How Our Leaders Create A Safer World; Actually, More Of Their Failures

Need parts for your F-14? Shop where the Iranians shop: eBay.

F-14 components are tough to find these days, now that the United States has retired its F-14 fleet. A tough break for the countries that still use the aircraft–countries like Iran. Lucky for them, finding those components is about as difficult as digging up a spare fender for your classic car. All that’s required is a quick search or three on eBay (EBAY) or Craigslist.

According to a new report from the Government Accountability Office, all manner of sensitive or stolen military gear is available for purchase online. GAO investigators apparently had no trouble at all picking up night-vision goggles, U.S.-issue body armor, nuclear-biological-chemical gear and the aforementioned F-14 fighter components at online marketplaces. Many of these items could easily be used against U.S. troops or reverse-engineered to develop countermeasures or equivalent technology, yet they were shipped to the GAO “no questions asked.”

“Given that the United States has retired its fleet of F-14s, these components could only be used by the Iranian military,” the GAO noted in its report. “By making these components available to the general public, the eBay sellers provided an opportunity for these components to be purchased by an individual who could then transfer them to Iran. The continued ability of Iran to use its F-14s could put U.S. troops and allies at risk.”

A sobering revelation. Funny that eBay and Craigslist policies and procedures prohibit the sale of things like bootlegs, animals and whatnot, but F-14 fighter components are perfectly acceptable.

Link.

Another rebellion in Iraq: Our "smart" weapons hate us too:

Ground-crawling US war robots armed with machine guns, deployed to fight in Iraq last year, reportedly turned on their fleshy masters almost at once. The rebellious machine warriors have been retired from combat pending upgrades.

The revelations were made by Kevin Fahey, US Army program executive officer for ground forces, at the recent RoboBusiness conference in America.

Speaking to Popular Mechanics, Fahey said there had been chilling incidents in which the SWORDS* combat bot had swivelled round and apparently attempted to train its 5.56mm M249 light machine-gun on its human comrades.

"The gun started moving when it was not intended to move," he said.

Apparently, alert American troops managed to quell the traitorous would-be droid assassins before the inevitable orgy of mechanised slaughter began. Fahey didn't say just how, but conceivably the rogue robots may have been suppressed with help from more trustworthy airborne kill machines (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/30/reaper_first_kill/), or perhaps prototype electropulse zap bombs (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/28/hpm_emp_electromagnetic_microwave_pulse_weapon_spotted/).

No humans were hurt, but it seems that the struggle was sufficiently terrifying that it may be some time before American troops are ready to fight alongside robots again.

As Fahey pointed out, "once you've done something that's really bad, it can take 10 or 20 years to try it again". That said, it seems he expects to deploy a new and more trustworthy armed ground automaton within a year - perhaps the MAARS (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/09/transformer_robot_can_transform_into_a_robot/)**, an upgraded SWORDS packing a heavier 7.62mm machine-gun and featuring improved safety features.

MAARS is also said by its makers to have "Transformer-like" abilities akin to those of Optimus Prime. Rather than being able to disguise itself as, say, a mobility scooter or a dessert trolley, the MAARS is actually only able to transform - with help from human allies - into a slightly different robot.

The Pop Mech analysts consider (http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4258103.html) that the rattled GIs in Iraq are just being silly.

So SWORDS was yanked because it made people nervous. Meanwhile, the V-22 Osprey program has killed 30 people during test flights, but the tiltrotor aircraft is currently in active service.

Hmmm. ®

*Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Direct-action System. This is an armed variant on the popular TALON bomb-disposal job from Foster-Miller, lately acquired by the UK's Qinetiq govboffin spinoff outfit.

**Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System

Link.

More about that here including a photo of one of the "troops".