Just because it is made public doesn't mean it's declassified

[Riad S. Wahby]

Alfred Qaeda <alqaeda at hq.org> wrote:
> M.I.T. Physicist Says Pentagon Is
> Trying to Silence Him
> by James Dao

Here is the letter in question.  I'm sending it at least as much to
put it in the inet-one archives as I am for general interest :-)

If anyone wants the HTML version or the attachments, see
	http://positron.mit.edu/postol/

___________________________________________________________________________
   
SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
292 Main Street (E38-603)
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
   
May 11, 2000
   
Mr. John Podesta
White House Chief of Staff
The White House
First Floor, West Wing
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. Podesta:

I am writing to alert you to information that is of profound importance to
President Clintons impending decision on whether to deploy the currently
under development National Missile Defense system. I have obtained and
analyzed the Ballistic Missile Defense Organizations (BMDOs) own published
data from the Integrated Flight Test 1A (IFT-1A) and have discovered that the
BMDOs own data shows that the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) will be
defeated by the simplest of balloon decoys. I also have documentation that
shows that the BMDO in coordination with its contractors attempted to hide
this fact by tampering with both the data and analysis from the IFT-1A
experiment. In addition, it appears that the BMDO modified the configuration
of the IFT-2, 3, and 4 follow-on flight tests to hide the program-stopping
facts revealed in the IFT-1A. The documentation and analysis that supports my
claims are attached to this letter as Attachments A through D.

In the remainder of this letter I will briefly summarize the findings
documented in the four attachments.

Attachments A and B explain how the BMDOs own data from the IFT-1A test shows
that the BMDO falsely represented the results of the IFT-1A test as showing
that an Exotamospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) can tell warheads from simple
balloon decoys. It is easy to understand this result from a simple
explanation of how the EKV works (see Attachments A and B for further
details).

The EKV sees both decoys and warheads as unresolved points of light, and it
attempts to find warheads by examining how each point of light fluctuates in
time. The intensity of the signal from each potentially lethal object depends
on its size, temperature, surface materials and spatial orientation, and the
fluctuation in the signal from each object depends on how its orientation
changes in time. The data from the IFT-1A experiment showed that the changing
spatial orientation of the decoys and warheads as they fell through the near
vacuum of space was nearly the same, each resulting in a signal that
fluctuated in a varied and totally unpredictable way. Consequently, the
IFT-1A data showed that there was no fluctuating feature in the signals from
decoys and warheads that could be used to distinguish one object from the
other.

One of the early post-flight manifestations of this fact was immediately
evident when the BMDO review of the telemetry data from the IFT-1A flight
test resulted in the defense system always wrongly identifying a partially
inflated balloon as the mock warhead. The team performing the post-flight
analysis dealt with this failure by simply removing the balloon from the
data, as if it was never there.

Even after removing the balloon, the post-flight experimental data still
showed that two other benign objects were brighter than the warhead and
therefore were judged more likely to be the mock warhead. The team performing
the post-flight experiment analysis dealt with this outcome by arbitrarily
rejecting the data from the time interval where the two other objects were
brighter, and instead chose without technical reason a second time period
where the warhead was brighter due to the accident of its spatial
orientation. This elaborate hoax was then screened by describing this
tampering with the data and analysis in terms of misleading, confusing, and
self contradictory language to create the false impression that the results
were supported by well established scientific methods.

In truth, the procedures followed by the BMDO were like rolling a pair of
dice and throwing away all outcomes that did not give snake eyes, and then
fraudulently making a claim that they have scientific evidence to show that
they could reliably predict when a roll of the dice will be a snake eyes.

These meretricious procedures used by the analysis team were applied because
the IFT-1A data revealed that the signals from some of the decoys in the
experiment were essentially indistinguishable from that of the mock warhead.
Stated differently, the signals from both the warhead and balloons had no
features that could be exploited to tell one from the other using credible
scientific methods so the team invented a set of fraudulent methods to get
the desired result.

In view of the results of the IFT-1A experiment, it is now clear why the
IFT-2, 3, and 4 experiments were re-configured following the analysis of
IFT-1A.

After the IFT-1A experiment, the BMDO changed the number of objects it
planned to fly in follow-on experiments from ten to four. The four objects
were to be a medium reentry vehicle (MRV), a 2.2 meter diameter balloon, and
two balloons of diameter 0.6 meters.

