Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rich4eagle who wrote (215918)	1/8/2002 9:46:05 PM
From: Dr. Doktor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

"George has yet to put one change in the military into place" Hey stoopid, Like most of you left wingnuts, you think the only change comes from a budget. Leadership has nothing to do with how much money you spend. The BIG BIG change is the real men running the military now Bush and Rumsfeld. If disrespecting Clit,n makes me a traitor then call me Benjamin. You little snotnosed asswipe. DOC

To: rich4eagle who wrote (215918)	1/8/2002 10:33:37 PM
From: Jagfan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

GW has put PRIDE and HONOR back into the military, something Clinton couldn't even dream of doing. It's amazing how much having an honest leader does for morale.

To: rich4eagle who wrote (215918)	1/8/2002 11:27:04 PM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Spinning the Clinton legacy According to Michael O'Hanlon – formerly a bean-counter at the Congressional Budget Office, but now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution – much of the success President Bush has been enjoying in his war on terrorism has resulted from the wonderful things Bill Clinton did as president. In particular, he gives Clinton credit for developing unmanned aerial vehicles – such as the Global Hawk and the Predator – which Bush pressed into service for the al-Qaida search-and-destroy mission in Afghanistan. But, as O'Hanlon should know, far from leaving to Bush a legacy of Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles, Clinton actually killed many of the promising UCAV programs begun by the Bush-Quayle administration in the aftermath of the Gulf War. Why? Clinton was afraid he might violate the ABM treaty. Take, for example, the "boost phase intercept" UCAV. We were co-developing one with the Israelis for their use. During the Gulf War, Saddam launched about 90 Scud ballistic missiles – half of them at Israel. Some Iraqi Scuds were mobile and others had to be launched from fixed sites. Throughout the Gulf War, we had fighter-bombers in the air over Iraq and almost all the Scud launches – which were at night – were actually seen by the fighter-bomber pilots. Nevertheless, they never found the Iraqi mobile launchers – either before or after the launch. But, we were able to detect within seconds – via sensors in our early-warning satellites – the launch of every one of those Iraqi Scuds. Within a minute or two after that, the Patriot anti-aircraft missile batteries we had hastily rushed to Israel and to Saudi Arabia were notified by NORAD that an Iraqi Scud was heading their way. Because the Scud warhead remains attached to the missile, it comes down relatively slowly, and our Patriot batteries were able to intercept virtually all of them. However, they would not have been able to intercept a much faster warhead from a "theater" ballistic missile. When Clinton became president, there were ongoing programs to develop a class of small hypervelocity "Kinetic Kill Vehicles." These sea-launched, space launched and ground-launched KKVs were to be capable of intercepting theater ballistic missile warheads in their terminal death-dive. In particular, there was the PAC-3 – Patriot with advanced capabilities – hypervelocity interceptor. It is 10 inches in diameter, 17 feet long, weighs only 700 pounds and has an effective range, when fired from the ground, of 12 miles straight up. After the Gulf War, we instituted with Israel a cooperative program to develop a PAC-3 like theater terminal ABM defense – called Arrow – which has recently been termed operational. We also instituted a cooperative UCAV Boost-Phase Intercept development program. The BPI concept was to have something like the Global Hawk, armed with something like the PAC-3. The UCAV would loiter near a suspected ballistic missile launch site, and when a missile launch was detected, the KKV would be fired at it. For short-range Scud-like ballistic missiles, the boost phase lasts for one to two minutes. For ICBMs, the boost phase can last up to five minutes. During the boost phase, the slowly ascending ballistic missile is practically a sitting duck, its rocket engines exhibiting an intense, high-temperature infrared signature. Eventually, the Israelis decided against a high-flying, Hawk-like boost-phase interceptor because they don't have early warning satellites or a NORAD. So, the Israelis decided, instead, to develop something more like the Predators – much smaller UAVs armed with Hellfire air-to-ground anti-tank missiles – we have rushed into service in Afghanistan. The Israeli Predator-like UCAV wouldn't wait for the ballistic missile to be launched. Every time it found a ballistic missile on the ground – either fixed or mobile – it would just kill it, right then and there. Meanwhile, Clinton wouldn't let us develop any kind of boost-phase intercept capability. You can see why. Suppose, for example, that the North Koreans developed missiles capable of delivering a nuke on Seattle. Suppose Clinton had Predator-like and Hawk-like UCAVs patrolling over North Korea. Suppose our early-warning satellites told him that the North Koreans had just launched a ballistic missile. Well, if the ballistic missile was headed toward Japan, then the ABM treaty would allow Clinton to go ahead and destroy it. But, if the missile was heading toward Seattle, Clinton – because of the ABM treaty – would just have to let it go. It seems like every time we turn over a rock, we find more Clinton legacy, but doing his best to keep you folks in Seattle alive was not a part of it. worldnetdaily.com