The Scud Hunt: One Satellite Might Work

A radar spy satellite capable of seeing through cloud cover and penetrating the top few feet of the Iraqi desert may be the best bet for finding hidden Scud missile launchers that threaten Israel and Saudi Arabia, a space expert said today.

But William Burrows, author of “Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security,” said that only one such “LaCrosse” satellite is known to be in orbit and that it passes over the Middle East only every few days. How long it might take U.S. forces to eliminate Saddam Hussein’s stock of Soviet Scud missiles is not known.

“Radar is their only bet if there’s cloud cover,” he said. “The problem is, they’ve got one satellite and it comes over every couple of days.”

LaCrosse and advanced Hubble Space Telescope-class photoreconnaissance satellites undoubtedly have been working around the clock during the Persian Gulf war to find Iraqi targets, determine which have been destroyed during massive bombing raids and which might need extra attention.

“We have had superb (satellite) intelligence,” Burrows said by telephone from his home in Connecticut. “Clearly, in terms of targeting, those guys were working overtime. But . . . it’s not perfect, it just isn’t.

“Everybody’s always known trying to find cruise missiles and mobile missiles was going to be very difficult. And it’s turning out to be very difficult. That’s the nature of the game. This guy has come up with a camouflage system to try and thwart our satellites, and that is something we have lived with since the dawn of the space age.”

The missiles may be hidden in camouflaged trenches, or ditches, in the Iraqi desert. But radar beams from LaCrosse can be used to penetrate the top few feet of the desert to pinpoint such targets.

“I understand they dug ditches in the ground and put the transporters into the ditches and then covered the ditches with camouflage,” Burrows said.