Iran, Cuba zap U.S. satellites
Envoi de MS le 15 Octobre 2003 17:55:50:
August 07, 2003 10:48 PM
Subject: worldnetdaily: Iran, Cuba zap U.S. satellites
Iran, Cuba zap U.S. satellites
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33957
State sponsors of terrorism not only threaten U.S. interests on land, at
sea and in the air, but now they have teamed up to attack U.S. assets in
space.
By successfully jamming a U.S. communications satellite over the Atlantic
Ocean, the regimes of Cuba and Iran challenged U.S. dominance of space and
the assumptions of free access to satellite communication that makes
undisputed U.S. military power possible.
The Bush administration, meanwhile, appears paralyzed about how to cope
with this latest threat, which one U.S. official likens to an "act of war."
The target of these terrorist states: Telestar-12, a commercial
communications satellite orbiting at 15 degrees west, 22,000 miles above
the Atlantic.
At press time, nearly a month has passed since the Cuban government began
jamming U.S. government and private Persian-language TV and radio
broadcasts into Iran.
At a time when international political change and military action can be
decided within a matter of days, the U.S. government assumes unfettered
access to communications satellites to be a crucial tool of statecraft.
Americans use satellites to broadcast and relay radio and TV programming
into denied areas such as North Korea, Cuba, Iran, the People's Republic of
China and even friendly countries.
A hostile attack on a U.S. communications satellite, even if that attack
only jams a signal for a few days or weeks, could be decisive in the
current environment of geopolitical instability.
The Pentagon sees communications satellites as vital tools to promote
"regime change" where hostile or terrorist-sponsoring governments can be
undermined from within simply by broadcasting honest and accurate news and
information to truth-starved populations. The Bush administration belatedly
has recognized the power of news in places such as Iran, where popular
demonstrations against the theocracy of mullahs have been building for
several years
The jamming of Telestar-12 began on July 6, coinciding with the startup of
a new Persian-language TV news broadcast to Iran sponsored by the Voice of
America, or VOA. The VOA started the half-hour evening program, News and
Views, just as a new wave of pro-democracy protests was about to challenge
a regime the White House considered part of the "Axis of Evil" along with
North Korea and the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Iranian television is censored to redact news about the increasing unrest
against the government.
"The program had been designed to give Iranian audiences more truthful,
objective news than is available through state-controlled media," says
Steven Johnson, a former State Department official and public-diplomacy
expert now at the Heritage Foundation.
Iranian journalists working inside their country provide the VOA with news
stories and video footage. The program augments impressive 24-hour
TV-broadcasting efforts by Iranian expatriates in California and praised by
President George W. Bush in a July 29 press conference.
Satellite television has grown in popularity in Iran as a way of receiving
quality entertainment and news - a far cry from the rerun fare and regime
propaganda broadcast on Iran's six major channels. Though the regime banned
satellite dishes in 1995, Iranians now own more than 1 million of them,
many of which are small and easily concealed.
About six Persian-language TV channels, run by Iranian expatriates, also
are beamed into Iran. Those broadcasts are uplinked to the Telestar-5
satellite orbiting above the territorial United States, downlinked to the
Washington International Teleport in Northern Virginia and then uplinked
again to Telestar-12 above the Atlantic, where they are beamed down to Iran.
Satellite-broadcasting experts say that Tehran is not able to jam
Telestar-12 directly because its stationary orbit is out of the range of
that country's antenna-based jammers. But, while the mullahs can't touch
Telestar-12, their ally in Havana can and does.
When Telestar-12's owner, Loral Skynet, learned of the jamming it hired
Chantilly, Va.-based Transmitter Location Systems LLC, or TLS, to use its
orbiting geolocation system to vector in on the source of the interference
with the satellite's transponders. Within three days, TLS had the location:
22 degrees, 55 minutes, 43 seconds north by 82 degrees, 23 minutes, 19
seconds east - Bejucal, a Russian-built electronic-intelligence facility
about 20 miles southwest of Havana.
