Last summer Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim al-Jafari even had to make a public statement on the matter, pointing out that too many Iraqis die because of the "mistaken" fire of the US troops. He called on the US command in Iraq to find more "civilized" ways of troop action in densely-populated urban areas.
The problem has assumed such proportions that some US unit commanders in Iraq, without waiting for the Pentagon to take action, ordered on the Internet certain contraptions used by traffic police to force cars to halt, such as remote-controlled spike-band hurdles for puncturing car tires.
In this connection the US Department of Defense decided to speed up the development of various so-called "non-lethal" weapons to be used by the US occupation force in Iraq, which would allow it to avoid suffering unnecessary casualties in such situations as dispersing an aggressive crowd or stopping a "suspicious vehicle" approaching the checkpoint. Soon Iraq would become a testing ground where the US military would test, under real-life conditions, the latest types of weapons developed by the US defense industry and science.
If previously the directorate of the advanced defense systems and conceptions of the US Department of Defense, whose annual budget runs into $1.1 billion, was spending 75 percent of these funds on the development of conventional weapons, now the situation has been changing. On the directive of the Pentagon head Donald Rumsfeld, a special work-team has been set up to develop new technologies to fight terrorism. The corresponding programs have been initiated also in the armed services, first of all in the ground and marine forces. As a result, the US troops in Iraq are to receive within a few months several new "non-lethal" systems.
According to the US military press, such systems comprise in particular special high-strength remote-controlled nets, elevated, when needed, from the road thus blocking the car wheels and suspension; special oily liquids or sticky foam poured on the roadbed, making it too slippery and unfit for normal passage of vehicles and pedestrians; a military variant of paintball gun shooting light-tight paint charges at a car windscreen. Also, small lasers for temporarily dazzling "suspicious" pedestrians or car passengers would be used.
The US marine units in Iraq are already using the "Venom" system, which is a package of small mortar tubes for shooting special light-noise charges similar to fireworks at a distance of 200 m. This pyrotechnic system servers to deter suspicious vehicles or groups of people approaching checkpoints and US troop lines. Though the system is still being tested, the Marine Corps has already allocated $14 mln for the purchase of 250 "Venom" systems.
However, the US military command pins its special hopes on the development of non-lethal weapons based on new principles of physics. These systems would be capable of sending beams or energy pulses in the direction of the target, which would block the ignition or destroy the critical components of the car engine, thus causing a nearly instantaneous halting of the vehicle. As reported, the first prototypes of such systems would not appear sooner than within at least five years.
On the other hand, practically ready to be shipped to Iraq is a ray gun based on the use of radiolocation pulses of millimetric wave band causing a sensation of unbearable stinging pain on the skin. The microwave radiation penetrates the skin by only several millimeters, but it gives the effect of a liquid boiling and a powerful impact on the nerve pain receptors. The pain ceases only on the object exiting the radiation zone or on the system being switched off.
The system is reported to have been developed by Raytheon Company under the "Sheriff" program and is called in the Pentagon documents the Active Denial System (ADS). The US military command in Iraq has already ordered 14 ADS sets, which are expected to arrive soon in that country. Externally the "Sheriff" complex resembles a medium-sized satellite antenna and is mounted on vehicles of the "Hammer" type or on armored combat vehicles of the "Striker" type. The ray gun is targeted by an operator using a computer display and a joystick. The invisible beam has a velocity of light and is capable of quickly making fairly large groups of people give up any aggressive intentions and hastily leave its zone of action, which is several hundred meters.
The Pentagon claims that the microwave technology used in the "Sheriff" system is "absolutely harmless" to man and that strict rules for the use of the complex would be drawn up, ruling out any possibility of its being used as a torture tool or causing severe injuries to the objects of its impact. The US military officials even promised to demonstrate the system in operation to foreign and Iraqi journalists, so as to avoid any misunderstanding and "insinuations" by USA opponents.
Nevertheless, independent observers have great doubts as to the complete harmlessness of the "non-lethal" microwave weapons and, for that matter, its declared efficiency. Judging by some indirect evidence, the US military command itself is not quite sure of that either. In particular, the armored vehicles which the "Sheriff" system would be mounted on, would keep on their conventional "lethal" weapons - cannons and machine-guns, evidently, for the event of the "non-lethal" ray gun not having produced the desired effect on the enemy.
