Article published on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

By JAN HUISMAN
Mirror Writer

When, in 1997, the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation suddenly received $18 million dollars in federal funding for its planned rocket launch site on Kodiak Island, it was no secret U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska had pulled some strings.

New evidence indicates Stevens not only pulled, but pushed, strong-arming Missile Defense commanders on behalf of AADC.

The money appeared in a Pentagon spending bill during a House-Senate conference in the fall of 1996. $23 million was added to the budget of a small Air Force missile defense program. $5 million would be spent on two launches for the program – the remaining $18 million was earmarked for construction of the Kodiak Launch Complex.

Newspapers at the time reported the Air Force did not solicit the funding.

“The Air Force believes this is an important test but due to higher priority requirements and limited budgets, did not request funds for this test,” the Air Force said in a statement to the Anchorage Daily News.

Michael Cantrell, an engineer working for the Air Force Atmospheric Interceptor Technology program, said Stevens added the money to his program’s account after he worked out a deal in which the money would go to Kodiak.

“I understand that Sen. Stevens wanted to fund the range, but could not just put the funds in the budget for a range without a user. So I became that user and the funds were added to my budget for the Kodiak Complex,” Cantrell wrote in a fax to the Kodiak Daily Mirror.

When Cantrell’s superiors at the missile defense program found out, they were furious.

“I was opposed to using missile defense money for the Kodiak facility only because we already had our launch facilities that we were using for missile testing,” said retired Rear Adm. Richard D. West, then deputy director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.

“We were using White Sands and Kwajalein (launch facilities), which were already developed and paid-for launch facilities that were sufficient for our testing.”

West said Stevens overruled MDA’s priorities, insisting the Kodiak project proceed.
No one more important

AADC has never denied Stevens’ importance to their agency.

“No one has been more important to AADC than Senator Ted Stevens,” wrote former AADC CEO Pat Ladner in the 2002 annual report. “He held us to a strict standard and provided help to AADC only after we convinced him that our goals would benefit the nation as well as Alaska.”

Yet others said it was Stevens who did the convincing.

“Congress has the right to put money into programs that they think are important to the nation,” West said. “We made a point that in this particular case, we didn’t think we needed that facility and could use the money for something else.”

In response, West said Stevens sent a “strong message.”

“We were to see that that money would be used in building the facility for Kodiak.”

The Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation was formed as an independent state agency in 1991 with the intention of bringing space-related economic development to Alaska. Ladner was hired as CEO in 1992, leaving a management position at the Strategic Defense Initiative, a forerunner to the Missile Defense Agency.

Initially focused around expanding the Poker Flats facility in Fairbanks, the agency settled in 1994 on Kodiak as a suitable site for a launch facility. Advantages included range safety – with nothing but water for thousands of miles south of Kodiak Island – and the ability to launch satellites into a polar orbit.

In a series of public meetings in Kodiak in the mid ’90s, Ladner pitched the project as a cutting-edge venture that would bring the burgeoning commercial space industry to Alaska. Ladner said several private communications and aerospace firms had expressed interest in launching out of Kodiak.

Funding for construction was to come from bonds issued by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, to be repaid by profits from commercial activity.

But the customers never turned up and the project failed to meet AIDEA’s funding criteria. The project appeared dead in the water.

Neal Brown, former director of the Poker Flats research range, said he had been hopeful but skeptical about the commercial potential of the aerospace industry.

“I’m sure (Ladner) worked really hard to get commercial stuff, but he just never materialized it,” Brown said. “So he went for what he could, and that became the military.”

Cantrell was the subject of a lengthy New York Times article in October detailing how he leveraged his position as head of the experimental AIT program to collect more than $1.6 million in kickbacks. Cantrell and his deputy, Doug Ennis, are waiting sentencing after pleading guilty to corruption charges.

Cantrell lobbied Capitol Hill to line up federal funding for his program. Often, as in the case of AADC, he enlisted congressmen and senators with promises the money would be spent on contractors or agencies in the politicians’ constituencies.

Cantrell said he worked with Ladner to procure funding for the Kodiak Launch Complex.

“Pat knew what I was doing,” Cantrell wrote in the fax to the Mirror. “Bill Bittner was AADC’s attorney, and Pat used Bill to work Stevens’ office.”

