• Some fighters using infrared patches on shirts to signal they are ‘friends’
  
• GAO official says few regulatory controls exist for military technology sold domestically
  
• Lawmaker says infrared patches should be treated as munitions
  
• Retired four-star general says risk may be overstated

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Some Taliban fighters have been able to ward off attacks by US aircraft by wearing special infrared patches on their shirts that signal they are friends rather than foes.
The patches, which can also help suicide bombers get close to US targets, are supposed to be the property of the US government alone, but can be easily purchased over the Internet for about $10 each, a report published in The Washington Times had revealed. Some of the patches have been stolen during raids on US re-supply convoys in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and reveal an American flag when looked at with an infrared light and are designed to avoid friendly fire during night-time battles.
Few controls: In a recent investigation, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) bought patches using fake names and a front company with only a valid credit card. Jonathan Meyer, assistant director of forensic audits and special investigations for the GAO, told The Washington Times: “Based on our conversations with the Department of Defence, terrorists have used US uniforms and the infrared patches to get close to US and allied forces on the battlefield and at bases. This is more of a potential suicide-bomber risk.” Meyer, who helped lead the GAO investigation, concluded that few regulatory controls exist for dual-use and military technology sold domestically.
Representative Bart Stupak, Michigan Democrat, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce oversight and investigations subcommittee, said the infrared patches are also made in China. “It is rather simple technology,” he said. “We not only sell this on the domestic market here, and they sell them to anybody, but you can get them from China, and the Chinese will sell them to others. They have been used by the enemy in the war. It’s of grave concern because you don’t know who is friendly or not,” he added.
“An enemy fighter wearing these [infrared] flags could potentially pass as a friendly service member during a night combat situation, putting US troops at risk,” the GAO report said. “Nevertheless, these items are completely legal to buy and sell within the US.” The report followed up on a 2008 GAO study that exposed the fact that military-surplus items, such as spare parts for fighter jets, could be purchased on eBay and Craigslist.
Munitions: Representative Brad Sherman, California Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that deals with export controls, said that it may be time to treat the infrared patches as a munition that would need to be controlled through the Arms Export Control Act. “If there is an item that has only a military use, like the patches, the fact that they are non-lethal doesn’t mean we should not treat them as munitions,” he said.
Overstated: However, a retired four-star general, Jack Keane, said the risk had been overstated. “Since the beginning of warfare, people have been dressing up as the enemy to infiltrate,” he said. “We certainly have done this in the past to our enemies, and our enemies have done this to us.” But “it would seem to me that something we are using to help identify ourselves should not be available to the general public, and it should be something that is only acquired through military channels,” he added.
Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said the military was reviewing the report. “The Department of Defence takes force protection very seriously. As a matter of course, we are concerned any time sensitive equipment has the potential to fall into enemy hands,” he said.
A spokesman for the Justice Department’s National Security Division, Dean Boyd, said that since October 2007, the US government has created 20 counter-proliferation task forces to look at the issue. However, he said “no one is really taking responsibility” in the US government to deal with the problem. The National Security Council, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security have declined comment on the GAO report.