Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins (43 page)

Tellingly, McChrystal, at that time and since, liked to repeat the mantra: e.g., Stanley McChrystal, “It Takes a Network,”
Foreign Policy
, February 22, 2011.

Arquilla served as a Pentagon adviser: John Arquilla (autobiography), “John Arquilla, Professor and Director,” Naval Postgraduate School website, posted September 20, 2011.
http://www.nps.edu/About/News/Faculty/NPSExpert/John-Arquilla.html
.

NSA, under the ambitious command of General Keith Alexander: Ellen Nakashima and Joby Warrick, “For NSA Chief, Terrorist Threat Drives Passion to ‘Collect It All,’ Observers Say,”
Washington Post,
July 13, 2013.

That was where a classified technology developed by NSA: Dr. Christopher Soghoian, American Civil Liberties Union, “Testimony Before the LIBE Committee Inquiry on Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens,” December 18, 2013.
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/libe-testimony-csoghoian.pdf
.

What resembles “LITTLE BOY”
…: Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald: “The NSA’s Role in the U.S. Assassination Program,”
The Intercept
, February 10, 2014.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role/
.

“It is not enough to have several eyes on a target”: M. T. Flynn, et al., “SOF Best Practices,” National Defense University, Institute for National Strategic Studies, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC, 2008.
www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA516799
.

“industrial counterterrorism”: Mark Urban, op. cit., p. 91.

Reminiscing years later about happy days at Balad: Stanley McChrystal,
My Share of the Task
(New York: Penguin, 2013), p. 165.

apart from discreet references by privileged insiders: e.g., Bob Woodward, “The War Within,” CBS News,
60 Minutes
, September 7, 2008.

“By hollowing out its midsection”: McChrystal, op. cit., p. 162.

A leading pioneer had been the mathematician and social scientist Valdis Krebs: Valdis Krebs, “Case Study: Connecting the 9/11 Hijackers,”
War 2.0: National Security and the Science of Networks
.
http://nationalsecurityzone.org/war2-0/case-studies/september-11-hijackers/
.

“shaping” the enemy network”: Paulo Shakarian, Jeffrey Nielsen, and Anthony N. Johnson, “Shaping Operations to Attack Robust Terror Networks,” U.S. Military Academy, 2012.

“185 separate Attack the Network efforts”: House Committee on Armed Services, Subcommitee on Oversight and Investigations, The Joint Improvised Explosive Defeat Organization, “DoD’s Fight Against IEDs Today and Tomorrow,” November 2008, p. 23.

“The illusion that they fragment”: Keith Patrick Dear, “Beheading the Hydra? Does Killing Terrorist or Insurgent Leaders Work?” RAF Department of Defense Studies, 2011.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14702436.2013.845383
.

U.S. Army Field Manual, FM3-24, published to rapturous public acclaim: U.S. Army/Marine Corps, “Counterinsurgency,” Department of the Army, December 2006, pp. 131–32.
http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/Repository/Materials/COIN-FM3-24.pdf
.

I asked a JSOC veteran who had worked closely with McChrystal in Iraq: Interview, San Francisco, CA, January 2013.

At the subsequent press briefing the military displayed a twice-life-size matte photo-portrait: Philip Kennicott, “A Chilling Portrait, Unsuitably Framed,”
Washington Post,
June 9, 2006.

Newsweek
, in its cover story: Evan Thomas, “Death of a Terrorist,”
Newsweek
, June 19, 2006.

Suicide bombers were put to work: Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor,
The Endgame
(New York: New Pantheon, 2012), pp. 230–31.

9 | Killing Effects

Built by a Jordanian company, the $200,000 Seeker looked like a helicopter: Daniel Moore et al., “Integrated Air-Ground Operations at the Platoon Level: An Operational Assessment Using Rugged, Low Cost, Fixed-wing Manned Aircraft,” IDA Paper P-4054, Institute for Defense Analysis, Washington, DC, August 2005.

A strongly worded after-action report: William C. Schneck, “After Action Report Somalia,” Countermine Directorate, U.S. Army Belvoir Research, Development and Engineering Center, Ft. Belvoir, VA, p. 27.

Called for a Manhattan Project: Rick Atkinson, “Left of Boom,”
Washington Post
, September 30, 2007.

EDO revenues soared:
http://www.faireconomy.org/reports/2006/ExecutiveExcess2006.pdf
.

Brandon Bryant, a “stick monkey”: Matthew Power, “Confessions of a Drone Warrior,”
GQ
, October 23, 2013.