Bill Bittner, attorney and lobbyist, is Sen. Stevens’ brother-in-law.

Ladner acknowledged knowing Cantrell, but distanced himself from Cantrell’s lobbying.

“Mr. Cantrell and I never went to see Sen. Stevens at all. Now, if he went to see Sen. Stevens, that’s fine,” Ladner said.

He said the funds that came through Cantrell’s program were not make or break for AADC.

“We got money from a lot of sources. What can I tell ya?” he said.

Regarding the Pentagon’s reluctance to pay for the Kodiak project, Ladner said they didn’t appreciate what they were getting.

“The people that were in missile defense at that time probably would have rather had that money for something else, but as it proves out now, it was a worthy investment,” he said, citing Kodiak’s ongoing involvement in missile defense testing.
Tipping point

Cantrell’s first test in November 1998 launched from a mobile pad on the Kodiak site where contractors had only just begun pouring concrete; The program used to justify $18 million in funding for KLC could itself have launched without it.

Compounding the waste, the first missile carried none of Cantrell’s test equipment in the payload. Cantrell’s superiors ordered it removed when they found out about the earmark to build KLC.

“After the Stevens meeting I was told to participate, but we could not get my payload on the launch without a significant delay and cost increase,” Cantrell wrote. “So, we put my program name on the launch and left the hardware off.”

Ladner said AADC does not know what is on the classified military payloads, aside from confirming they do not contain anything hazardous.

Since 1998, the Kodiak Launch Complex has completed 13 launches. Aside from one launch contracted by Lockheed and NASA, all have been military.

All of the seven launches since 2004 were target missiles fired by the Missile Defense Agency to simulate an attack on the U.S. coming from Asia.

Aside from the $76 million earned in revenue from these launches, the AADC has received $138 million in federal capital investments since 1993.

In August, AADC signed a new three-year contract with MDA that could be worth $50 million. A target missile launch is planned for Friday, and two Air Force launches are on the schedule over the next two years.

Current AADC CEO Dale Nash said the anticipated commercial launches never materialized because satellite phone systems lost out to terrestrial cell phones.

“There were an awful lot of people counting on that being out there – constellations of hundreds of satellites,” he said. “The commercial (demand) for polar orbits has basically gone away.”

Nash said AADC faces strong competition from government-subsidized launch sites in India, Russia, China and Europe.

Unless depreciation of the launch site’s infrastructure is factored in, Nash said, AADC is operating at a profit.

Yet AADC has never issued a dividend to the State of Alaska, which initially invested $15 million in the project. Nash said the Alaska legislature agreed it was better to reinvest profits into growing the launch capabilities.

The agency is seeking capital funding from the state to expand the Kodiak Launch Facility, Nash said. The expansion would give Kodiak the ability to launch quickly upon request.

“Right now, it’s typically about 60 days from the time someone shows up until they can go launch,” Nash said.

“Russia and China both have the capability to launch within about an hour to two hours from the time they decide they want to launch until they’re on orbit,” he said. “We’re trying to design and build an additional launch pad with rocket motor storage to get that kind of capability.”

AADC president Tom Case said rapid launch capability would help protect a nation increasingly dependent on satellite systems for its economic and national security.

“There are anti-satellite technologies that have proliferated around a number of space-faring countries now,” said Case, who joined AADC in 2007 after retiring from the Air Force.

Case said AADC anticipates a demand for “the ability to put small satellites into orbit quickly to fill a specific need for a period of time.

“This is a major economic development opportunity for this state (and) it’s a key part of our national security infrastructure.”

“We are on the tipping point of being able to break out into a significant aerospace industry in Alaska,” he said.

Mirror writer Jan Huisman may be reached via e-mail at jhuisman@kodiakdailymirror.com.

UH lab receives explosive research contract

By: Kris DeRego

Posted: 12/3/08

University of Hawai’i scientists are developing a new method for detecting improvised explosive devices, thanks to a lucrative grant awarded to the college’s Applied Research Laboratory.

