May 02, 2005

Sgrena Report Leaked, Clears Soldiers

I'm following the story, but it's the last week of classes so very little time to write. Here are some resources if you're interested.

Michelle Malkin seems to be following the story closely, as is Dan Riehl, and Blogs of War.

TRADERROB has also taken some time to respond to my earlier skepticism of the satellite imagery. I'm still not convinced, but he does mention that perhaps it was an unmanned drone that took the photos and not a satellite which seems much more plausible.

I'll try to update this post later.

UPDATE: On the satellite question.

Here's something important, I think. I recieved an e-mail from USAF Intelligence Officer who has been on the job for 19 years, so I take it he knows what he's talking about. I'll leave his name out of the post since the e-mail he sent is from a .mil address and says 'Classified' in the signature. [Update: just to make it clear, this info is not 'classified', his signature just includes a 'classified' e-mail address....but, you know, it just sounds cooler that way.....]The crux of it is that I am right to be skeptical about the satellite claim, however, it may be that CBS simply inferred that the images were from a satellite and misreported that info.

He says, "The most obvious source of data on how fast a vehicle was moving would be a JSTARS using their Moving Target Indicator (MTI) radar. I don't know for a fact if they're still in the area but they were at the start of the war and I'd be willing to bet that they're still there. Piece of cake for them to record an entire mission and later analyze this type of thing."

He also sends a link to a site which explains how JSTARS and Global Hawk actually do give real time data. Pretty cool stuff. So, maybe we do have the goods on Sgrena and the data is their to prove it.