Another Bin Laden Bird, with note about a failed '98 launch
Dynamite Bob
dbob at semtex.com
Thu Oct 11 09:40:56 PDT 2001
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAM3FAROSC.html
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A secret satellite for the
National Reconnaissance Office rocketed into space amid
heightened security.
Wednesday night's launch was the third in just over a month of a
classified NRO satellite, and had been scheduled long before the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
For security reasons, the Air Force did not reveal the exact time of
Wednesday's launch until 1 1/2 hours before the 10:32 p.m. liftoff.
No details about the satellite were given out. But Aviation Week &
Space Technology, a trade magazine, reported that the payload was
a data-relay satellite designed to transfer images and other
information from U.S. spy satellites to the CIA and the Defense
Department.
"Our motto at the 45th Space Wing is, control of the battlefield starts
here," Air Force Maj. Michael Rein said from the Cape Canaveral
Air Force Station launch site.
The satellite was hoisted into orbit by an Atlas rocket, made by
Lockheed Martin Corp.
...........
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/1998/08/980829-mercury.htm
xploded Satellite Was To Track Osama Bin Laden
CBS EVENING NEWS CBS TV
7:00 PM AUGUST 29, 1998
__________________________________________
PAULA ZAHN: America's justification for a strike on a pharmaceutical
plant in Sudan two weeks ago
is now being questioned by some experts. U.S. officials have
revealed few details of the strike in
retaliation for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania. But the New York Times reports
some statements have proved to be inaccurate or misleading. Such as,
the plant was apparently not a
high-secret facility. The plant did produce commercial products,
including medicine. And alleged
terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden's financial role in the plant was
apparently overstated. Still, U.S.
officials say the target was the right one. And they say Bin Laden,
the exiled Saudi millionaire, poses a
direct threat to the U.S. Tracking his activities has not been easy.
And Jim Stewart tells us, that effort
recently met a major setback.
JIM STEWART: On the face of it, you'd think there was no connection
between those August 7th
explosions at two U.S. embassies in east Africa and this explosion
one week later off the coast of Cape
Canaveral, Florida. But private intelligence analysts now believe
that the spy satellite aboard that
doomed Titan-4 missile was destined to listen in on the private
conversations of Osama Bin Laden. The
very man believed responsible for the African bombings.
JAMES BAMFORD [Satellite Intelligence Expert]: It would have given
us a much better opportunity to
eavesdrop on communications in that area of the world. Because that
satellite was designed to be
placed over Africa. And one of its target areas would have been the
Middle East and Afghanistan.
STEWART: Analysts say Bin Laden, although he lived among
Afghanistan's revolutionary leaders in a
rugged country, was particularly vulnerable to such eavesdropping.
He conducted much of his business
using encrypted cell phones and fax machines over a private
satellite channel. Just the sort of
communications the new Mercury spy satellite, with it's football
field-sized antenna, is designed to pick
up.
JOHN PIKE [Satellite expert]: He can use couriers that can move
money around in bales of $100 bills.
But at the end of the day, they're going to have to use some modern
communications technology, and we
can track him when he does.
STEWART: Counter-terrorism experts at the C.I.A. and National
Reconnaissance Office have been
pouring over Bin Laden intercepts from older satellites ever since
the World Trade Center bombing,
when the arrest of the bomb maker in that case, Ramses Youseph, led
them straight back to Bin Laden.
The man who bankrolled the whole thing. All of which explains why
finding Bin Laden and keeping up
with his communications remains such a high priority. And why losing
that billion-dollar spy satellite
two and a half weeks ago off Florida is causing such a major
headache for the U.S. intelligence
community.
Jim Stewart, CBS News, Washington.
On Sept. 8, another Atlas rocket delivered an NRO satellite to orbit
from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Last week, a Titan IV
rocket launched another NRO satellite, also from Vandenberg.
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