Some time after this reduction in the number of objects to be flown in IFT-2,
3, and 4 experiments, the number of objects was again changed. This time the
two 0.6 meter balloons were removed, because of the high probability that the
seeker would mistake one of them for the mock warhead. This action further
reduced the number of objects for the IFT-2, 3, and 4 follow-on experiments
from four to two, leaving only a single large balloon and a medium warhead.

The fidelity of the IFT-2, 3, and 4 experiments was further undermined by the
BMDO through the careful choice of a time of day for the intercept attempt,
which placed the sun behind the EKV illuminating the balloon and warhead from
the front. In this experimental geometry, the willful insertion of the 2.2
meter diameter balloon converted it from what otherwise might have been a
credible decoy to an object that was unambiguously a beacon. In addition, the
very large differences in the intensity between the balloon and warhead made
it easy to distinguish between the two targets while at the same time making
it easier for the EKV to home on the dimmer but still very bright warhead
near the balloon.

The results of the IFT-1A experiment, and the way it was allowed to influence
the modifications to the IFT-2, 3, and 4 experiments, is of profound signific
ance for the Presidents decision on whether or not to move forward with the
current National Missile Defense concept, as it is now clear that the entire
concept relies on a flawed analysis of the most basic and critical flight
test data. When the data from these experiments are properly analyzed and
interpreted, they indicate that the current NMD system will not be able to
reliably deal with even the most simple first generation countermeasures.
Such trivially simple countermeasures could include the use of tumbling
warheads, partially inflated balloon decoys, and decoys and warheads
constructed with tethered objects and rabbit-ear type appendages.

The points made herein can be readily verified by a careful review of the
study Independent Review of TRW Discrimination Techniques Final Report, (POET
Study 1998-5). This document (included here as Attachment D) contains a mix
of irrelevant and profound findings about the post-flight analysis of the
telemetry data, creating a superficial but false impression of a sound
scientific analysis. A careful reading of this report and the related
documents included in the attachments instead reveals the following:

* Data that demonstrated that the EKV would always mistake a partially
  inflated balloon for the mock lethal object was inexplicably removed from
  the post-flight analysis of the EKVs performance.
* After this data was removed, the data from the eight other remaining benign
  objects and the lethal mock warhead showed that the system would still
  mistakenly choose two of the benign objects instead of the lethal object.
* In order to alter this unfavorable outcome, the team tampered with both the
  data and the analysis of the data to artificially create a false outcome
  where the system would choose the mock warhead.
  
This highly organized and systematic pattern of actions has the appearance of
an elaborate scientific and technical blunder, which urgently needs to be
investigated by a team of scientists who are recognized for their scientific
accomplishments and independence from the Pentagon. Fortunately, the physical
phenomena and analysis techniques at issue here are well known to many highly
skilled independent scientists who work on problems in basic physics,
computer science, and in the analysis of statistical data, so assembling a
team of top-notch independent scientists who can evaluate the BMDOs
analytical claims should be no problem.

I urge the White House to put together such a team of scientists who can
independently evaluate the procedures used to reach these erroneous
conclusions about the content of the telemetry data from the IFT-1A flight
test and the subsequent modifications of the IFT-2, 3, and 4 flight tests.

Attachments A, B, C, and D contain detailed explanations of the findings
provided in this letter along with the documentation from which they are
derived.

  Sincerely yours,
  Theodore A. Postol
  Professor of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy
  Security Studies Program
  and
  Program in Science, Technology, and Society
  
Cc:
Leon Fuerth, Assistant to the Vice President for Security Affairs
Hans Binnendijk, Assistant to the President and Director Defense and Arms
Control Policy
Phil Coyle, Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, Department of Defense

Attachment A:
Explanation of Why the Sensor in the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) Cannot
Reliably Discriminate Decoys from Warheads

Attachment B:
Technical Discussion of the Misinterpreted Results of theIFT-1A Experiment
Due to Tampering With the Data and Analysis and Errors in the Interpretation
of the Data

Attachment C:
Collected and Annotated Defense Criminal Investigation Service Documents
Associated With the Investigation of Tampering With the Scientific and
Technical Data and Analysis from the IFT-1A National Missile Defense
Experiment

Attachment D:
Independent Review of TRW Discrimination Techniques, Final Report, POET Study
1998-5, M-J. Tsai, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Larry Ng, Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, Glenn Light, Aerospace Corporation, Frank Handler,
POET/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Charles Meins, MIT Lincoln
Laboratory

--
Riad Wahby
rsw at mit.edu
MIT VI-2/A 2002

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