The newly promoted General Jumper, now the top air force man, had initiated the program. He made it his mission to solve the puzzle of hitting fleeting and time-perishable targets. “It seemed obvious to me that if you have a vehicle out there that is staring at a target, it probably ought to have something on board that can do something about it,” he later explained. He admitted to the “culture clash” between intelligence and operations people in mixing the two functions so closely together—collection and action—but also recognized that central to the air force’s ultimate acceptance of any major investment in unmanned platforms was going to be their ability to carry a weapon and hit the target. 5
Predator’s manufacturer had anticipated that a weapon might be added. Engineers designed the wings with powered hard points to carry payloads that might include weapons. Unlike earlier drones that were more model airplanes than real aircraft, the very concept of a larger and more capable Predator was to be a drone that acted more like an airplane. “What do airplanes do?” They carry sensors, video, and electronics. And some of them carry weapons, General Atomics CEO Tom Cassidy later recalled.
Predator’s weapons would have to be extremely light, less than 200 pounds if two were carried, one under each wing. The technologists who were secreted away in the black box recesses of weapons development went to work—one option would cost tens of millions and be ready in five to seven years; another was more than a decade away and would cost hundreds of millions. The army’s missile was initially passed over as an option by many in blue because they didn’t want to have to deal with and be beholden to the missile’s owner. The navy, on the other hand, had already experimented with Hellfire and the very same laser designator the air force had used on WILD Predators. Though there was a “shit storm” of a fight inside the flying service over new versus old, Jumper was unabashedly in favor of the navy configuration with the army missile: right weight, combat proven, and available in abundance right away.6 “Take three months and $3 million, and you go do it, just do it,” he told his subordinates in June 2000.7
The engineers went to work on integrating the missile into the aerial system’s electronics and then incorporating the targeting and fire control black boxes needed to make Hellfire work. Would the force and the torque of a weapon be too much for the delicate airframe? How would the missile’s rocket plume affect the drone?
On February 21, five days after the inert test, a Predator flying at 2,000 feet fired the first live Hellfire, this time using its own Kosovo ball to self-designate.8 Like the earlier test, the missile used was a low-altitude C-version, originally designed to be delivered from attack helicopters at treetop level against armored vehicles.9 Additional testing of the more expensive K-version would be necessary at higher and higher altitudes, and there would have to be testing under more realistic conditions and in real weather, as well as shooting against a moving target.10 But the system was moving forward.
Many would later blame Rumsfeld or the Bush administration for some failure to take advantage of a magical system right then and there, for not deploying Predator to Afghanistan in early 2001 and killing bin Laden.11 Yet there was no political holdup. Joint air force and CIA tests starting in May showed a Hellfire problem when fired from higher altitudes: the CIA provided the specifications and funding to construct a building at the China Lake range in California that mimicked bin Laden’s home (though what was built resembled nothing of the sort).12 The story goes that Hellfire, optimized for armor penetration, punched right through the roof and burrowed into the ground. Work started on a fragmentation warhead with a larger lethal radius and an improved fuse that would detonate the explosives in the milliseconds that the missile was inside the structure.13 The technologists, moreover, were working to devise a way for Predator to be operated from a ground control station in the United States. Some said that long-range remote split operations, which would entail routing the Predator’s signal to a satellite, then cross-linking to another satellite, then to an antenna on the ground in Europe, and then across the Atlantic Ocean via fiber optic cable, wouldn’t work.14 But they did.