The 18-month contract, sponsored by the U.S. Army, allocates $980,334 for researching the use of multiple optical methods to detect the chemical signature of improvised explosive devices prior to detonation. Roadside bombs are the leading cause of death for American troops serving in Iraq, triggering approximately 70 percent of the war’s 4,207 casualties, according to Pentagon estimates.

“IEDs have taken a heavy toll on both soldiers and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Jim Gaines, UH vice president for research. “Having a reliable method of standoff detection would provide much greater safety for both civilians and military personnel.”

Optical remote sensing is favored as a way to detect chemical signatures in water and the atmosphere. Until recently, however, optical technology suffered from high operational costs and poor performance in environments with impaired visibility.

“Optical methods have proven problematic in the past,” said Benjamin Dunley, a weapons development consultant for Lockheed Martin. “Recent advancements in the fiber optics industry have reduced costs, though, and made creative innovations, like signature-based radiation scanning, more feasible for defense contractors.”

Seven UH scientists will partner with investigators from Arkansas State and Florida A&M universities to conduct the explosives detection studies, said university officials, who emphasized that no explosive materials will be employed by researchers or stored at campus facilities during the experiments.

The contract is the second task order awarded to the Navy-affiliated Applied Research Laboratory, which was established in 2007 to perform basic national defense research. In September, the laboratory received $850,000 from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to examine the impact of ecological variations upon discarded munitions at Ordnance Reef off the Wai’anae coast.

UH administrators hope that successful completion of both task orders will initiate funding for similar projects in the future.

“This could be the first in a sequence of task orders if the initial studies prove interesting,” Gaines said. “That could, in turn, enhance the university’s budget and the local economy.”

The Department of Defense restricted total research subsidies to $26.2 million and renounced classified research for the first three years of the Applied Research Laboratory’s existence. If the pace of contracted research remains steady, the Naval laboratory should reach its $26 million target by 2011.

Not everyone agrees that the explosives detection contract is beneficial to UH, however, despite revenue shortfalls resulting from budget cuts and sharp enrollment declines at most UH campuses, including UH Manoa. Some critics feel that the research grant violates the core academic values associated with higher education.

“This IED detection task order is aimed at improving the U.S. military’s ability to sustain its occupation of other people’s countries,” said Kyle Kajihiro, program director for the American Friends Service Committee. “This is not the mission that UH should serve.”

According to Kajihiro, university scientists could be contracted to perform military research without the Applied Research Laboratory.

“Under normal circumstances, the university would have to compete for money,” said Kajihiro. “The Naval laboratory allows the military’s pork pipeline to flow directly from congressional earmarks to the university, giving military-linked researchers their own private ATM.”

University officials maintain that the benefits of the contract extend beyond the college’s finances, however, and address the military’s need for enhanced protection.

“The research is consistent with the university’s mission of solving society’s problems,” said Gregg Takayama, UH director of community and government relations. “The primary beneficiary will not be UH Manoa, but the civilians and military personnel who regularly face injury and death from hidden explosive devices.”

© Copyright 2008 Ka Leo O Hawaii

Source: http://www.kaleo.org/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=72e6931c-0957-4e4c-b116-ff32ff377e19&page=2

Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security

By Spencer S. Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writers

Monday, December 1, 2008; A01

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department’s role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military’s role in domestic law enforcement.

But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, dedicating 20,000 troops to domestic response — a nearly sevenfold increase in five years — “would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable,” Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, said in remarks last month at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But the realization that civilian authorities may be overwhelmed in a catastrophe prompted “a fundamental change in military culture,” he said.

The Pentagon’s plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces to be ready for emergency response by September 2011. The first 4,700-person unit, built around an active-duty combat brigade based at Fort Stewart, Ga., was available as of Oct. 1, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of the U.S. Northern Command.

If funding continues, two additional teams will join nearly 80 smaller National Guard and reserve units made up of about 6,000 troops in supporting local and state officials nationwide. All would be trained to respond to a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attack, or CBRNE event, as the military calls it.

Military preparations for a domestic weapon-of-mass-destruction attack have been underway since at least 1996, when the Marine Corps activated a 350-member chemical and biological incident response force and later based it in Indian Head, Md., a Washington suburb. Such efforts accelerated after the Sept. 11 attacks, and at the time Iraq was invaded in 2003, a Pentagon joint task force drew on 3,000 civil support personnel across the United States.

