|
Puerto Rico Update,
July 2001
Vieques: A Navy Profit Center Dangerous Test in Vieques Waters Confirmed By Marta Villaizán Montalvo On the issue of Vieques, truth and falsehood go hand in hand. When the US Navy affirms that it does not have a substitute for Vieques, it is telling the truth. When the Navy says that Vieques is essential for the training of US Naval forces, it is telling a lie. Vieques is certainly the perfect place for the Navy's war games. For sixty years, the Navy threw its bombs, tested its missiles, experimented with explosives, and tossed around a thousand dangerous substances. No wonder its admirals call Vieques "the crown jewel of training ranges". But to say that the Navy's war games in Vieques were necessary in order to maintain "the boys" well trained for war ("readiness") and to guarantee national security is plain false. The National Security Need for Vieques, the major 1999 Navy-Marine Corps report on Vieques, played on such myths. In fact, Vieques is part of the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Testing Facility (AFWTF), one of a "select" group of military bases and ranges that are especially designed for the testing of weapons and weapons systems. This set of 21 bases and ranges is known as the Major Range and Test Facility Base (MRTFB) circuit. You can find a map of the circuit on the web, at www.acq.osd.mil/sts/te/mrtfb.html. You can't access the test facility at Vieques, though; the Navy closed the AFWTF website in 1999 after public criticism. The site advertised Vieques as "one-stop shopping" for miltary contractors looking for weapons testing sites. The official Department of Defense website defines the MRTFB bases as: "a set of test installations, facilities, and ranges which are regarded as 'national assets.' These assets are sized, operated, and maintained primarily for DoD test and evaluation missions. However, the MRTFB facilities and ranges are also available to commercial and other users on a reimbursable basis." In other pages, the Secretary of Defense urges companies to utilize the MRTFB facilities because it is now "easier, faster and cheaper than ever before": "Commercial and academic enterprises looking for unique test capabilities and facilities may find a cost-effective solution within the Department of Defense Major Range Test Facility Base (MRTFB). The unparalleled span of expertise and test facilities within the MRTFB can address almost every conceivable test condition. Utilization of DoD facilities is now easier, faster, and cheaper than ever before." In the Navy's MRTFB contracts, "national security" is a secondary consideration. And that's the law: the US Code, Title 10, Section 2681 ("Use of Test and Evaluation Installations by Commercial Entities") authorizes the Secretary of Defense, "to establish accords with commercial entities that desire to conduct tests and evaluations of their products on MRTFB bases". Megacorporations such as Raytheon or Lockheed Martin under contract with DoD select the site or sites they want to rent, depending on the type of weapon or system to be tested, and the climate and geography of the world regions where the product is to be deployed: desert, tropic, mountain, underseas, etc. In terms of rental prices, the US Code establishes requires private companies to reimburse the military for direct costs of using the ranges or installation, and allows base commanders to require reimbursement of indirect costs as part of the contracts as well. The Defense Department also offers its clients the convenience of filling out a service request on-line, and to make rental payments by credit card using its internet site. Raytheon and Live Missile Launches Although most attention focused on bombs fired or dropped onto the impact land area in Vieques, the naval exercises in Vieques in late April included a dangerous test in Vieques waters of a system known as the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC). The CEC tests were part of the profit system that allows the Navy to rent Vieques waters to private companies like Raytheon, which produces the CEC system. This computerized system allows battle groups to process and immediately react to the presence of enemy missiles. According to Raytheon, "this system has provoked a revolution in the way of making war... Based on a sophisticated communications system, all the components can see simultaenously the image of an enemy projectile and destroy it with greater speed and precision." News of the test was published in the Puerto Rican daily El Nuevo Día on April 16 and denied by the Navy's public affairs office, but the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory confirmed the test in its newsletter APL Update on May 15. According to Dee Reese, chief of public affairs and official contact for APL Update, the battle group USS John F. Kennedy carried out the first phase of the CEC Operational Evaluation (OPEVAL) at the end of April in the Navy's Puerto Rico area of operations and the second phase in the Virginia Capes in early May. "These tests of the CEC system, directed by the commander in chief of the Operational Test and Evaluation Force," said the newsletter, "are the most intense and realistic carried out by a battle group." It concluded that "on the basis of the results of these tests it will be established whether the system is feasible for the rest of the fleet." The evaluation of the system began in the early 1990s, and much of its technical tests were carried out in Puerto Rico. Tests in 1994 included the launch of missiles in AFWTF. Although the results of these experiments were not entirely satisfactory, the Pentagon concluded that the system was "potentially" effective and additional funds were appropriated for tests in 1997 and 1998, when tests were conducted on the open sea. All of these reflected significant problems in the areas of tracking, linking, and operations. Even with these doubtful evaluations, the CEC program continued and in 1999, after some adjustments, the Defense Department began a new series of tests of the system that will culminate in February 2002. One of the most dangerous tests was carried out in the North Range, north of Vieques, between February 9 and March 2, 2001. "The tests included live missile firings and tracking exercises from some of the Navy's most technically advanced ships," according to Defense Link, the official web page of the Defense Department, on March 6. The Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) is the technical director for the CEC and work in concert with the U.S. Navy for the system's development. This "arrangement" between the Navy and Johns Hopkins ranges from the simplest test of one of the components of the CEC to the general management of all the sea exercises. The APL's web page notes that "We are now working on the integration of the CEC for its use in communication satellites, the Army's Patriot system, and the Marine Corp's Hawk system. APL supports the Navy in its transition from the experimental phase to the industrial production of the CEC system." Johns Hopkins is the university that in April cast doubt on the findings of vibroacoustic disease caused by naval exercises in Vieques children's hearts. It is also the same university that later had to publicly recognize that its analysis was donde with information limited to that provided by the Navy and that it received $46,000 to do the evaluation.
|
|
Fellowship of Reconciliation ©2001 Fellowship of Reconciliation ©2001 Fellowship of Reconciliation
|