UK to double number of drones in Afghanistan

The UK military reportedly aims to double the size of its armed drone fleet in Afghanistan to ten by purchasing five US-made Reaper drones, which for the first time will be controlled from a UK base. The first five were controlled at US stations.

The Royal Air Force (RAF) announced the expedited purchase of the US-made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), with operations set to begin in six weeks, AFP reported. The drones will be flown and operated from a tech hub built 18 months ago in the British region of Waddington in Lincolnshire, a leap forward in technological prowess for the UK.

The other five drones the UK operates in Afghanistan were controlled from a US Air Force base in Nevada, and target suspected insurgents in Afghanistan’s southwest province of Helmand.

"The new squadron will have three control terminals at RAF Waddington, and the five aircraft will be based in Afghanistan," an RAF spokesperson told the Guardian. “We will continue to operate the other Reapers from Creech though, in time, we will wind down operations there and bring people back to the UK.”

It is not known whether the drones will remain in Afghanistan following the NATO withdrawal in 2014.

Drone controversy deepens

The use of UAVs in Middle East is a controversial issue, as drones airstrikes frequently kill large numbers of innocent civilians.

Last month’s study from Stanford and New York universities titled ‘Living Under Drones’ claimed that only two percent of drone strike casualties in Pakistan are the top militants targeted in the attacks, and that the large number of collateral civilian deaths have turned Pakistanis against the US.

The “best available information,” according to the study, is that between 2,562 and 3,325 people were killed in Pakistan from June 2004 through mid-September of this year. An estimated 474 to 881 of those killed were civilians, including 176 children.

In early October, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that an overwhelming majority of those killed by US UAV strikes in Pakistan are innocent civilians. Malik asked the US to share its drone technology with Pakistan, claiming his government could do a better job at targeting terrorists than Washington.

"The Americans themselves often don’t know who they’ve hit,” anti-drone activist and filmmaker Carol Grayson told RT. “And this huge discrepancy over the figures… we’re finding out that a lot more civilians are being killed. But these are the people that the Americans don’t tell you about. And they actually class these people as ‘other.’”

The CIA has not responded to these calls for restraint, and recently asked the White House to increase the number of drones it employs, effectively transforming the program into a paramilitary force.

This summer, the UN lashed out against US drone policy, and asked Washington to clarify the legal basis for drone strikes against terror suspects rather than trying to capture them. The body argued that the airstrikes, which frequently kill innocent civilians, may be violating international law.

The US uses drone technology across the Middle East and North Africa, including in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia.

In the first nine months of 2011, leading up to the ten-year anniversary of the Afghan War, US-led spy drones operating with NATO conducted nearly 23,000 surveillance missions in Afghanistan. At around 85 flights a day, this figure nearly doubles the rate of such missions from two years previous.

As the Pentagon increases the number of drones used in NATO missions in Afghanistan, insurgent attacks have risen nearly 50 percent since 2009, according to a media brief released in the fall of 2011 by the Afghanistan International Security Assistance force.

The UK has operated UAVs in Afghanistan since 2008 for combat missions and surveillance operations. According to the UK’s Ministry of Defense, Britain’s five drones were flown for 39,628 hours and fired 334 laser-guided missiles and bombs at suspected insurgents.

The Ministry of Defense said that it does not know how many insurgents have died from drone attacks because of the risks involved in verifying who has been hit. The ministry also said that it relies on Afghans to handle complaints of civilians killed by such strikes, and gather statistics.

Heather Barr, a lawyer for Human Rights Watch, believes this system of verification is flawed because it lacks uniformity, and not all Afghans have ready access to NATO military bases where such complaints can be made. For some Afghans, there is “a certain sense of futility in doing so [reporting civilian deaths] anyway,” due to lack of trust in the West, she said.

Swiss Spies Stick It To Iran

Four years after the CIA was forced to reveal the identities of three Swiss engineers they used to do major damage to nuclear weapons developments programs in Libya and Iran, the three Swiss men were finally assured that they would not go to jail. This was apparently part of a deal between the CIA and Swiss prosecutors. The three Swiss engineers were mercenaries who had helped Pakistan develop nuclear weapons, but later agreed to work against Pakistan when tracked down by the CIA and Swiss investigators.

