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the us forces may use a new 'e-bomb' during the invasion of Iraq as part of the 21st century blitzkrieg designed to render Saddam Hussein's forces blind, deaf, dumb and incapable of retaliation. The highly classified bomb creates a brief pulse of microwaves powerful enough to disable computers, blind radars, silence radios and immobilise vehicles and aircrafts. "They would be useful against any adversary that is dependent on electronic systems," says Loren Thompson, a defence analyst at the Lexington Institute, a research organisation based in the us.
In modern warfare, electronics outdo virtually every weapon. For that reason, us air force scientists have worked for decades on a practical way of producing powerful but brief pulses of microwaves that can incapacitate electronic equipment without damaging buildings or killing people. Officially, the Pentagon does not acknowledge the existence of the bomb. Asked about it on March 5, 2003 at a news conference, a Pentagon officer said: "I can't talk to you about it because I don't know anything about it."
According to a 2000 report of the us air force, scientists at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico have created microwave sources that generate up to 10 times the amount of energy that a big dam produces in a day. During laboratory tests, microwave pulses melted silicon chips, pushing their circuits far beyond their capacity to conduct electricity.
On the battlefield, the effects of the most impressive e-bombs can rapidly diminish with distance. Military analysts believe their range is a few hundred yards at the most. The relatively short range decreases the odds that hospitals, orphanages and other civilian infrastructure will be affected, unless they are directly adjacent to or networked with military targets. "I think it is more humane to use this compared to a conventional weapon," Thompson says.
The bomb's effects are also hard to predict. The surge of electricity produced by a microwave pulse could go directly into military supercomputers or it could be shunted into the ground. "The effects are hard to focus. The moment the energy is absorbed into wiring or other electrically conductive material you don't know where it's going to go," says Thompson.
Defence experts are particularly eager to see if e-bombs can reach into deep underground bunkers that can be targeted only by nuclear weapons. An e-bomb could render a bunker uninhabitable by disabling lighting, ventilation and computer systems.
If other nations acquire such high power microwave weapons, us forces, which depend heavily on technology, would be particularly vulnerable to them. We may soon find us forces protecting their electronic equipment with the help of metal casings and sophisticated circuit breakers that are connected to several incoming wires.