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SATELLITES WILL AFFECT MILITARY CAMPAIGN DESPITE INSUFFICIENCIES

By Matthew Jablonski

Entire U.S. technical information collection apparatus was designed to monitor Soviet Union during Cold War, and it will be "dreadfully difficult" to use spy satellites to gather information on terrorist organizations training and hiding in Middle Eastern nations such as Afghanistan, said John Pike, former project dir., Federation of American Scientists. He said Soviet Union was "a photo-interpreter's delight" and had enormous amount of concrete installations and radio traffic to monitor. He said new enemy wasn't target-rich and was much different in terms of its infrastructure. "It's a big problem," Pike said: "An operation like [Osama bin Laden's] just doesn't show up [on satellite photographs]. They don't have to build an installation. They didn't have to build a large-scale replica to practice dive bombing. Osama lives in a hooch and communicates with couriers." Satellite intelligence will have major role in any military action despite its limitations, said Pike, who established new policy research organization called Globalsecurity.org in 2000. He said low-altitude satellites were trying to identify "things worth blowing up in Afghanistan" while they monitored training camps and "dozen or so" airfields to see where Taliban had put their remaining aircraft. "Satellites are absolutely critical in planning a bombing against the Taliban," Pike said: "Will it help us catch Osama bin Laden? Probably not."

U.S. spends more than $6 billion per year on surveillance satellites and several billion more is spent by National Security Agency and National Imagery & Mapping Agency (NIMA) to analyze intelligence produced, Pike said. Spending has gone down since Cold War, but has been inching back up in last few years. "The satellite business is a long-term business," Pike said: "Generally, these programs respond to long-term threat assessments rather than short-term events. It's hard to say if spending [on satellites] will increase [after terrorist attacks on U.S.]." NIMA official said studies had indicated more money was needed to support agency's satellite intelligence efforts, and it has tried to add funds. He did say budgetary expenditures were "not releasable... Ultimately, like any other agency, we have to ask for money. It's not up to us." NSA declined to provide any information about satellite intelligence.

Govt. employs about 5 low altitude imagery satellites to take surveillance photo images, officials said. Resolution of pictures has decreased since Cold War era because Pentagon has become more interested in wide area photos and has put less emphasis on resolution, they said. Current ground sample distance is about 15 centimeters, meaning each pixel photograph is about 6 inches across. Technological advances have allowed thousands of images to be taken daily compared with hundreds during Cold War, they said. Perhaps most important technological advance is ability to produce images to soft copy rather than film, time-saving feature that wasn't available during Cold War.

Ten U.S. high-altitude signals intelligence satellites eavesdrop on conversations of enemies using radio transmissions. "They pick up everything from walkie-talkies on up," Pike said: "It doesn't do you much good if you're trying to track a guy that doesn't use a radio." Names of both low- and high-altitude surveillance satellites often are changed for security reasons. In past, names such as Keyhole and Lacrosse have been used for low-altitude satellites and Mentor and Trumpet for high-altitude variety. Pike said it had been 4 years since he learned name of new satellite program.