In September 2007 the giant defense contractor ITT: Defense Industry Daily Staff, “ITT Corp. Acquires EDO in $1.7B Deal,”
Defense Industry Daily
, September 18, 2007.

systems such as Compass Call Nova: Colonel Bill Grimes,
History of Big Safari
(Richmond, BC, Canada: Archway Publishing, 2014), p. 288.

Rex Rivolo got an invitation to go to Iraq: Interview with Rex Rivolo, Chantilly, VA, December 19, 2013.

Stigmergic systems use simple environmental signals: R. Beckers, O. E. Holland, and J. L. Deneubourg, “From Local Actions to Global Tasks: Stigmergy and Collective Robotics,”
Artificial Life
4, 1994, pp. 181–89.

(JIEDDO) … the new bureaucracy rapidly swelled to more than 3,000 people: Statement of Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England Before House Budget Committee 31, July 2007.

sniffer dogs … and “Fido”: Rick Atkinson, “Left of Boom,”
Washington Post
, September 30, 2007.

Gates writes movingly: Robert Gates,
Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War
(New York: Knopf, 2013), pp. 120–24.

An exhaustive analysis of the number of killed and wounded: Interview with former Department of Defense official, Washington, DC, April 19, 2013.

“On Rigor in Science”: Jorge Luis Borges,
A Universal History of Infamy,
trans. by Norman Thomas de Giovanni (London: Penguin, 1975).

Constant Hawk, billed $84 million for 2007, while the air force’s offering, Angel Fire, received $55 million: “Electronic Weapons: Constant Hawk Versus Angel Fire Deathmatch,” Strategy Page, October 12, 2007.
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htecm/20071012.aspx
.

“detect any movement of any object as small as a cockroach”: Jim DeBrosse, “Gotcha Radar Aims to Help Troops See in Any Conditions,”
Dayton Daily News
, August 30, 2009.

Defense Secretary Gates, for example, was beguiled by Task Force ODIN’s videos: Gates, op. cit., p. 126.

“no detectable effect”: Interview with Rex Rivolo, Washington, DC, February 10, 2011.

May 5, 2006, report on the shooting of Allah Harboni: War diaries, BN HVI KILLED BY 3-187 IVO IVO SAMARRA: 1 AIF KIA, 0 CF INJ/DAMAGE 2006-05-08 02:10:00, Wikileaks.
https://wardiaries.wikileaks.org/id/70F15038-6A38-4257-8495-1E09F15B677B/
.

Be Happy Day as an initiative to raise morale: Interview with former military intelligence officer, Los Angeles, CA, September 19, 2012.

“Conclusion: HVI Strategy, our principal strategy in Iraq, is counter-productive”: Interview with Rex Rivolo, Washington, DC, February 10, 2011.

“When you mow the grass”: Interview, Washington, DC, March 19, 2007.

10 | A Piece of Junk

Billy Mitchell … bombing and sinking a number of surrendered Germen warships: Navy Department Library, “The Naval Bombing Experiments, Bombing Operations.”
http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/navybomb2.htm
. Accessed February 13, 2014.

In essence, the DCGS is the repository of the oceans of data: U.S. Air Force Fact Sheet, “Air Force Distributed Common Ground System,” August 31, 2009.
http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets/Display/tabid/224/Article/104525/air-force-distributed-common-ground-system.aspx
. Accessed January 30, 2014.

Further monies are being garnered:
http://www.dtic.mil/descriptivesum/Y2013/AirForce/stamped/0305208F_7_PB_2013.pdf
.

An admiring air force biographer: Abe Jackson, “America’s Airman, David Deptula and the Airpower Moment,” School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Air University Press, June 2011, p. 53.

Deptula’s “vision”: Ibid., p. 55.

“ten minutes of F-16 time”: Lieutenant General D. A. Deptula, remarks, Air Force Strategy and Transformation Breakfast, Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, April 27, 2007.

Indeed, at this time Deptula was also leading a push: Megan Scully, “Pentagon Rejects Air Force Bid to Control UAV Programs,”
Government Executive
, September 14, 2007.

“an arrangement where one service…” David Deptula, “Toward Restructuring National Security,”
Strategic Studies Quarterly
, Air University, October 27, 2007.

Among other pungent critiques of the concept (“Assumes a level of unachievable predictability”) Mattis pointed out: James N. Mattis, “USJFCOMM Commanders Guidance with Respect to Effects Based Operations,”
The U.S. Army War College Quarterly Parameters
, Autumn 2008, p. 20.

“our guys are below the general civilian population as far as risk for PTSD”: “Combat Stress in Remotely Piloted/UAS Operations,” Twenty-First-Century Defense Initiative, Brookings Institute, February 3, 2013.

