CNN Lou Dobbs Moneyline 6:00 PM December 19, 2001
Spy Satellites
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Reports tonight indicate that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda fighters may be pushing from Afghanistan into western Pakistan. The Pentagon has stepped up its efforts to track down those terrorists. They are using everything from what are called cave-snoopers to unmanned spy planes to satellites. Steve Young has that part of the story.
STEVE YOUNG, CNN (voice-over): The trail and search of terrorism is soaring from 65,000 feet to 250 miles out in space and advanced keyhole satellites. There are six in the fleet, and they cost $1 billion a piece. Compared with other reconnaissance technology, they have razor-sharp vision. On a good day, they focus down to six inches.
TIM BROWN, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: These spy satellites have to be cued by other sensors or other intelligence sources. They can take a daily picture of a particular area, regularly, depending on cloud cover, and they can check to see if there's any changes; if there's any tunnel openings that have opened up, if there are any movements or anybody on particular trails, they can see where people might be out in the open.
YOUNG (voice-over): The spy satellite images come into the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, NEMA, then are passed on to the rest of the intelligence establishment. They are classified and secret.
We can show you this shot of Afghanistan taken by a commercial company back in 1999. And this space view of Pakistan in August from the same outfit. But the Pentagon has bought exclusive rights to every image of the region from the company since September 11th.
CHARLES VICK, FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS: This is information warfare. Information warfare is designed to deny your enemy access to information, to know where your troops are, your facilities, your operations are going on, and therefore to dominate the battlefield. And that is what is going on here.
YOUNG (voice-over): Although we're flying unmanned reconnaissance systems, Predator and Global Hawk can loiter for many areas over target areas.
YOUNG: By comparison, the satellites speed by, but they're sharper images fill in the picture. Of course, in other parts of the world where the U.S. is prohibited from making over flights, such as Russia, China and North Korea, spy satellites are the only way to go. Lou.
DOBBS: And difficult to construct.
YOUNG: That's absolutely true.
DOBBS: Steve, thank you very much. Steve Young.
Copyright 2001 Cable News Network