This was done by getting to one of the engineers working for the Pakistani Khan network (named after scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who led development efforts for Pakistani nuclear weapons) to secretly switch sides. The CIA basically hired Swiss engineer Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, to feed the Khan network, and its customers, defective (in subtle ways) nuclear weapons components. From 2001-4, the Tinners worked under CIA direction. This caused Libya to drop its nuclear weapons program, and delayed work in Iran.

But for most of the last decade the Tinners have been prosecuted in Switzerland for their work with the Khan network. The elder Tinner began working for Khan in the 1970s, helping to steal European nuclear technology for the Pakistani weapons program. This relationship expanded in the 1990s, when Abdul Qadeer Khan began making money on the side by selling nuclear weapons technology to anyone who could afford it and was discrete (like Libya, Iran, North Korea and Iraq). The CIA effort to get details of the Khan network, and take it down, led them to Tinner, whose willingness to collaborate helped bring down the Khan network.

The CIA paid the Tinners $10 million for their work, and have fought to keep them out of jail ever since. Four years ago details of the Tinner operation were leaked to the media. The CIA then proceeded to try and keep secret the methods and contacts it used to uncover and destroy the Khan network, as well as how it sabotaged components. All this information can be used again, if it doesn't get published in the mass media first.

Spies: CIA Reveals Secrets Of Deep Sea Submarine Mission In Raleigh

Although many people may know about the intriguing story of the CIA and the Glomar Explorer, a ship owned by Howard Hughes that was used to partially recover a sunken Soviet submarine from the bottom of the ocean in the 1970′s. However, another secret mission that has been recently declassified by the Central Intelligence Agency also reveals extraordinary efforts under the ocean that are similar in nature.

A member of the CIA’s Historical Collections Division recently revealed a tale from the Cold War era that involved spy satellites, secret submarine dives, and work on the bottom of the ocean at 16,400 feet at the annual Raleigh Spy Conference in Raleigh, which was held at the NC Museum of History on August 23rd and 24th.

David Waltrop of the CIA gave a presentation releasing new details and photographs about the Hexagon spy satellite operations from the 1970′s and a secret submersible dive down to the bottom of the Pacific in 1972 to retrieve a missing canister of film.

“This is the culmination of about a year and a half of work,” he told the audience at the Raleigh Spy Conference about his research on the project. “It was classified above Top Secret until this year.”

Since the unique event was launched in 2003 by Bernie Reeves of Raleigh, the Raleigh Spy Conference has assembled current and past members of the intelligence community including speakers from the CIA, KGB, FBI, NSA, Naval Intelligence, INTERPOL, and other agencies from around the world.

Waltrop gave one of the keynote speeches this year to speak publicly for the first time about the amazing tale.

“This conference is the first time anyone from the CIA is talking about this in public,” he said.

The operation was unheard of at the time it was performed in 1972 — the attempted retrieval of spy satellite film from the murky depths of the ocean at 16,400 feet.

“The dive at that moment was the deepest underwater operation [in history],” said Waltrop. “[With this release], it’s the only time the CIA has released photos from the bottom of the ocean.”

PROJECT HEXAGON

In the 1960′s, the US government launched a series of spy satellites under different project names including Corona, Gambit, and finally Hexagon in 1971.

The satellites took high quality photos over Soviet bloc nations to provide up to date information on nuclear weapons sites, troop movements, and other installations.

“We had to use technical intelligence to get the information we needed,” said Waltrop, adding that it was hard to get personnel behind the Iron Curtain which made these photographs highly valued.

These film return satellites, or as Waltrop described them “disposable cameras in space,” actually used old-school film produced by Kodak. In fact, the film was actually taken to Eastman Kodak to be developed, under tight security of course.

The film cartridge was contained in a “bucket” and when full, was ejected from the satellite and floated down into the atmosphere by parachute, where it was snagged by a highly trained military airplane crew and brought home.

In the case of Hexagon, it was “caught in mid-air over the ocean near Hawaii,” said Waltrop. When Hexagon delivered, the film was highly useful to the United States and Waltrop says the CIA was extremely pleased with the results.

“The first Hexagon mission was considered an amazing success,” said Waltrop. “Except for the bucket failures and parachute problems.”

