Military Security Threat: Bogus Bomb-Zapper's Bogus Countermeasure

By Noah Shachtman EmailJuly 16, 2007 | 3:56:57 PMCategories: Bomb Squad, Info War, Lasers and Ray Guns, Less-lethal, Paper Pushers & Powerpoint Rangers

Can a bogus countermeasure to a bogus bomb defense really harm U.S. troops? According to the Pentagon's $4.4 billion-per-year bomb-battling group it can.



The Joint IED Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO, is concerned, understandably, that some of its sensitive work might wind up in the wrong hands. But the supposed security violation the group keeps citing is borderline silly, a document obtained by DANGER ROOM shows: Online insurgent wannabes cooking up Rube Goldberg countermeasures to bomb-zappers that JIEDDO knows damn well don't work. It stretches the idea of sensitive information so far, that it might wind up hurting the protection of real secrets.

Let's review. In 2005, despite allegations of shady stock deals and stolen intellectual property, a Tuscon, Arizona company called Ionatron convinced then-deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and other military officials that it had a real-life lightning gun. This "Joint IED Neutralizer," or JIN, the company claimed, could use short-pulse lasers to carve conductive channels in the air. Electricity could then be sent down those channels, zapping roadside bombs from a safe distance. Ordinarily-skeptical generals were impressed; tens of millions of dollars in Pentagon money were doled out to the firm. NBC hailed Ionatron and the JIN on its Nightly News.

But when JIEDDO actually started testing the alleged bomb-zappers, they discovered that the things didn't work at all. "Not yet mature enough," was how the Organization's deputy director gently put it to the L.A. Times in February, 2006. "Bullshit," other JIEDDO officers called the JIN, in private. The bomb-zappers were rejected. And Ionatron quickly started sliding out of the explosives-fighting business.

None of which stopped the Bush administration and the Pentagon from basically calling reporters a bunch of traitors for writing about the JIN.

More:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/07/nobody-wants-re.html