...in Iraq:

So far this year, many more parts of central Iraq have been cleared of terrorists, and the remaining ones know they have to maintain their visibility to survive. Setting off several bombs a day keeps the terrorists in the news, even if the explosions take place in a smaller and smaller area of Iraq. The terrorists play more to the international media, than they do to anyone inside Iraq. The terrorists are already hated and feared throughout the country, even in Sunni Arab areas. There, the terrorists must increasingly divert resources to terrorize Sunni Arabs, and keep them in line. They are aided by Islamic conservatives, who see all the unrest as an opportunity to impose Taliban like rules on the population. If the terrorists accomplish nothing else, they will have shown how to manipulate the mass media, and divert attention from the true origins of the terrorists, and their objectives. It's been a masterful job which, of course, the mass media will have no interest in examining anytime soon. In a generation or so, there will be books and articles about it, but the subject will never get a lot of media attention.

...Pro-Iranian Shia groups are having second thoughts. Several years of having a Shia majority running the country has instilled a confidence in the Shia community that has not been felt in generations. The thought of Iran pulling the strings in a Shia run Iraq was never very palatable. Iraqi Shia know that the Iranians despise Arabs, especially Iraqi Arabs. The Iranians try to hide this, but the Iraqis know, and now the thinking is "we can do this." No one will know for sure until the Americans leave, and the security forces either stay united, or fragment to join the dozens of tribal, religious and political militias.

Does anyone here have insight (or "insider sight") concerning how "professional" news organizations have handled the question of:

"How do we avoid geting 'played'"?

I ask, because seemingly forever, news organizations in Iraq have used English speaking Iraqis as stringers. Who learned English prior to 2003? Saddam's folks.

I don't recall ANY disclaimers about the lack of verifiability of the reports of these stringers.

Organizational dynamics suggest that news organizations will rarely publicly acknowledge their complicitly until when it no longer matters. They MIGHT make useful changes, quietly, so long as it doesn't reflect badly upon the leadership in place during that time period.

Just wondering...

Respectfully submitted,

it might be more plausible if it was so safe in Iraq
that Dick Cheney could go there, wander around a
few markets, buy some trinkets and have lunch
without needing 5000 men to protect him and
to sneak in by darkness and out by dark.

Oh right, it's so safe, the British Army decided not
to send Cornet Wales to Basra.

Here's an unusual idea I just had.

The Stardust probe brought back a sample of microscopic interstellar dust particles embedded in a clear substance. The project now has to find these tiny particles hidden in the imperfect substance. Computer image processing programs were written, but it was found that humans are better at picking out the distinct impact patterns the particles leave. However, millions of microscopic images need to be studied to find the particles. Some 23,000 volunteers have signed up to get trained in identifying the distinct patterns and to search the images for the particles.

What does this have to do with this article about the war in Iraq, searching for soldiers captured by terrorists, roadside bombs, etc?

Let's suppose there are millions of images of various sorts - satellite, UAV, plane, ground - of various resolutions and wavelengths that have been and are collected in Iraq. Let's also suppose there are various types of features on those images of interest - changes in the same area that indicate roadside bombs, snipers, chemicals, armed gatherings, ambushes, etc. Suppose some but not all of the images have to be kept secret because they indicate capabilities that need to be secret, and others might show military installation positions and so on that need to be secret. Let's also suppose professionals and computer programs are constantly busy checking the images, but the professionals are overwhelmed, and the programs aren't suited for all of the processing tasks (like the Stardust programs weren't).

Could a program like Stardust@home be set up for the War on Terror?

- Identify clsses of imagery that can be released.
- Identify types of tasks for volunteer image searchers (like the 23,000 Stardust@home volunteers). For example, "find changes in recent images of the same location that might indicate a roadside bomb was buried."
- Open up the program to volunteers.
- Train the volunteers (eg: a software training guide).
- Let them search the images. Use a voting scheme (eg: if at least 2 out of 4 searchers flag an image, pass it on to 4 more searchers. If at least 2 of them flag it, pass it on to a professional). As time is available in the professionals' regular jobs, they will check the images flagged by the volunteers.
- Potentially allow more sophisticated volunteers to use existing GIS or image processing software, or whatever they might come up with, in their searches.

What if the terrorists try to join the volunteer network to game it, or get information from the images? Answer: Don't release images you don't want them to see, period. Don't identify time or place in the images. Perhaps only a small subset would be of interest (eg: recent). Manipulate most of the images to confuse the enemy. Volunteers will not know or care. Disregard feedback from manipulated images. Make it difficult for the enemy to sign up (eg: signup done physically in the U.S.). Charge a fee to sign up. Let them spend their time and resources trying to hack in - the voting scheme should overwhelm any imposters. Maybe following up on invalid volunteer results from some geographical locations would help track down some terrorists.

If 23,000 volunteers work with Stardust@home, how many would sign up for this?

Setting aside any immediate benefits from actual "finds", would this have other benefits? To the extent that folks would be watching TV or playing some video game instead, this might be a more useful use of their time. It might also be educational in certain ways. It could get some young people interested in skills related to satellites, remote sensing, computers, photography, etc that would be useful to them and to society later. The search might be especially gratifying for some volunteers (eg: friends and family of soldiers). The presence of such a program (regardless of whether or not it is successful in "finds" - that would be secret) might put the terrorists even more on the defensive, wasting more time looking over their shoulders.

What would such a program cost (given Stardust@home as a baseline)? Could it be done with little or no interference with ongoing work?

Red, your example is a static problem. Considering the case of a roadside bomb, the event is probably set up overnight. It would be just not possible to provide feedback in a timely manner, even assuming you have thousands of volunteers. The observations of consequence in Iraq occur on a time scale that isn't reasonably addressed by your suggestion; things are likely more dynamic over there.

The DoD and Intel Community is hysterical over source
control.

They don't let the commanders see imagery, why would
they let the public in.

>>So far this year, many more parts of central Iraq have been cleared of terrorists,
I want to believe this, I really, really do. The problem is that StrategyPage offers no source or support for the assertion. If it is true of course, I will never hear about it in my local paper. Where could I find any kind of authoritative source of information which demonstrates, rather than merely asserting, that this collection of villages or that stretch of such and such a province, was experiencing significant terrorist activity last December but is now secure?
Don't get me wrong, I was for this war before John Kerry was against it. I thought we should have gone in at least six months before we did. I thought it was worth doing even is we had not thought there were WMD, just to prevent Iraq from becoming Al Quada's new state sponsor. I frankly expected the guerrilla phase to be much worse than it has been and knew we would have to tough it out for years on end. I did and do support this mission, I just wish StrategyPage would more strongly support their optimistic portrayal of events. I want them to be right, but I want them to prove it.

I love this idea, red. And anonymous, you have a good point. My take though is that they can do something like this without revealing the extent of surveillance technologies especially given that there's an urgency to produce results here. Probably won't happen, but it's an intriguing idea.

I hate to say it, but I think the American public is likely much more interested in advancing science than advancing the war in Iraq, even if that meant saving the lives of troops. My guess is that most of the volunteers for SETI @ home do so because either a) they are hoping to somehow become famous for a discovery or b) they are intensely interested in finding alien life. Since there would be no personal reward for helping find bombs and there would also be no public acknowledgment of lives saved or bombs found, few would volunteer. Maybe soldiers at home, or veterans would get involved, but not much of the regular public. Maybe I am wrong, but I'm skeptical.