Gingrich, The Times & Doomsday

Dispatches From The Edge

Conn Hallinan

Dec. 13, 2011

In a recent New York Times article the newspaper's senior
science writer, William J. Broad, takes a dig at
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's
obsession with the possibility of a "nightmarish of
doomsday scenarios: a nuclear blast high above the United
States that would instantly throw the United States in a
dark age."

The phenomenon that Gingrich refers to is an
electromagnetic pulse (EMP), one side effect of a nuclear
explosion. EMPs can destroy or disrupt virtually anything
electrical, from computers to power grids. As the Times
points out, Gingrich has used this potential threat to
advocate bombing Iran and North Korea. "I favor taking out
the Iranian and North Korean missiles on their sites," he
told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 2009.
Gingrich has also talked up the EMP "threat" on the
campaign trail.

Broad dismisses EMPs as "a poorly understood phenomenon of
the nuclear age" and quotes Missile Defense Agency
spokesman Richard Lehner poo-pooing the damage from an EMP
attack as "pretty theoretical."

While the Times is correct in dismissing any Iranian or
North Korean threat--neither country has missiles capable
of reaching the U.S., Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons,
and both have never demonstrated a desire to commit
national suicide--what Broad does not mention is that the
effects of EMP are hardly "poorly understood": the U.S.
has an "E-bomb" in its arsenal.

More than that, the Pentagon considered using it during
the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Asked directly if the U.S. was
considering using an EMP weapon, then Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld answered, "You never know."

The U.S. has known about the effects of EMPs since 1958,
when a series of nuclear tests in the Pacific knocked out
streetlights in Hawaii and radio reception in Australia
for 18 hours. In large enough doses, EMPs can fry every
electrical circuit in range, many of them permanently. One
would essentially go from the 21st century to the 19th
century in a few nanoseconds.

The U.S. began researching how to use EMPs as weapons
shortly after the Pacific tests, and, while the details
are classified, the Livermore and Los Alamos national labs
have apparently come up with a working version of an
"E-bomb."

The principle is simple enough: a tube filled with
explosives, wrapped with copper wire, encased in a metal
shell. The copper wire is used to create a powerful
magnetic field and when the explosives are fired, they
compress the magnetic field to produce a powerful burst of
electromagnetic energy called the "Compton effect."

A large enough device can generate up to two billion
watts, about what Hoover Dam turns out in a day.

The weapon is attached to a cruise missile. Any piloted
craft would run the risk of frying its own electronics,
because EMP waves can bounce off objects, like the ground,
and be reflected back at the attack craft.

Britain's Matra Bae Dynamics has produced an artillery
shell that generates an EMP wave and is capable of
knocking out electrical systems for several square miles.

The idea behind the "E-bomb" is that it would blind and
disable any military force, but not inflict casualties
(except if you are wearing a pacemaker or have electrical
implants).  "The electromagnetic pulse generator is
emerging as one of the strongest contenders...to find
effective weapons to defeat an enemy without causing loss
of life," writes David Fulghum, an EMP expert.

But EMP waves would also paralyze ambulances, hospitals,
power plants and water pumping systems, a specific
violation of the Geneva Conventions.  Article 54, for
instance, explicitly forbids rendering "useless" any
"drinking water installations."

There are ways to shield devices from EMPs, but they are
expensive. So-called Faraday Cages intercept EMPs and
redirect them into the ground, much like  lightening rod.

While the exact details of the U.S. "E-bomb" are
classified, its existence is hardly a secret. Nor is the
U.S. the only nation currently researching the uses of
EMPs. Any country with a nuclear weapon--Great Britain,
France, Russia, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North
Korea--is undoubtedly aware of its capabilities.

The fact that the effects of EMPs are well known, and that
the U.S.--and apparently a number of other nations--has
weaponized the phenomena, make it all the more curious
that the Times treated the issue so lightly and failed to
mention the U.S. program. Indeed, Broad says, "many
scientists consider it yesteryear's concern."

That would certainly come as a surprise to the Livermore
and Los Alamos National labs and the U.S. Air Force's
Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force base in New
Mexico. There is also a test lab in Virginia.

Any such weapon should certainly be illegal under the
strictures of the Geneva Conventions. Like poison gas,
EMPs do not distinguish between military and civilian and,
as such, are illegal under Article 48 requiring that
warring parties "shall at all times distinguish between
civilian population and combatants and between civilian
objects and military objectives and accordingly shall
direct their operation only against military objectives."

Gingrich's apocalyptic views on EMPs are longstanding, but
he also uses them as raw meat for the "bomb Teheran and
Pyongyang" crowd, a cynical election ploy from one of the
more cynical politicians to grace the current U.S. stage.

But the "E-bomb" is real, and the general rule is, if you
give the military a new toy, eventually they will want to
test it in the real world. That world is filled with
civilians-- so-called "collaterals"-- who will end up
absorbing the brunt of this weapon.

 Isn't that worth reporting?

 Conn Hallinan can be read at
dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and
middleempireseries.wordpress.com

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