Cable News Network October 12, 2001 Friday 9:09 AM Eastern Time
America Strikes Back: Look at Military Air Hardware, Training
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: More on the military front now. We have eyes on the ground through various reports but we also have eyes on the sky. They come by the way of satellite, and certainly, they are passing along critical information to the Pentagon and elsewhere.
Miles O'Brien with more on that. Miles, good morning again to you.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning again, Bill. I'm with Gen. Don Shepperd, our military analyst. We are going to talk about some unseen warriors for just a moment, the folks out in Colorado, in and around Cheyenne Mountain: U.S. Space Command, Air Force Space Command. They play a critical role, and a role that we don't often talk about: They do send some people to forward positions, to help out folks in the theater, but the bottom line is their assets are where you see them right there on that graphic, up there in space.
Gen. Shepperd, first of all, what we're looking at is the constellation of global positions system satellites, an image which was sent to us by friends out there in Colorado. This is an important satellite constellation for navigation. Give us a sense of how it comes to play.
GEN. DON SHEPPERD, CNN MILITARY CORRESPONDENT: A constellation, depending on the day, is 14, 17 satellites. It gives you accurate coordinates, and we use these to guide munitions into the targets we are watching on TV, Miles.
O'BRIEN: Let's move it along now and give you a sense of imagery satellites and exactly how they might work, as we take a look at our graphic here. We are talking about low earth orbit, and low earth orbit means 200 miles above or thereabouts.
SHEPPERD: Ninety to 200 miles. Lower than 90, it comes down quick; above 200, you get too far out to get good pictures.
O'BRIEN: The bottom line is you want to be close to get a good picture, and this is the kind of thing that we are talking about here. We do have to emphasize we are talking about nonclassified images. These are one meter resolution, which means you can see something as big as 3 feet -- from Space Imaging Corporation, you see the credit up there. We are moving in on Kabul right now. What kinds of things is a targeteer or somebody who is trying to do bomb damage assessment looking for?
SHEPPERD: This is a tool, this is simply a picture. These are taken to targeting analysts and targeting cells that are composed of engineers, geologists, that type of thing -- even electrical engineers -- and even environmentalists -- that say when we attack these targets, what are they going to do? Then we select the weapon, the fuse, before we go and attack a target.
O'BRIEN: So you see those aircraft there on the tarmac. Multiply that by about 5 or 6 and you get the kind of resolution that the U.S. government has, reconnaissance and military, and you get a sense of how much accuracy there is.
We will give you one more example here, moving next door to Peshawar. We will show you, as we move in on a park there, the kind of resolution. Once again, these are things you can find on the Internet, which is astounding statement right there.
SHEPPERD: It is
O'BRIEN: Let me ask you this: The fact that this is available commercially, is that is an intelligence threat to the United States?
SHEPPERD: No, it isn't an intelligence threat. The good news is you can't hide no matter where you are. It's available worldwide. Our military satellites are much more definitive than that.
O'BRIEN: We are going to move to the Web once again and take a look at some images from our friends at globalsecurity.org. These are some imaging that were taken well before any bombs fell onto areas linked to the Taliban or Osama bin Laden, and they give you, if you know what you are looking for, a very clear idea of what's going on on the ground, don't they?
SHEPPERD: They do. Once again, the idea behind this business is we focus on the kids in the cockpit and in the ships and on the ground, but these space warriors are heroes just as well. They provide us with these tools. We take these now to the targeteers. You can see the difficulty. There are the tunnel entrances, but where are the tunnels and how do you attack this systems and how do you get to them. It's all a well-orchestrated process, and space is key to everything we do in the military these days. This is a space war as well as one we are watching.
O'BRIEN: You see right here they say possible helipad. To the layperson's eye, you would you have no idea that is a helipad. What are you looking for there?
SHEPPERD: You are looking for flat spots. And you want, basically, to can destroy so they can't operate helicopters easily at will. The Taliban do have helicopters. So you are after every military target, including helicopter pads in these mountains.
O'BRIEN: Let's take a look at one more. This is a potential tunnel entrance. I guess when you find a tunnel entrance -- if you see them, and I guess they can be seen with the assets that we have -- that is when you call for those bunker buster-type weapons.
SHEPPERD: It is. Remember we have things that look under the ground too, highly classified systems. But the difficulty is where is the tunnel, and what's stored in with it, and how do you get to it -- a most difficult process. You can't bomb all of Afghanistan to get to the tunnels; this is tough stuff.
O'BRIEN: Let's bring up the Web for you. cnn.com is a good place to go if we have piqued any questions in your mind. It will give you some idea of some of the more recent activities in the bomb damage assessment realm. We invite you check that out at cnn.com.
As always, stay tuned for more insights from Gen. Don Shepperd.
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