In 2005, a new Pentagon homeland defense strategy emphasized “preparing for multiple, simultaneous mass casualty incidents.” National security threats were not limited to adversaries who seek to grind down U.S. combat forces abroad, McHale said, but also include those who “want to inflict such brutality on our society that we give up the fight,” such as by detonating a nuclear bomb in a U.S. city.

In late 2007, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed a directive approving more than $556 million over five years to set up the three response teams, known as CBRNE Consequence Management Response Forces. Planners assume an incident could lead to thousands of casualties, more than 1 million evacuees and contamination of as many as 3,000 square miles, about the scope of damage Hurricane Katrina caused in 2005.

Last month, McHale said, authorities agreed to begin a $1.8 million pilot project funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency through which civilian authorities in five states could tap military planners to develop disaster response plans. Hawaii, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Washington and West Virginia will each focus on a particular threat — pandemic flu, a terrorist attack, hurricane, earthquake and catastrophic chemical release, respectively — speeding up federal and state emergency planning begun in 2003.

Last Monday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates ordered defense officials to review whether the military, Guard and reserves can respond adequately to domestic disasters.

Gates gave commanders 25 days to propose changes and cost estimates. He cited the work of a congressionally chartered commission, which concluded in January that the Guard and reserve forces are not ready and that they lack equipment and training.

Bert B. Tussing, director of homeland defense and security issues at the U.S. Army War College’s Center for Strategic Leadership, said the new Pentagon approach “breaks the mold” by assigning an active-duty combat brigade to the Northern Command for the first time. Until now, the military required the command to rely on troops requested from other sources.

“This is a genuine recognition that this [job] isn’t something that you want to have a pickup team responsible for,” said Tussing, who has assessed the military’s homeland security strategies.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute are troubled by what they consider an expansion of executive authority.

Domestic emergency deployment may be “just the first example of a series of expansions in presidential and military authority,” or even an increase in domestic surveillance, said Anna Christensen of the ACLU’s National Security Project. And Cato Vice President Gene Healy warned of “a creeping militarization” of homeland security.

“There’s a notion that whenever there’s an important problem, that the thing to do is to call in the boys in green,” Healy said, “and that’s at odds with our long-standing tradition of being wary of the use of standing armies to keep the peace.”

McHale stressed that the response units will be subject to the act, that only 8 percent of their personnel will be responsible for security and that their duties will be to protect the force, not other law enforcement. For decades, the military has assigned larger units to respond to civil disturbances, such as during the Los Angeles riot in 1992.

U.S. forces are already under heavy strain, however. The first reaction force is built around the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, which returned in April after 15 months in Iraq. The team includes operations, aviation and medical task forces that are to be ready to deploy at home or overseas within 48 hours, with units specializing in chemical decontamination, bomb disposal, emergency care and logistics.

The one-year domestic mission, however, does not replace the brigade’s next scheduled combat deployment in 2010. The brigade may get additional time in the United States to rest and regroup, compared with other combat units, but it may also face more training and operational requirements depending on its homeland security assignments.

Renuart said the Pentagon is accounting for the strain of fighting two wars, and the need for troops to spend time with their families. “We want to make sure the parameters are right for Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. The 1st Brigade’s soldiers “will have some very aggressive training, but will also be home for much of that.”

Although some Pentagon leaders initially expected to build the next two response units around combat teams, they are likely to be drawn mainly from reserves and the National Guard, such as the 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade from South Carolina, which returned in May after more than a year in Afghanistan.

Now that Pentagon strategy gives new priority to homeland security and calls for heavier reliance on the Guard and reserves, McHale said, Washington has to figure out how to pay for it.

“It’s one thing to decide upon a course of action, and it’s something else to make it happen,” he said. “It’s time to put our money where our mouth is.”

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/30/AR2008113002217_pf.html

Katy Rose, a fantastic organizer from Kaua’i posted a great article on her blog “Breaking the Spell” about a recent visit to O’ahu where she came out to support the Kahana valley residents resisting eviction and visited with Wai’anae residents who are dealing with an onslaught of environmental injustices. http://towardfreedom.blogspot.com/2008/10/kahana-families-need-our-support.html