A June 2001 study examined the Bejucal base's offensive capabilities apart
from espionage. Authored by Manuel Cereijo, a professor of electrical and
computer engineering at Florida International University, the study found
that Bejucal, with 10 antenna arrays, was equipped to launch electronic
attacks on U.S. computer systems. Specifically, it warned that Cuba could
wage denial-of-service attacks that "prevent or inhibit the normal use or
management of communications facilities."
In a follow-on study released last February, Cereijo wrote, "Bejucal is an
electronic-espionage base used by the Cuban military intelligence to
intercept and process international communications passing via
communications satellites."
Desmond Ball, a professor with the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at
Australia National University, says that the People's Republic of China has
operated from Bejucal since early 1999, following a February 1998
cooperation agreement. Ball says that Bejucal's main functions are
interception of telephone communications and conducting "cyberwarfare."
If the Bush administration already had been floundering at political action
and political warfare against enemies abroad, it was caught with its pants
down by the time VOA started its low-budget news show for Iran.
Intelligence analysts are not sure about the extent of Chinese technical
involvement, but the Cubans were able to stop a new U.S. hearts-and-minds
campaign with the flip of a switch.
As soon as the jamming was identified and related facts were in, Kenneth Y.
Tomlinson, chairman of the independent Broadcasting Board of Governors, or
BBG, that oversees VOA, went on the attack, saying the jamming was "illegal
and interferes with the free and open flow of international transmissions."
But the rest of the Bush administration went into default mode, filing
diplomatic protests and trying to persuade international satellite-service
providers to deny service to Cuba.
"We raised the jamming with the government of Cuba. The interference with
Loral Skynet commercial satellite transmissions appears to emanate from the
vicinity of Cuba and does appear to be intentional," State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters on July 18.
Nearly a month later, the transmissions to Telestar-12 still were being
jammed, according to Zia Atabay, president of National Iranian Television,
or NITV, a private and independent channel that broadcasts from its studios
in Woodland Hills, Calif.
At least NITV's 24/7 broadcasting still was under constant jamming attack.
Interviews with several U.S. officials produce conflicting information
about what happened with the VOA transmissions to Iran. Some flatly say
that the jamming continues. Others claim the jamming has stopped. One
published account states that the jamming ended on July 14, while another
says that VOA rerouted its Persian-language programs through other
satellites. Still other officials say they aren't sure.
Atabay thinks the State Department cut a deal with Cuba or Iran, persuading
the jammers to let VOA's half-hour of news get through to Iran but leaving
the full-time private broadcasters to fend for themselves.
"These days I'm going nuts because I can't believe that our government
doesn't take it seriously," says Atabay. "They are still jamming our
signal. NITV is on the same satellite, Telestar-12, as VOA, on different
platforms, but both are jammed. Last month, [Secretary of State Colin]
Powell was talking softly about Iran, but Iranians are upset because they
think there's a deal to [cut us off]. This is a violation of international
law. If they [the Iranian and Cuban governments] can block my broadcasts
and bankrupt me, tomorrow they will go after another one. Tomorrow they can
go after CNN or CBS."
Fox News has covered the fate of NITV, Atabay reports, but "CNN didn't say
a word."
The Cuban government, through its daily Communist Party broadsheet, denies
all allegations. It accused BBG Chairman Tomlinson of making a "string of
anti-Cuba lies" by calling the jamming "a serious threat to satellite
communications."
The Cuban foreign ministry assailed the United States for what it called
"radio-electronic aggression against Cuba" in the form of Washington's
broadcasts to the island.
But the Castro regime praised the U.S. State Department: "Instead of
publicly lying as Mr. Tomlinson did, [U.S. authorities] handed over two
diplomatic notes asking for the cooperation of the Cuban government and
presenting technical information on supposed Cuban interference with U.S.
communications."
