'Sci-Fi' Weapons Going to War

SOUTH POMFRET, Vt. — On April 30, 2001, more than 30 square miles of the rolling Maryland countryside that make up the Aberdeen Proving Grounds were cleared of all nonessential personnel for the first full-scale test of a new weapon. Planners also took care to remove all unnecessary electronic equipment, because electronic equipment was exactly what the new weapon was designed to destroy.

At 6:13 p.m., the antenna on the exotic new device was switched on and a high-powered beam of microwaves was fired at a nearby truck -- the first field deployment of a "directed energy" weapon. It fried the truck's ignition and air-fuel mixing system, bringing the hapless vehicle to a halt.

About the same time, at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, field demonstrations were being wrapped up on another microwave weapon, this one mounted on a truck and designed to inflict intense pain on human skin. The weapon sprang from a program devoted to what military researchers call "active-denial technology."

Now, a year and a half later, an enormous effort is underway to move these speed-of-light weapons from the realm of research to combat readiness. The same is true for an array of exotic new weapons, including new generations of so-called "agent defeat" bombs. Among the latter is a guided cluster bomb that scatters 4,000 titanium rods capable of penetrating chemical and biological bunkers and storage tanks with lethal effect. Most promising is a new incendiary device that generates a firestorm so intense it cannot be quenched with water.

What lies behind this rush to bring these exotic new weapons into the American arsenal is the Bush administration's almost obsessive determination to eradicate nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in Iraq -- and potentially in other rogue states -- as part of its war on terrorism.

The new devices, along with the development of highly secret special operations units and new tactics, are intended to help the armed forces seize or neutralize the so-called weapons of mass destruction (WMD) with greater speed and security -- as well as with less damage to surrounding areas or people, and less danger of inadvertently spreading toxic materials.

There are risks, however, because some of these new weapons could arguably be construed as violating established codes of wartime conduct. And the risks of a backlash, whether at home or abroad, are magnified by the administration's almost total refusal to talk about what it is doing and thereby build public understanding and support.