By mid-2001, Predator was one of only three operational unmanned aerial vehicles in the US military (the marine corps still flew short-range Pioneers of Desert Storm fame, and the army flew its midrange drone called Hunter).15 Predator had participated in combat actions in Bosnia and Kosovo, started flying over Iraq in 1998 as part of enforcement of no-fly zones (and was still doing so right up to 9/11), and even returned to the Balkans for a deployment in early 2001.16 Especially flying over Serbia (and Iraq), the system was considered highly vulnerable to enemy air defenses and radar-guided air defense missiles. And the sortie rate per airframe was frustratingly low if it was to be considered a reliable standard weapon.17
Another unmanned drone under development, far more promising and expensive, was Global Hawk. Global Hawk flew higher and was much larger than Predator, a super and robust intelligence platform that by its very design and blue-chip manufacturer (Teledyne Ryan, and later Northrop Grumman) suggested strategic and superior.18 Where Predator provided what was called a soda straw field of view, Global Hawk provided a wide field of view. Though we may think of Global Hawk today as an integral element of the terrorism search, its origins were actually wholly conventional and orthodox; it was intended for major wars to support time-sensitive targeting against the usual list of mobile prey.19
The original concept that was percolating at the end of the first Bush administration was to create a complex duo of a stealthy and highly cutting-edge drone (called DarkStar and being developed by Lockheed Martin)20 and a more conventional Global Hawk. The plan was that they would ultimately supplant penetrating reconnaissance aircraft, that is, replace the manned U-2s of Cold War fame and possibly even some satellites.21 The initial prototype Global Hawk, which was rolled out of its California laboratory in February 1997, was 44 feet long, with a wingspan of 116 feet and weighing 26,750 pounds at takeoff. The flight vehicle was to be able to cruise to a target area 1,200 miles from the launch site, loiter on station for twenty-four hours at an altitude of about 65,000 feet, and then return to the takeoff point. It was more than twice the size of Predator, with a capacity to carry 1,900 pounds (almost quadruple Predator’s payload), flying at almost three times the altitude and for more than twice the distance. Perhaps most importantly, Global Hawk could provide coverage of up to 40,000 square nautical miles per day.22
By flying at 65,000 feet, above all civilian aircraft (Predator flies in the same airspace as commercial traffic), Global Hawk could position itself over an area of interest, achieving a degree of persistence not obtainable from either manned aircraft or satellites. Global Hawk was also fundamentally different than Predator in that while Predator flew with a man-in-the-loop, that is, with a pilot constantly at the controls, Global Hawk was flown autonomously. Equipped with an automatic takeoff and landing system, Global Hawk followed a computer-controlled flight plan once launched. Only if an emergency developed or the preplanned mission was overridden by a higher priority did an operator take over.23
Global Hawk made its debut flight at Edwards AFB in California in February 1998.24 Several problems arose in flight, but none were so serious that the system operators couldn’t handle the airframe using manual override.25 Besides, the whole idea behind Global Hawk was to develop the system while flying, updating it as the airframe and the various black box payloads evolved. Some called it “spiraling,” with version A (the RQ-4A) slated to be fielded as soon as possible and then replaced as new models emerged.
In April 2000, Global Hawk began an extensive demonstration, flying to Florida and transmitting images of shipping activity in the Gulf of Mexico to the coast guard, continuing up the Atlantic coast and wowing army and navy image recipients at Fort Bragg and in Norfolk. It then flew across the ocean, where it transmitted pictures of ship movement north of the Azores; overflew the coast of Portugal, where it imaged a NATO amphibious landing exercise; and then flew ba
ck to Florida, for a total of twenty-eight hours in the air. A month after Global Hawk entered its formal engineering, manufacturing, and development phase in March 2001, another demonstrator model touched down in Australia after a flight of approximately twenty-two hours and 7,500 miles without refueling, becoming the first unmanned vehicle to cross the Pacific Ocean. None of this is to suggest that the program didn’t have its challenges: one of seven airframes was lost in an early crash, and another had an accident on the runway that destroyed its sensor assembly, the only one installed on a developmental system at the time.26 Still, the new system exceeded even the most optimistic expectations.
