need to worry about fiddling with controls; the drone flies itself.

Send in the drones

Indeed, as UAVs become more technologically complex, there is also a clear trend towards making their control systems easier to use, according to a succession of experts speaking at a conference in La Spezia, Italy, held in April by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), an industry association. For example, instead of manoeuvring aircraft, operators typically touch (or click on) electronic maps to specify points along a desired route. Software determines the best flight altitudes, speeds and search patterns for each mission—say, locating a well near a hilltop within sniping range of a road.

Next year Lockheed Martin, an American defence contractor, begins final testing of software to make flying drones easier for troops with little training. Called ECCHO, it allows soldiers to control aircraft and view the resulting intelligence on a standard hand-held device such as an iPhone, BlackBerry or Palm Pre. It incorporates Google Earth mapping software, largely for the same reason: most recruits are already proficient users.

What’s next? A diplomat from Djibouti, a country in the Horn of Africa, provides a clue. He says private companies in Europe are now offering to operate spy drones for his government, which has none. (Djibouti has declined.) But purchasing UAV services, instead of owning fleets, is becoming a “strong trend”, says Kyle Snyder, head of surveillance technology at AUVSI. About 20 companies, he estimates, fly spy drones for clients.

One of them, a division of Boeing called Insitu, sees a lucrative untapped market in Afghanistan, where the intelligence needs of some smaller NATO countries are not being met by larger allies. (Armed forces are often reluctant to share their intelligence for tactical reasons.) Alejandro Pita, Insitu’s head of sales, declines to name customers, but says his firm’s flights cost roughly $2,000 an hour for 300 or so hours a month. The drones-for-hire market is also expanding into non-military fields. Services include inspecting tall buildings, monitoring traffic and maintaining security at large facilities.

Drone sales and research budgets will continue to grow. Raytheon, an American company, has launched a drone from a submerged submarine. Mini helicopter drones for reconnaissance inside buildings are not far off. In China, which is likely to be a big market in the future, senior officials have recently talked of reducing troop numbers and spending more money developing “informationised warfare” capabilities, including unmanned aircraft.

There is a troubling side to all this. Operators can now safely manipulate battlefield weapons from control rooms half a world away, as if they are playing a video game. Drones also enable a government to avoid the political risk of putting combat boots on foreign soil. This makes it easier to start a war, says P.W. Singer, the American author of “Wired for War”, a recent bestseller about robotic warfare. But like them or not, drones are here to stay. Armed forces that master them are not just securing their hold on air superiority—they are also dramatically increasing its value.

(2) US spends $75 billion a year on intelligence
From: UmmY <ummyakoub@yahoo.com> Date: 23.09.2009 10:53 AM

US spends $75 billion a year on intelligence
Tue, 15 Sep 2009
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=106298&sectionid=3510203

The head of US intelligence, Dennis Blair

The head of US intelligence has disclosed for the first time the overall cost of Washington's spending on intelligence in one year.
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said on Tuesday that the US spends $75 billion a year on intelligence, including military-related activities.

Blair gave the full budget figure as he delivered his 2009 National Intelligence Strategy, a blueprint outlining the priorities for the next four years, AFP reported.

The figure represents well over 10 percent of the annual US defense budget of around $650 billion.

Budgets for the United States' 16 intelligence agencies and their 200,000 employees were a closely-guarded secret until 2007.
The figure for non-military intelligence work was given as $47.5 billion last year.

(3) Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for 7 years?

From: UmmY <ummyakoub@yahoo.com>  Date: 23.09.2009 10:49 AM

Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for seven years - and are the U.S. and Britain covering it up to continue war on terror?
By Sue Reid
11th September 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212851/Has-Osama-Bin-Laden-dead-seven-years--U-S-Britain-covering-continue-war-terror.html

The last time we heard a squeak from him was on June 3 this year.

The world's most notorious terrorist outsmarted America by releasing a menacing message as Air Force One touched down on Saudi Arabian soil at the start of Barack Obama's first and much vaunted Middle East tour.

Even before the new President alighted at Riyadh airport to shake hands with Prince Abdullah, Bin Laden's words were being aired on TV, radio and the internet across every continent.

{photo} Genuine picture: Osama Bin Laden in October 2001 {end}

It was yet another propaganda coup for the 52-year-old Al Qaeda leader. In the audiotape delivered to the Arab news network Al Jazeera, Bin Laden said that America and her Western allies were sowing seeds of hatred in the Muslim world and deserved dire consequences.

It was the kind of rant we have heard from him before, and the response from British and U.S. intelligence services was equally predictable.

They insisted that the details on the tape, of the President's visit and other contemporary events, proved that the mastermind of 9/11, America's worst ever terrorist atrocity, was still alive - and that the hunt for him must go on.

Behind all terror attacks against Britain, Bin Laden's Holy Warrior
Bin Laden has always been blamed for orchestrating the horrific attack - in which nearly 3,000 people perished - eight years ago this week. President George W. Bush made his capture a national priority, infamously promising with a Wild West flourish to take him 'dead or alive'.