Sometimes the plans for the film reaching the right hands went awry.

“These things didn’t always exactly go where they were supposed to,” said Waltrop.

Waltrop showed a photo with some farmers in Venezuela looking at a film bucket that had landed there erroneously.

“Clearly, this is not what you want to happen,” he joked. “This is not a good day if you are the officer in charge.”

MISSING KODAK FILM

In 1971, a Hexagon film canister had a problem and the third film canister that was ejected from the satellite went into the water without having its parachute deployed, possibly hitting the water at 400 to 500 feet per second.

“A search of the area found bubbles, but no debris,” he said.

The CIA decided to determine if the film canister could be recovered. It was a big question.

“What about the film? Would it be usable?” asked Waltrop. He said they went to Kodak for answers.

Kodak determined that the film could survive being in the seawater as a chemical around the edges would swell when it came into contact with water, possibly blocking off the rest of the film and protecting it.

The film was very valuable and it was a priority to try and recover it. The CIA also wanted to get the apparatus around the film to see what went wrong.

“We’re not just doing this for the film…but to check out what happened to the parachute,” he said.

It wasn’t going to be easy, as the film was at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

“Something this small and deep would be difficult to find,” said Waltrop.

A PLAN IS BORN

The CIA, along with the Navy, Kodak, and a group of civilians went to work on a secret plan to recover the film bucket from the bottom of the ocean.

They first identified a search area in the ocean five miles wide by eight miles long.

They then also came up with a method to scoop up the film canister from the bottom of the water. They designed a salvage claw or “hay hook,” which they eventually nicknamed “CLUGE – clumsy large ugly but good enough.”

They would also need a transportation container to hold the film, bucket, and a lot of seawater to help preserve the whole thing as it went from Hawaii to Rochester, New York where it would be developed by Eastman Kodak in a photo lab. It had to be big enough to hold everything but small enough to fit through a door at Kodak. It also had to be refrigerated to keep bacteria from growing on the film. A group called the Container Research Corporation was in charge of making the container.

By September of 1971, everything was going smoothly.

A MONKEY WRENCH IN THE WORKS

As with any plan, there were bound to be some problems along the way. The group working on the project seemed to encounter one problem after another, but slogged through the details.

First, the Container Research Corporation experienced a flash flood at their headquarters, damaging their prototype container for the bucket. Furthermore, when it worked, the container didn’t keep the water cold enough inside.

There were also problems with the “hay hook,” most notably, it fell off the research submarine Trieste II during sea testing. When the 900 pound apparatus jumped the tracks, it caused the sub to “shoot up” in the water almost instantly. They also experienced glitches with mechanical arms, cameras, and other items during the sea trials. On one practice dive, they surfaced five miles away from the target.

Finally, with three different ships, they went to the dive site as the bucket had been located in the water on October 20th, 1971 by using regular salvage search methods.

WEATHER PERMITTING

The Trieste II submersible, which used aviation gas to help control buoyancy as it is lighter than water, was going to be the main recovery vehicle. As it could not make it out to the site by itself, it was housed inside of the USS White Sands, a floating dock from World War II. The USS White Sands in turn was towed by the USS Apache, a Navy ship. Navy crewmen Malcolm Bartells, Philip Striker, and Dick Taylor would be operating the Trieste for the mission.

The weather was not cooperating and with winter approaching, it was getting worse.

“They are clearly behind,” said Waltrop, about the schedule to recover the bucket.

After a first attempt, they had to leave due to bad weather and on November 14th, returned to Pearl Harbor. They tried again on November 21st.

They did indeed find the bucket, but missed it when they zoomed by it.

“Their momentum took them right past it,” he said.

They had other problems on this dive as well. When they surfaced, they almost had a disaster in the making.

“The Trieste slammed into the back of the USS White Sands,” said Waltrop. “The tow line wrapped around the White Sands’ propeller.”

As a result, the Trieste was set adrift, he said. After recovering the Trieste, the crew decided to call it for the winter and try again in the spring. They were determined though to get the bucket and it was a race against time.

“This was the 1970′s, this was the Cold War,” said Waltrop. “Every bit of film was needed.”

They were also concerned the Soviets could find it if they didn’t get it, added Waltrop.

