The Virginian-Pilot March 18, 2003
The equipment of war
By Dale Eisman
WASHINGTON -- If American forces move into Iraq this week, as President Bush all but promised Monday night, they will do so having sacrificed in part one of their most important technological advantages.
The just-passed-full moon shining over the desert north of Kuwait will allow Iraqi troops to track the invading allies with relative ease, analysts say. The Americans' sophisticated night-vision equipment will be helpful, but the dramatic edge the U.S. gains when using it in near-total darkness will be lost, they suggested.
``Any kind of moonlight in the open desert is like a spotlight,'' said Chuck Pena, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute, a think tank in Washington. Troops advancing north from Kuwait this week would be visible to the Iraqis for miles, he said.
If American troops ``get the `go' order with a full moon and 120-degree heat, they go,'' Pena added. ``The military finds a way to get it done.''
But Pena and other analysts said that after having waited for months while assembling their force and allowing diplomacy a chance to work, military leaders probably would prefer that Bush delay an attack for at least another week.
The moon will be fading by then and will disappear around March 29, giving Americans the cover of darkness even as they retain the ability to track Iraqi movements with help from an array of special goggles and imaging devices.
In the aftermath of the first Persian Gulf War 12 years ago, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, now retired, argued that America's night-vision capability was ``the single greatest mismatch of the war.''
It could be just as important this time, said Dr. A. Fenner Milton, who heads the Army's night-vision development program, based at Ft. Belvoir near Washington. Whereas American units relied on a relative handful of spotters equipped with night-vision scopes in 1991, more sophisticated viewers are now in the hands of virtually every soldier and Marine likely to see combat, Milton said.
Most of the equipment is so sensitive that a marksman using it can identify and shoot a target up to 1,000 meters away even on a moonless night, he added.
Milton acknowledged the possibility that the Iraqis have acquired night-vision equipment of their own since 1991. A variety of viewers are available commercially -- ``there are Web pages full of people willing to sell you this stuff,'' Pena said -- and night-viewing devices developed by the the army in the former Soviet Union are for sale on the military market.
But none of that equipment comes close to matching that carried by the Americans, said Tim Brown, an analyst at the defense consulting firm GlobalSecurity.org. Details visible at 100 meters using a Soviet viewer can be seen at 500 meters with American equipment, he saidAlso, the Soviet equipment has such a limited field of vision that the user may feel he's looking through a straw.
``It's like the difference between a disposable camera and a professional-grade Nikon,'' Pena said.
The viewers in most common use are ``image intensifiers,'' which capture and magnify starlight and ambient light that is so faint that it's almost invisible to the naked eye. Mounted on an infantryman's helmet or rifle, the monocular scopes can be swiveled into position almost instantly.
Though they magnify barely perceptible light, the scopes do not blind the user if directed at something naturally bright, such as a bomb explosion, Milton said.
That's because the pupils of a soldier using a scope are already constricted and accustomed to light. The temporary blindness that afflicts anyone viewing a nighttime explosion with the naked eye occurs because the pupils that are dilated must suddenly constrict to counter the sudden brightness, Milton said.
The scopes cost almost $3,000 each, Milton said, and most U.S. troops on the ground carry two of them. Aircraft used by all the services are equipped with similar scopes.
Even more sensitive thermal viewers, which sense and focus the heat given off by machines and people, are available to most Army units and will eventually be issued to individual soldiers, Milton added.
Milton's ``Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate'' has been working since at least the 1950s on the equipment it now claims lets American troops ``own the night.'' Its early image-enhancing scopes, developed with help from RCA, were 17 inches long and 3.5 inches in diameter, impractical for use by soldiers in the field but promising enough to encourage the Army to continue research.
By the mid-1960s, American troops in Vietnam were using a rifle-mounted ``starlight scope'' that was a primitive version of what's common today. And in the '70s, American aircraft began to be outfitted with infrared devices that were able to pick out targets after dark.
Whenever the attack comes, at least part of the edge the modern equipment can give American troops will be lost if the Iraqis mount serious resistance inside Baghdad and other cities, Pena and Brown cautioned. Cities generate considerable light even when their electrical systems are disabled, as individuals switch on flashlights or lanterns while some private businesses and public facilities like hospitals, police and fire stations and military bases crank up auxiliary generators.
Urban fighting also will give the Iraqis places to hide and the opportunity to fight amid familiar surroundings. And it may limit the Americans' ability to use their satellite and laser-guided weapons because of fear that even near-misses will generate large numbers of civilian casualties.
Pena suggested that whether Americans attack in darkness or in moonlight, troops moving into Iraq may encounter little resistance until they reach the outskirts of Baghdad. Saddam Hussein should be well-schooled by now in the American's night-vision capabilities and would be foolish to seriously engage U.S. troops on dark, open territory where those advantages would be most pronounced, he said
In urban fighting, however, ``the advantage always lies with the defender,'' Pena added. ``The issue isn't whether we will prevail or not. . . . Even in an urban environment, we will win. The issue is how much of a cost the enemy can impose.''
Reach Dale Eisman at icemandc@msn.com or (703) 913-9872.
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