The scale was impressive … even if the end result was a tsunami: John M. Doyle, “Actionable Intelligence: Getting Accurate Info to Decision Makers Quickly,” Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, June 21, 2013.

“I cannot see a situation”: Stew Magnuson, “Swimming in Sensors, Drowning in Data,”
National Defense
, January 2010.

DCGS-A attracts a great deal of well-merited abuse: Robert Draper, “Boondoggle Goes Boom, a Demented Tale of How the Army Actually Does Business,”
New Republic,
June 19, 2013.

Much of its appeal derives from its ease of use: Telephone interview with CEO of surveillance industry contractor, April 7, 2014.

“Palantir works because it’s a commercial system, constantly refined”: Interview with former Pentagon official, Washington, DC, April 6, 2014.

Palantir has expanded its market: Richard Waters, “Counter-terrorism Tools Used to Spot Fraud,”
Financial Times
, December 13, 2012.

it is indeed “a great system”: Email from marine officer then deployed in Afghanistan, March 23, 2013.

“They developed and fielded it in a hurry”: Interview, Pentagon City, VA, October 3, 2013.

Reaper is extremely expensive: Winslow Wheeler, “Revisiting the Reaper Revolution,”
Time
’s Battleland defense blog, February 22, 2012.
http://nation.time.com/2012/02/27/1-the-reaper-revolution-revisited/
; Craig Whitlock, “When Drones Fall from the Sky,”
Washington Post
, June 20, 2014.

In fact, it carries essentially the same sensors: U.S. Central Command, “Summary of Interview with Captain [name redacted] on April 19, 2011,” Report of investigation into friendly fire incident, Upper Sangin, Helmand, April 6, 2011, p. 203.

Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International: Andrea Stone, “Drone Lobbying Ramps Up Among Industry Manufacturers, Developers,”
Huffington Post
, May 25, 2012.

Cessna operation yielded at least 6,500 captives: Winslow Wheeler, “Finding the Right Targets,”
Time
’s Battleland defense blog, February 29, 2012.
http://nation.time.com/2012/02/29/3-finding-the-right-targets/
.

“Northrop took billions and billions of dollars off us, and gave us a piece of junk”: Interview with senior Pentagon acquisition official, Pentagon City, VA, February 7, 2013.

A best-selling 2009 book on drones: Peter Singer,
Wired for War, The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century
(New York: Penguin, 2009), p. 230.

“Junk is right”: Interview, Arlington, VA, November 6, 2013.

Global Hawk stays on the ground: Aram Roston, “The Battle over Global Hawk,”
Defense News
, July 15, 2013.

By 2012, even the air force had had enough: Richard Sia and Alexander Cohen, “The Huge Drone That Could Not Be Grounded,” Center for Public Integrity, September 24, 2013.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/07/16/12969/huge-drone-could-not-be-grounded
.

In recognition of his stellar performance: The Hill Staff, “Top Lobbyists 2013,”
The Hill
, October 30, 2013.

On February 24, 2014, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced a series of stringent cuts: U.S. Department of Defense, Press Operations, “Remarks by Secretary Hagel and General Dempsey on the fiscal year 2015 budget preview in the Pentagon Briefing Room.”
http://www.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=5377
.

a “revolutionary airborne surveillance system”: Ellen Nakashima and Craig Whitlock, “With Gorgon Stare, ‘We Can See Everything,’”
Washington Post
, January 2, 2011.

“Instead of looking at a truck or a house…”: Richard Whittle, “Newest Afghanistan Surveillance System,” InvestorsHub, January 1, 2011.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=58320282
.

That October, the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation: Sierra Nevada Corporation, “SNC-led Gorgon Stare Team Wins US GeoInt Foundation 2011 Industry Award,” Press Release, October 18, 2011.

“very powerful in the [Afghan] battle space”: Lieutenant General Larry James, “The Service Chiefs Speak,” 2012 U.S. GeoInt Symposium, GeoInt TV.
http://geointv.com/archive/geoint-2012-panel-the-intelligence-chiefs/
.

“The combatant commanders love it”: Caitlin Lee, “Gorgon Stare Wide Area Sensor Proving Effective in Afghanistan,”
Jane’s Defense Weekly
, May 1, 2013.

Earlier,
Air Force Times
: Michael Hoffman, “New Reaper Sensors Offer a Bigger Picture,”
Air Force Times
, February 16, 2011.

Civil libertarians, no less impressed: Glenn Greenwald, “Domestic Drones and Their Unique Dangers,”
theguardian.com
. Accessed March 29, 2013.