The U.S. State Department offered a reward of $50million for his whereabouts. The FBI named him one of their ten 'most wanted' fugitives, telling the public to watch out for a left-handed, grey-bearded gentleman who walks with a stick.

{photo} Fake? Bin Laden two months later, when he was supposedly dead {end}

Yet this master terrorist remains elusive. He has escaped the most extensive and expensive man-hunt in history, stretching across Waziristan, the 1,500 miles of mountainous badlands on the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Undeterred, Barack Obama has launched a fresh operation to find him. Working with the Pakistani Army, elite squads of U.S. and British special forces were sent into Waziristan this summer to 'hunt and kill' the shadowy figure intelligence officers still call 'the principal target' of the war on terror.

This new offensive is, of course, based on the premise that the 9/11 terrorist is alive. After all, there are the plethora of 'Bin Laden tapes' to prove it.

Yet what if he isn't? What if he has been dead for years, and the British and U.S. intelligence services are actually playing a game of double bluff?

What if everything we have seen or heard of him on video and audio tapes since the early days after 9/11 is a fake - and that he is being kept 'alive' by the Western allies to stir up support for the war on terror?

Incredibly, this is the breathtaking theory that is gaining credence among political commentators, respected academics and even terror experts.

Of course, there have been any number of conspiracy theories concerning 9/11, and it could be this is just another one.

But the weight of opinion now swinging behind the possibility that Bin Laden is dead - and the accumulating evidence that supports it - makes the notion, at the very least, worthy of examination.

The theory first received an airing in the American Spectator magazine earlier this year when former U.S. foreign intelligence officer and senior editor Angelo M. Codevilla, a professor of international relations at Boston University, stated bluntly: 'All the evidence suggests Elvis Presley is more alive today than Osama Bin Laden.'

{photo} 9/11: Bin Laden originally insisted in official press statements that he had played no role in the atrocity {end}

Prof Codevilla pointed to inconsistencies in the videos and claimed there have been no reputable sightings of Bin Laden for years (for instance, all interceptions by the West of communications made by the Al Qaeda leader suddenly ceased in late 2001).

Prof Codevilla asserted: 'The video and audio tapes alleged to be Osama's never convince the impartial observer,' he asserted. 'The guy just does not look like Osama. Some videos show him with a Semitic, aquiline nose, while others show him with a shorter, broader one.
Next to that, differences between the colours and styles of his beard are small stuff.'

There are other doubters, too. Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University's religious studies' department and the foremost Bin Laden expert, argues that the increasingly secular language in the video and audio tapes of Osama (his earliest ones are littered with references to God and the Prophet Mohammed) are inconsistent with his strict Islamic religion, Wahhabism.

He notes that, on one video, Bin Laden wears golden rings on his fingers, an adornment banned among Wahhabi followers.

{photo} Bin Laden in 1998 (l) and, allegedly, in 2002: Sceptics have pointed to a thicker nose and the ring on his right hand as proof it is an imposter {end}

This week, still more questions have been raised with the publication in America and Britain of a book called Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?

Written by political analyst and philosopher Professor David Ray Griffin, former emeritus professor at California's Claremont School of Theology, it is provoking shock waves - for it goes into far more detail about his supposed death and suggests there has been a cover-up by the West.

The book claims that Bin Laden died of kidney failure, or a linked complaint, on December 13, 2001, while living in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains close to the border with Waziristan.

His burial took place within 24 hours, in line with Muslim religious rules, and in an unmarked grave, which is a Wahhabi custom.

The author insists that the many Bin Laden tapes made since that date have been concocted by the West to make the world believe Bin Laden is alive. The purpose? To stoke up waning support for the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To understand Griffin's thesis, we must remember the West's reaction to 9/11, that fateful sunny September day in 2001. Within a month, on Sunday, October 7, the U.S. and Britain launched massive retaliatory air strikes in the Tora Bora region where they said 'prime suspect' Bin Laden was living 'as a guest of Afghanistan'.

This military offensive ignored the fact that Bin Laden had already insisted four times in official Al Qaeda statements made to the Arab press that he played no role in 9/11.

Indeed, on the fourth occasion, on September 28 and a fortnight after the atrocity, he declared emphatically: 'I have already said I am not involved. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge... nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act.'

Within hours of the October 7 strikes by the U.S. on Tora Bora, Bin Laden made his first ever appearance on video tape. Dressed in Army fatigues, and with an Islamic head-dress, he had an assault rifle propped behind him in a broadly lit mountain hideout. Significantly, he looked pale and gaunt.

Although he called President George W. Bush 'head of the infidels' and poured scorn on the U.S., he once again rejected responsibility for 9/11.

'America was hit by God in one of its softest spots. America is full of fear, from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that.'

Then came a second videotape on November 3, 2001. Once again, an ailing Bin Laden lashed out at the United States. He urged true Muslims to celebrate the attacks - but did not at any time acknowledge he had been involved in the atrocity.

