"If you've got a good idea" for how to take on terrorists, Darpa and the influential Defense Science Board write in e-mailed pleas, "turn it in as soon as possible because we've got the money" for new anti-evil doer technology.
Two areas are of particular interest, Aviation Week notes: detecting the improvised explosive devices being used to pick off U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and jamming the cell phones relied on to pass orders and trigger those explosives.
"The first few ground vehicle-mounted detection and jamming devices from Darpa have just been deployed in Iraq," the magazine says. But the range of these is pretty limited.
"This is kind of sad," a Navy official tells Aviation Week. "It can be perceived as a mark of desperation, and [with more timely investments] we shouldn't have been put in that position."
"Project Eyes," mandated by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper, is examining existing technologies to see if they can be applied quickly to the problem...
However, when asked if the Air Force in particular was organizationally prepared to shift its long-endurance intelligence-gathering resources to focus on the spreading terrorist threat in Iraq, a senior service official's reply was pungent: "Hell, no. Out of all the Air Force task forces, not one is focused on counter-terrorism."
