Bush confronts Putin on Iraq arms

[James_F]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2882011.stm

US President George W Bush has complained directly to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, that Russian companies have been selling military equipment to Iraq in breach of UN sanctions.
The White House says it has "credible evidence" that Russian companies had sold military equipment such as satellite-jamming devices, anti-tank missiles and night-vision goggles to Iraq, despite Russian denials.

Great, now we are going to have to make a move toward Moscow.

[gcutler]

As discussed here already, it could be Organized crime selling the stuff, and the Russian government is impotent to stop them. So it may be hard to get anything done???

[James_F]

So maybe we should go up there and make them? Talk about a threat to our security....

[Mike123abc]

We are seeing that France and Russia have little oversite of their companies. They do not really care what the stuff is used for as long as they get $$.

[Richard King]

Great, now we are going to have to make a move toward Moscow.I guess we were supposed to treat this like the 300 pound gorilla in the corner and not mention it?

[RichW]

Well let's not forget the bank credits and arms the USA exported to Iraq which put most of the fat on that gorilla.

[Richard King]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13057-2003Mar23

"The bottom line is the Russians knew about this last June," said an official. "They did nothing."

[Richard King]

RUSSIAN missiles dated 2002 were found yesterday in a bunker south of Basra — despite a UN embargo on arms sales to Iraq since 1991.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003131940,00.html

[James_F]

Man you are being just like Roger spamming the threads. ;)

[Karl Foster]

...said the pot to the kettle... ;)

[Mark Holtz]

Heh heh heh.... it is going to be fun to see Germany and France explain THIS away when we find weapons systems originating from their countries. Me thinks that the funds from the so-called "humanitarian oil sales" got redirected to non-humanitarian projects.

What is going to be really interesting is if we find weapons of US origin. What will happen then?

[John Corn]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81917,00.html

From the link.....


The U.S. government suspects that the Russians were hiding some of the jamming equipment in humanitarian aid flights to Baghdad, Fox News has learned. The boxes are about 3 ft. x 3 ft.

Fox News reported in January that Iraq may have obtained as many as 400 electronic "jammers" that could throw America's smart bombs off their programmed path if the U.S. goes to war.

Officials said that if the smart bombs are diverted from their designated targets, no one knows what, or whom, they might hit instead. The worst-case scenario is they might fall on civilian sites and kill innocent people, causing collateral damage.

[James_F]

Originally posted by karl_f
...said the pot to the kettle... ;)

But my points are valid... :coffee

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/lol/spamato/spam-c07.jpg

[John Corn]

:lol:

Yuck.....that looks sick!!

[firephoto]

That's no way to treat a thinkpad.

:(

[gcutler]

Originally posted by John Corn
:lol:

Yuck.....that looks sick!!

As anything having to do with SPAM, it tastes worse that it can ever look :(

[Jacob S]

Do they make such device that jams the jammers?

[Karl Foster]

Originally posted by firephoto
That's no way to treat a thinkpad.

:(

..after my experience with a thinkpad, it is a very appropriate way to treat one... :)

[firephoto]

If they are jamming the military GPS frequencies then I don't see there being a way to "jam" that activity. All they would be doing is transmitting (likely with high power) the same code or modulation scheme that would disrupt the bombs, missiles, or aircraft from recieving accurate data from the satellites. I don't know how good this would work on flying objects(bombs, planes, etc., but it wouldn't be that hard to disrupt ground services with this sort of device.

Here's some info on GPS as far as the signal type.
http://gpsinformation.net/main/gpscarrier.htm
>Question:
Some people suggest that the GPS signal does not have a carrier.* Can you describe for us how the GPS carrier operates and give us some insight into how carrier phase measurements are made in a GPS receiver?
>Answer follows:
Yes,* the GPS signal has a carrier. It is a spread spectrum carrier,* but it provides the features of a carrier and can be used to make carrier phase measurements for additional GPS accuracy or other purposes.* The easiest version to understand the concept is probably the frequency hopping scheme. Oversimplified, what happens is that the carrier and the signal information it carries "hops"* from one frequency to another in some pre scheduled pattern.* If your receiver hops from one frequency to another in the same pattern, the information comes out of the signal clearly. If you are off the pattern, it sounds like noise. The hop rate is very fast, but the idea would be that you transmit on channel 1 for 2 seconds, then channel 5 for 1 second, then channel 3 for 4 seconds, and so on. Anyone switching channels at the wrong rate or in the wrong order will get garbled information.
The switching rate is what is called the chip rate,* and actually in the MHz range. In direct sequence SS, the frequency change of the carrier is continuous rather than discrete steps. That is, instead of jumping from channel 1 to channel 5, you do a continuous change (like turning the dial on the old analog, non crystal transmitters). If you will recall phase modulation, which looks a lot like frequency modulation, you will remember that the signal modulating the carrier does so by shifting the phase. Direct sequence basically does this, but the first stage of* signal is the PRN code. The information (nav message) is multiplexed onto this. I'm sure you are very familiar with how commercial FM with its stereo and SCA (and pager and stock market data) signals are multiplexed onto the carrier and subcarriers. It is much the same thing with direct sequence, except the first step from the main carrier is the PRN code. The result is that the signal sounds like noise. Once you synchronize, then the nav message comes through in the clear.* To give a simplified idea how the demodulation works, think about how SSB works. You generate a local signal with your local oscillator, which beats against the incoming signal. In regular AM, SSB, FM, CW, this LO frequency is fixed. Now for spread spectrum, have your LO vary its frequency according to the pseudorandom noise code. You can't really do this fast enough with an analog LO, so use a digital signal processing chip instead (DSP). In fact you can sample the signal fast enough that you can do all of the different code patterns with various time delays until you match. In a single channel GPS receiver, you pick one PRN code and try various time delays and doppler shifts until you match or give up and pick the next one. Once matched, you can keep synch on all the SVs.

Basicly to jam the signal isn't an easy task. (well unless you have ex-soviet military electronics)

[Mike123abc]

Well actually you just have to jam all the frequencies simultaneously. It is a very weak satellite signal, on the ground sources can overpower it easily. Of course a big jammer on the ground makes it easy to pinpoint for bombing. If you covered the town with small rooftop jammers making a general area of noise it would be much more effective.

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB104845892054443500-search,00.html?collection=wsjie%2F30day&vql_string=GPS%3Cin%3E%28article%2Dbody%29

[firephoto]

That's true that it is easy, but I don't think it is easy for the bombs or aircraft. I would guess those bombs are lined up on target many thousands of feet up.

(edited this line)
Apparently it can be fairly easy to jam the signal, but it's also somewhat easy to protect the receiving antenna from this false, or jamming signal. Aircraft or bombs can have the antenna that is more directional (points up).
Even though it is a complex radio signal, a simple one can block it from recieving the needed ones from the sats.

Good article about it here.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030111-gps01.htm

[Richard King]

Man you are being just like Roger spamming the threadsMan, it's just like some people who are losing a point to hit below the belt, and this is WAY below the belt. :D :lol: