FYI,

"America's Ultra-Secret Weapon"
Time Magazine
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030127/nmicro.html

: If there's a second Gulf War, get ready to meet the high-power
: microwave.

: HPMs are man-made lightning bolts crammed into cruise missiles.
: They could be key weapons for targeting Saddam Hussein's stockpiles
: of biological and chemical weapons. HPMs fry the sophisticated
: computers and electronic gear necessary to produce, protect, store
: and deliver such agents. The powerful electromagnetic pulses can
: travel into deeply buried bunkers through ventilation shafts,
: plumbing and antennas.

: The HPM is a top-secret program, and the Pentagon wants to keep it
: that way. Senior military officials have dropped hints about a new,
: classified weapon for Iraq but won't provide details. Still,
: information about HPMs, first successfully tested in 1999, has
: trickled out. "High-power microwave technology is ready for the
: transition to active weapons in the U.S. military," Air Force
: Colonel Eileen Walling wrote in a rare, unclassified report on the
: program three years ago. "There are signs that microwave weapons
: will represent a revolutionary concept for warfare, principally
: because microwaves are designed to incapacitate equipment rather
: than humans."

: HPMs can unleash in a flash as much electrical power—2 billion watts
: or more—as the Hoover Dam generates in 24 hours. Capacitors aboard
: the missile discharge an energy pulse—moving at the speed of light
: and impervious to bad weather—in front of the missile as it nears
: its target. That pulse can destroy any electronics within 1,000 ft.
: of the flash by short-circuiting internal electrical connections,
: thereby wrecking memory chips, ruining computer motherboards and
: generally screwing up electronic components not built to withstand
: such powerful surges.

: Most of this "e-bomb" development is taking place at Kirtland Air
: Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M. The Directed Energy Directorate at
: Kirtland has been studying how to deliver varying but predictable
: electrical pulses to inflict increasing levels of harm: to deny,
: degrade, damage or destroy, to use the Pentagon's parlance. HPM
: engineers call it "dial-a-hurt."

Mark Reiff