AP IMPACT: a Beam Weapon for Military?

[frogcycle]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6883861,00.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - Saddam Hussein had been gone just a few weeks, and U.S. forces in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, were already being called unwelcome invaders. One of the first big anti-American protests of the war escalated into shootouts that left 18 Iraqis dead and 78 wounded.

It would be a familiar scene in Iraq's next few years: Crowds gather, insurgents mingle with civilians. Troops open fire, and innocents die.

All the while, according to internal military correspondence obtained by The Associated Press, U.S. commanders were telling Washington that many civilian casualties could be avoided by using a new non-lethal weapon developed over the past decade.

Military leaders repeatedly and urgently requested - and were denied - the device, which uses energy beams instead of bullets and lets soldiers break up unruly crowds without firing a shot.

more...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6883861,00.html

[Mnpaul]

1. Not a microwave weapon?

What a bunch of liars

Details of US microwave-weapon tests revealed
22 July 2005

Microwave beam weapon to disperse crowds

US Sunshine Project
Bradford Non-Lethal Weapons Research Project
Kirtland Air Force Base
VOLUNTEERS taking part in tests of the Pentagon's "less-lethal" microwave weapon were banned from wearing glasses or contact lenses due to safety fears. The precautions raise concerns about how safe the Active Denial System (ADS) weapon would be if used in real crowd-control situations.

The ADS fires a 95-gigahertz microwave beam, which is supposed to heat skin and to cause pain but no physical damage (New Scientist, 27 October 2001, p 26). Little information about its effects has been released, but details of tests in 2003 and 2004 were revealed after Edward Hammond, director of the US Sunshine Project - an organisation campaigning against the use of biological and non-lethal weapons - requested them under the Freedom of Information Act.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18725095.600