--- Begin Forwarded Message ---
Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 14:02:19 -0700
From: Ryan Morgan <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: RE: Afghanistan Maps for Pilots Delayed by Foul-Ups <fwd>
Sender: Ryan Morgan <[log in to unmask]>
Unbelievable, what, was that some kind of "clerical error?"
"It's hard to soar like an eagle when you work with a bunch of turkeys"
-----Original Message-----
From: Maps and Air Photo Systems Forum
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Johnnie Sutherland
Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 1:08 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: nyt: Afghanistan Maps for Pilots Delayed by Foul-Ups <fwd>
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Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 19:10:17 -0400
From: Deborah Natsios <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: nyt: Afghanistan Maps for Pilots Delayed by Foul-Ups
Sender: Deborah Natsios <[log in to unmask]>
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/11/international/11SATE.html
May 11, 2002
Afghanistan Maps for Pilots Were Delayed by Foul-Ups
By JAMES RISEN
The New York Times
WASHINGTON, May 10 Thousands of new satellite photographs of Afghanistan
lay idly in storage at the height of the American military campaign last
fall, as technological and then bureaucratic failings kept them out of the
hands of Air Force pilots desperate for more accurate maps of the remote
country, industry and military officials say.
For nearly a month after the bombing campaign began, pilots had to make do
with old Russian maps of Afghanistan, because the American intelligence
community was slow to figure out how to process and distribute satellite
photographs from a private contractor, the officials say.
Once Air Force officers discovered that thousands of the fresh,
high-resolution satellite pictures were sitting on CD-ROM's in storage at a
military base here, they skirted the bureaucracy and began ferrying the
photographs themselves directly to a forward air base in Saudi Arabia. But
the episode underscores the way American intelligence's management of spy
satellite technology has encountered problems in trying to integrate
information from the private sector.
The war in Afghanistan was the first in which a private company was able to
provide high-resolution satellite photography, supplementing the work of the
government's own spy satellites. Soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, Space
Imaging Inc., the first company to sell high-resolution satellite
photographs on the open market, gave the government exclusive rights to all
its imagery of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Pentagon bought all of Space Imaging's photographs of those two
countries in part to keep them from being made public at a time when the
United States was undertaking its military operations in the region.
In fact, the Pentagon has long feared that the growth of commercially
available satellite photography could jeopardize secrecy in American
military movements. So when President Bill Clinton issued an order in 1994
allowing for the limited commercial use of such technology, the Pentagon
demanded and won the exclusive right to buy commercial images of any
given region during a crisis, denying others the ability to use them.
Some officials at the Pentagon realized, however, that commercially
available satellite photography had uses that not only should be denied foes
but also could enhance the American military's own efforts: the technology
is perfect for making maps for fighter pilots.
To be sure, the government's own spy satellites were taking thousands of new
photographs of Afghanistan last fall. But, Air Force officials say, many of
the extremely-high-resolution photographs taken by government-operated spy
satellites are not well suited for producing maps of large swaths of a
country. The exact capabilities of the government's spy satellites are
classified, but they are believed to be able to pick out an object just four
to six inches wide from 400 miles in space. With that level of resolution,
the area photographed is relatively small, making the images impractical for
map making.
By contrast, Space Imaging's satellite cameras can detect only an object
with a width of at least one meter, about three feet. That means the camera
takes pictures of larger areas, which can be used to make maps.
"As a pilot, there might be one day when you need a very detailed picture of
a building in Kabul, and then another day when you need a large and very
accurate map of a valley in the Tora Bora area," an Air Force official said.
"And you want that map to be current so it shows you things like new power
lines. You don't want to suddenly find out about new power lines while you
are flying through a valley."
But in the initial stages of the war in Afghanistan last fall, American
pilots often had to make do with old maps from the Russians and other
sources, even as Space Imaging, based in Colorado, was sending thousands of
new photographs to the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, a Pentagon
bureau that processes and analyzes spy satellite pictures for American
intelligence.
Part of the problem was that the mapping agency was not able to handle the
digital river of data that Space Imaging was sending. Space Imaging tried to
send all its satellite photography by high-speed modem, but the agency's
outmoded systems, though compatible with the government's spy satellites,
lacked the bandwidth to receive this data, agency officials acknowledge.
So Space Imaging began copying all its photographs onto CD-ROM's and
shipping them to the mapping agency. Some of the photographs were then
distributed at the Pentagon and other agencies. But for the first few weeks
of the war, many of the CD's simply sat in an imagery library at Bolling Air
Force Base here a victim largely of a culture change entailed in dealing
with privately generated data, officials of the mapping agency acknowledge.
Finally, three or four weeks into the air campaign, Air Force officials
began flying the photographs to an air operations center at Prince Sultan
Air Base in Saudi Arabia. From there, new imagery was distributed to
front-line air squadrons.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
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