WORLD NEWS NOW - ABC February 19, 2003
WAR WITH IRAQ: A VIEW AT THE POSSIBLE FIRST WAVE OF ATTACK
JOHN MCWETHY, ABC NEWS
(Voice Over) Military sources say any war with Iraq will begin with an intense, unrelenting bombardment. At the cutting edge, weapons guided by satellite dropped from the B-2 Stealth bomber, both new since the last war with Iraq 12 years ago. And beyond that, a few weapons drawn from the government's most secret research programs.
JOHN MCWETHY (CONTINUED)
(Off Camera) One is called the E-Bomb, described by some as a lightning bolt on a cruise missile. It's designed to shut down all electronic devices over a wide area while doing minimal damage to buildings and people.
graphics: E-BOMB
JOHN MCWETHY
(Voice Over) The warhead of the E-Bomb generates a massive pulse of microwave energy hundreds of times more powerful than a lightning bolt.
ANDREW KOCH, JANE'S DEFENCE WEEKLY
The energy would travel down the antenna and the, the wire cabling that command and control facilities use, would burn out the electronics in them, and they would be a literally useless. They'd be literally blind and deaf.
JOHN MCWETHY
(Voice Over) The E-Bomb, in theory, could blackout an air defense complex, silence a phone system, neutralize an underground bunker.
graphics: E-BOMB
JOHN PIKE, DIRECTOR GLOBALSECURITY.ORG
Meaning that you could blackout any command post hidden in a large palace complex without having to completely pulverize the entire palace with thousands of bombs.
JOHN MCWETHY
(Voice Over) The same idea was explored in the movie "Ocean's 11," when a microwave generator shut down the power grid in Las Vegas. On the battlefield, E-Bombs they have drawbacks because they affect whole neighborhoods. Electronics in hospitals, for example, would be crippled along with everything else. Other weapons that would be used in the opening days of war, so-called thermobaric bombs, warheads that penetrate a bunker, fill the air with explosive gas, then when ignited creates a deadly firestorm and concussion.
graphics: THERMOBARIC BOMBS
JOHN MCWETHY
(Voice Over) And the joint direct attack munition, or JDAM, guided by satellite. It can be dropped in bad weather without the pilot having to see the target.
graphics: JDAM: JOINT DIRECT ATTACK MUNITION
MIKE HATCHER, JOINT DIRECT ATTACK MUNITION PROGRAM DIRECTOR
It really has taken high-altitude bombing to a new level of, of capabilities.
JOHN MCWETHY
(Voice Over) Compared to the Persian Gulf War, today's war planners believe they will be destroying far more targets in much less time with just a fraction of the bombs and airplanes they used then. But the E- Bomb, for one, has never been used before. And it is unclear what impact it and other new weapons may have. John McWethy, ABC News, the Pentagon.
Copyright © 2003, American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.