A SUCCESSFUL DIVE

In what can only be described as an amazing feat of daring and planning given the limited technology at that time, the crew of the three ships tried again in the spring, once again finding the bucket on the floor of the Pacific Ocean some 16,400 feet down. They had used DOTS, or deep ocean transponders, to triangulate their position and find the bucket again.

According to Waltrop, Trieste made a two and a half hour descent down to the ocean floor and started seeing pieces of foil, leading them to the bucket, which was embedded in the sea around 18-24 inches deep in sediment.

The crew got the hay hook around the film stacks, leaving the actual bucket behind.

“They only brought up the film,” said Waltrop.

Amazingly, the Trieste crew was able to grab hold of the film stacks and started their ascent back to the surface of the ocean.

However, the nine hour operation ended up being a heartbreaker for the crews involved. They had made a successful dive, they had located the film buckets, and they had even been able to grab onto them and start to return to the surface.

Unfortunately, the film started to fall apart.

“The film is disintegrating as it’s going up…it is disintegrating completely,” said Waltrop. “They finally had it and they were bringing it up and there wasn’t anything they could do about it.”

At the surface of the ocean, they had dive teams in the water to try and salvage some of the film. After examining the leftovers, they came to the conclusion that the film had literally been torn apart not by corrosion from the seawater but from its destructive impact when it hit the ocean’s surface when it landed from space.

“The impact was so severe, that it probably destroyed the film,” said Waltrop. “It hit so hard, it imprinted paint on the film.”

It was obvious from the destruction that the parachutes had not deployed at all, said Waltrop.

LESSONS LEARNED

Although the film fell apart, the mission was not a failure by any means, as the dive gave the CIA, the Navy and the US government important information about deep water salvage operations and also how to improve future Hexagon missions and spy satellites in general.

Waltrop said that the government decided to make the Trieste more reliable with some technological improvements and also ready to be deployed without having to use the Navy. The dives themselves proved to be valuable learning experiences as they were under unique and extreme conditions at 16,400 feet under the surface of the ocean. They proved that using certain location methods such as deep ocean transponders – without the benefit of GPS satellites – could bear fruitful results.

“It was the deepest salvage recovery operation yet by man,” said Waltrop, who added that the US government now had the capability to recover anything from the bottom of the ocean in at least 80% of the areas covered by the sea.

“This was an example of people coming together with different backgrounds and expertise for an important mission,” said Waltrop. “They invested so much time and effort and heart and soul to get it done.” ::

ISI, CIA chiefs to meet in August: drone attacks will be main agenda

Pakistan’s Director-General of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant-General Zaheer-ul-Islam (R), attends a function with Governor of Sindh Ishrat-ul-Ebad (C) and Chief Minister Sindh, Syed Qaim Ali Shah (L) in Karachi.

ISLAMABAD: Director General Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Lieutenant General Zaheer-u-ul Islam will hold talks in Washington on August 1-3 with his CIA counterpart, a military statement said, with drone strikes expected to be a major issue.

It is the first time in a year that the chief of the Pakistan military’s powerful ISI will make the trip, signalling a thaw in relations after US troops found and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May 2011.

Lieutenant General Islam, who was appointed in March, “will visit USA from 1st to 3rd August. This will be a service-to-service bilateral visit,” the statement said.

“He will meet his counterpart General David Petraeus, director CIA.” The short statement gave no other details, but a senior Pakistani security official earlier told AFP that the pair would discuss counter-terror cooperation and intelligence sharing.

The ISI chief would also demand an end to US drone attacks against the Taliban and al Qaeda, and again ask for the means for Pakistan to carry out the attacks instead, the security official said.

It had been expected that Islam would visit the US in late July. It was not immediately clear why that trip did not happen.

Islamabad has been increasingly vocal in its public opposition to the drones. Pakistan’s leaders had quietly approved initially but now say they are a violation of sovereignty and insist they fan anti-US sentiment.

US officials are understood to believe the attacks too important to give up, although the number declined as relations between the nominal allies plunged to their lowest in a decade.

But on July 3 Islamabad agreed to end a seven-month blockade on Nato supplies travelling overland to Afghanistan after the United States apologised for the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers in botched air strikes last November.

The resumption of Nato traffic has been temporarily suspended over fears of right-wing militants’ attacks.