There is no evidence that Donald Rumsfeld, micromanager par excellence, made any significant decisions regarding Global Hawk before 9/11 or even noticed the drone. The Pentagon “approved” production of six Global Hawk aircraft three months into the Bush administration for a prospective initial operational capability a year or two out; home basing in California was announced in July; the drone was a living and breathing system that would incrementally acquire better airframes and incorporate imagery and signal intercept capabilities as they became available.27 A long list of black box suitors wrote their names on Global Hawk’s dance card. Beginning in 1998, a mountain of PowerPoint briefings accumulated, suggesting new packages to attach: a new and superior Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar System (ASARS) Improvement Program, or AIP; an Interferometric SAR (InSAR), an array of optics and radio frequency probes that use interference phenomena structures to obtain higher resolution; a better Moving Target Indicator (MTI) that promised detection of any moving object down to 2.5 mph; multispectral and hyperspectral sensors; a foliage penetration (FOPEN) radar; a bomb damage impact assessor; a Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical (NBC) detection kit; a Boost-Phase Intercept (BPI) missile defense capability; an extended air surveillance and airborne targeting and cross-cueing system (ATACCS); a signals intelligence (SIGINT) intercept capability; and an Airborne Communications Node (ACN).28
Global Hawk went on its world tour, and throughout the summer of 2001, Predator cooled its heels, operating over the former Yugoslavia and supporting the no-fly zone imposed over southern Iraq.29 Resumption of Predator flights over Afghanistan continued to be hotly debated inside the new administration, but the Pentagon took a decidedly passive backseat in the deliberations. Tenet suggests that the operational and policy questions of killing bin Laden held things up: “What criteria would we use to shoot? Who authorizes weapons firing? What are the implications of a successful firing and of an unsuccessful firing?”30 But the CIA and the Pentagon both wanted to hold off on sending Predator back to Uzbekistan until the armed version was ready.31 When the Bush National Security Council authorized deployment on September 1, the policies regarding the CIA’s use were still unresolved, and Uzbekistan had not yet granted permission to allow flights by weapons-carrying aircraft. The decision was put off until after the Labor Day weekend.32
After 9/11, many wondered why there wasn’t instant retaliation. An initial target list for Tomahawk cruise missile attacks was produced on September 12 that included Taliban air defense stations and military barracks, as well as al Qaeda camps.33 The Central Command (CENTCOM) headquarters in Florida produced three military options: a cruise-missile-only strike à la Clinton; a cruise missile strike plus manned bombers in a three-to-ten-day air campaign à la later Clinton; and a cruise missile and bomber package plus “boots on the ground,” a plan that would employ not just special operations forces but also the army and marine corps.34 Option three was selected. “This time,” President Bush said, “we’re not just going to pound sand.”35
With a public war now declared against al Qaeda, the contrast between the CIA and Rumsfeld’s Pentagon was stark. Largely shut off from the black box deliberations and the grand covert action before 9/11, the bulk of the Pentagon was wholly unprepared. On the other hand, the CIA carried around “a briefcase stuffed with top-secret documents and plans, in many respects the culmination of more than four years of work on Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network.”36 Yet even with war, the allure of covert action persisted. On September 17, President Bush signed a top secret “Presidential Finding” authorizing an unprecedented range of operations against al Qaeda, as well as the use of lethal force against bin Laden and his terrorist leadership.37 “I had never in my experience been part of or even seen a presidential authorization as far-reaching and as aggressive in scope,” the top CIA lawyer said.38 By that time, three weaponized Predators were at an isolated airfield in Uzbekistan.39 A thoroughly reeling and arm-twisted Pakistan also granted blanket overflight and landing rights for all necessary military operations against the Taliban and al Qaeda.40 On the same day that President Bush signed his finding, Islamabad airport was closed for two hours to allow an initial wave of US military transports to land.41 Predators were moved to Shahbaz airfield in Jacobabad, just 300 miles southeast of Kandahar.42 The drones and operators were on the ground before the engineers and support personnel.43
Aircraft carrier battle groups, amphibious ships, and submarines left their ports and stations for the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. B-2 and B-52 bombers and long-range fighters gathered from the Indian Ocean to Turkey and congregated around the Gulf states. Oman granted permission to host special operations forces at Masirah Island, and AC-130 gunships staged there.44
It wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say that machines outnumbered men. The world of the unmanned was already playing an outsized role: on the first night of attacks on October 7, fifty Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missiles were fired from four surface ships and two submarines (one the Royal Navy’s HMS Trafalgar), and the majority of the bombs dropped were the satellite-guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) first introduced in the Kosovo war. In fact, the first operational task of the CIA Jawbreaker team on the ground inside the country was taking GPS surveys of Northern Alliance frontline positions opposite the Taliban for use by the JDAMs.45 Almost everything was now about the data.