Broadcasting is a major instrument of warfare on both sides of the war on
terror, just as it was during the Cold War, when decades of balanced
truth-telling by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty helped to roll back the
thick fog of communist censorship and hastening the collapse of the Soviet
empire.
Havana openly acknowledges jamming U.S. TV and radio broadcasts into Cuba,
including TV Marti.
"With every right, Cuba has interfered, is interfering and will continue to
interfere solely with the illegal radio and television transmissions that
the U.S. government is sending to our country," the Cuban foreign ministry
said in a July 18 communiqué. "In that we are aided by the sovereign right
to defend our radio-electronic space from the subversive radio and
television aggression directed at our country since the early years of the
revolution."
Havana is working in the United Nations to codify into international law
the legality of state ownership of the news media and jamming of
unauthorized broadcasts.
U.S. broadcasting into Cuba via Radio Marti and TV Marti has been met with
a wall of jamming from Havana for two generations.
"For nearly four decades Cuba has maintained sophisticated, electronic
intelligence-gathering and offensive capabilities, which range from tapping
U.S. phone conversations to jamming radio-communications signals and
launching computer viruses. To date, U.S. decisionmakers have done little
more than work around them, since they were never considered serious
threats," says the Heritage Foundation's Johnson.
Jamming Telestar-12 for Iran, he asserts, should prompt U.S. officials to
take Cuba's information-warfare capabilities seriously. And it should be
met with a tough response, administration supporters say.
"Interfering with outside transmissions intended for a third country
borders on hostile action," says Johnson. "A weak response may invite
further mischief." But a "ham-handed" response, Johnson adds, might give
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro a martyr image he craves.
The Center for Security Policy sees the issue differently.
"Bejucal is now a terrorist asset," it says in a statement. "It gives
Castro enormous abilities to conduct information warfare against U.S.
assets in space and presents a major threat to U.S. space dominance. It is
difficult to overstate the gravity of this development. President Bush
should order the destruction of the Bejucal facility - now - before the
threat worsens."
Yet the Bush administration acts as though it's helpless, according to
NITV's Atabay: "I don't believe it can happen, that America cannot deal
with a terrorist government."
Iran is playing tough not only at home but against U.S. forces in
Afghanistan and Iraq, mainly using political warfare.
"The Iranians are interfering through the Ministry of Intelligence and the
IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps]," a top U.S. official tells
Insight. "They are quite active along the border and particularly in the
south."
From the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar in the south, the state of Qatar
and members of Qatar's ruling Wahhabi family play both sides of the
terrorism war. While hosting the theater headquarters of the U.S. Central
Command, the Qatari regime and members of the ruling family co-own the
pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera, filling Arab TV viewers with
anti-American invective.
"Al-Jazeera's role is extremely unhelpful" to U.S. antiterrorism efforts
and to pacification of Iraq, a senior U.S. official tells Insight. The
State Department, he says, already has issued démarches to the government
of Qatar, without meaningful results.
Meanwhile, Iranian broadcasts into Iraq are intended to incite, organize
and reinforce opposition among Iraqi Shiites to the United States and its
allied occupation coalition, according to a Pentagon analyst. The United
States is acting equally helpless in Iraq, according to a senior
administration official. Commenting on foreign hostile TV broadcasting of
anti-American messages into Iraq, the official says, "I can't stop Iranian
TV. I wish I could. I can't stop Al-Jazeera. I wish I could."
With that defeatist approach, the United States risks losing the peace in
Iraq and handing the country over to the Iranian mullahs and the Wahhabis,
critics say.
BBG Chairman Tomlinson sees an even larger dimension: a threat to U.S.
space dominance. The Telestar-12 incident, he says, "has ominous
implications for the future of international satellite broadcasting."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33957
************************
Robert S. Rodvik
Author/media analyst
"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national
obligations of obedience…Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to
violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from
occurring" -- Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950
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