And then there was silence until December 13, 2001 - the date Griffin claims Bin Laden died. That very day, the U.S. Government released a new video of the terror chief. In this tape, Bin Laden contradicted all his previous denials, and suddenly admitted to his involvement in the atrocity of 9/11.

The tape had reportedly been found by U.S. troops in a private home in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, after anti-Taliban forces took over the city. A label attached to it claimed that it had been made on November 9, 2001.

{photo} Bush made Bin Laden's capture a national priority, claiming he could get his man - dead or alive {end}

The tape shows Bin Laden talking with a visiting sheik. In it, he clearly states that he not only knew about the 9/11 atrocities in advance, but had planned every detail personally.

What manna for the Western authorities! This put the terrorist back in the frame over 9/11. The Washington Post quoted U.S. officials saying that the video 'offers the most convincing evidence of a connection between Bin Laden and the September 11 attacks'.

A euphoric President Bush added: 'For those who see this tape, they realise that not only is he guilty of incredible murder, but he has no conscience and no soul.'

In London, Downing Street said that the video was 'conclusive proof of his involvement'. The then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, added: 'There is no doubt it is the real thing. People can see Bin Laden there, making those utterly chilling words of admission about his guilt for organising the atrocities of September 11.'

Yet Professor Griffin claims this 'confessional' video provokes more questions than answers. For a start, the Bin Laden in this vital film testimony looks different.

He is a weighty man with a black beard, not a grey one. His pale skin had suddenly become darker, and he had a different shaped nose. His artistic hands with slender fingers had transformed into those of a pugilist. He looked in exceedingly good health.

Furthermore, Bin Laden can be seen writing a note with his right hand, although he is left-handed. Bizarrely, too, he makes statements about 9/11 which Griffin claims would never have come from the mouth of the real Bin Laden - a man with a civil engineering degree who had made his fortune (before moving into terrorism) from building construction in the Middle East.

For example, the Al Qaeda leader trumpets that far more people died in 9/11 than he had expected. He goes on: 'Due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the explosion from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. That is all we had hoped for.' (In reality the Twin Towers' completely fell down).

The words of the true Bin Laden? No, says Griffin, because of the obvious mistakes. 'Given his experience as a contractor, he would have known the Twin Towers were framed with steel, not iron,' he says.
'He would also known that steel and iron do not begin to melt until they reach 2,800 deg F. Yet a building fire fed by jet fuel is a hydrocarbon fire, and could not have reached above 1,800 deg F.'
Griffin, in his explosive book, says this tape is fake, and he goes further.

'A reason to suspect that all of the post-2001 Bin Laden tapes are fabrications is that they often appeared at times that boosted the Bush presidency or supported a claim by its chief 'war on terror' ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

'The confession tape came exactly when Bush and Blair had failed to prove Bin Laden's responsibility for 9/11 and both men were trying to win international public support, particularly in the Islamic world, for the anti-terrorist campaign.'

Griffin suggests that Western governments used highly sophisticated, special effects film technology to morph together images and vocal recordings of Bin Laden.

So if they are fakes, why has Al Qaeda kept quiet about it? And what exactly happened to the real Bin Laden?

The answer to the first question may be that the amorphous terrorist organisation is happy to wage its own propaganda battle in the face of waning support - and goes along with the myth that its charismatic figurehead is still alive to encourage recruitment to its cause.

As for the matter of what happened to him, hints of Bin Laden's kidney failure, or that he might be dead, first appeared on January 19, 2002, four months after 9/11.

This was when Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf told America's news show CNN: 'I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a kidney patient. The images of him show he is extremely weak.'

In his book, Professor Griffin also endorses this theory. He says Bin Laden was treated for a urinary infection, often linked to kidney disease, at the American Hospital in Dubai in July 2001, two months before 9/11. At the same time, he ordered a mobile dialysis machine to be delivered to Afghanistan.

How could Bin Laden, on the run in snowy mountain caves, have used the machine that many believe was essential to keep him alive? Doctors whom Griffin cites on the subject think it would have been impossible.

He would have needed to stay in one spot with a team of medics, hygienic conditions, and a regular maintenance programme for the dialysis unit itself.

And what of the telling, small news item that broke on December 26, 2001 in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Wafd? It said a prominent official of the Afghan Taliban had announced that Osama Bin Laden had been buried on or about December 13.

'He suffered serious complications and died a natural, quiet death. He was buried in Tora Bora, a funeral attended by 30 Al Qaeda fighters, close members of his family and friends from the Taliban. By the Wahhabi tradition, no mark was left on the grave,' said the report.

The Taliban official, who was not named, said triumphantly that he had seen Bin Laden's face in his shroud. 'He looked pale, but calm, relaxed and confident.'

It was Christmas in Washington DC and London and the report hardly got a mention. Since then, the Bin Laden tapes have emerged with clockwork regularity as billions have been spent and much blood spilt on the hunt for him.

Bin Laden has been the central plank of the West's 'war on terror'. Could it be that, for years, he's just been smoke and mirrors?