When bombing began, US intelligence had no clue where bin Laden was, so Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban government, became the highest-priority target. Two Predators were flying over Kandahar the first night, keeping a watchful eye on locations where Omar might be. One Predator, which was launched from Uzbekistan, was armed and belonged to the CIA. The other was unarmed and had been launched by the air force from Pakistan. Soon after bombing began, the Predator teams were monitoring a Mullah Omar house when several vehicles left, driving west of the city.
Kandahar is an ancient place built on the ruins of Shahr-i-Konah, said to have been founded by Alexander the Great three hundred years before Christ, a ruin today located about four miles west of the city center. When I first visited Kandahar in 2002, the same two main streets that anchored the original city were still there, one running from the Kabul to the Herat gates of the old walled city, the other crossing at a ninety-degree angle and running from the Shikarpur gate to the ancient citadel. The city was a jumble of disrepair and destruction, the famed arched dome long gone, the ancient stone reservoir neglected, the headquarters of the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice instead sitting on the northeast corner of Kandahar’s heart, the building itself now a bombed-out shell.46
On that first night, while a Predator was tracking a convoy thought to be associated with Mullah Omar, the SUVs and pickups ended up at a residence near the old ruins. I visited this residence in March 2002; it was an isolated complex given the label Objective Gecko by the US military. Omar’s fortress was surrounded by a low-slung wall, with the single entrance road crisscrossing berms and skirting around dirt-filled fifty-five-gallon barrels that served as barriers to prevent any high-speed approach. The compound was topped with antiaircraft guns and shielded on two sides by abrupt hundred-foot boulders. When I visited, it had already been thoroughly bombed, the only incongruity being that the main buildings were gaily painted in pastel hues and adorned with weird faux minarets and
fake palm trees.
That night, at the CIA, at the White House, at the Pentagon, at Central Command in Florida, and at forward command centers, everyone was watching the video, and there was intense discussion regarding the probability that indeed the convoy carried Mullah Omar. Many of those in the intelligence fields admitted that it was more supposition than certainty. Permission to attack the house identified as Mullah Omar’s residence was denied, or so it seemed to many—and there were many—who stayed glued to this single platform’s reality show. Unbeknownst to many participants, including the air force head of the operation, the CIA mission commander in Virginia nevertheless was given orders to engage. One of the presumed security forces’ vehicles parked at the edge of the compound was hit with a Hellfire.47 It was the first operational firing of a weapon from a Predator drone.
The compound wouldn’t feature in the official war story until twelve days later, and no official history and no announcement at the time mentions the inaugural “combat shot” of Predator or an attack at Mullah Omar’s compound among the thirty-one targets attacked on October 7.48
The New Yorker later carried a much-quoted article by Seymour Hersh that said that an armed CIA Predator identified an SUV convoy carrying Mullah Omar on the first night of the war. According to Hersh, CENTCOM—Tommy Franks’s command—wouldn’t “push the button,” unsure of positive ID and concerned about civilian collateral damage in Kandahar. The Predator then reportedly tracked the convoy to “a building” where Omar and his entourage took cover. When General Franks finally gave permission for the drone to fire a Hellfire missile in front of the building to see who came out, Mullah Omar supposedly scooted out the rear.49
Unmanned: Drones, Data, and the Illusion of Perfect Warfare Page 9