-Caveat Lector- Laser beam destroys a Navy career Officer seeks answers about high-tech arms Wednesday, February 10, 1999 By ED OFFLEY SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER MILITARY REPORTER Lt. Jack Daly is looking for some answers to a mysterious laser incident 22 months ago that left him in constant pain and has wrecked a once-promising career in U.S. naval intelligence. Daly was serving as a liaison officer to the Canadian Maritime Defense Force at Esquimalt, B.C., in the spring of 1997 when he went on a routine surveillance flight to photograph a Russian freighter suspected by U.S. and Canadian officials of snooping on the Trident ballistic missile submarines based at Bangor. While photographing the M/V Kapitan Man, Daly and the Canadian helicopter pilot, Capt. Pat Barnes, were struck by a laser beam that caused serious lesions to their eyes. "I haven't had a pain-free day since the incident," Daly said in a recent interview. Tomorrow, Daly will tell his story to a congressional committee examining the threat to military personnel from lasers and other high-tech weapons. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., has summoned the intelligence and research chiefs from each of the four armed services to testify about high-tech weaponry and the Pentagon's proposed countermeasures. Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services procurement subcommittee, is also concerned about alleged espionage by Russian commercial ships inside U.S. waters, according to his press secretary, Harald Stavanas. Daly, a 40-year-old Philadelphia native, says he is glad to have the opportunity to testify about laser threats, particularly since two U.S. military personnel in Bosnia were similarly injured in Bosnia last fall. But his satisfaction is bittersweet. "My career is down the toilet," said Daly, who enlisted in the Navy in 1982 and won an officer's commission seven years later. He said his downfall came after he and Canadian officials submitted incident reports on the April 4, 1997, laser firing. The Kapitan Man was five miles west of Port Angeles in the eastbound shipping lanes of the Strait of Juan de Fuca when the Canadian helicopter bearing Daly and Barnes approached to take pictures. By the time the laser burn symptoms appeared the next morning, the ship had entered the Port of Tacoma to unload and take on cargo, Daly and Barnes said in separate interviews. The Pentagon ordered a search of the ship but the boarding team didn't appear until more than 72 hours had gone by, Daly said. No evidence of a laser was found. A subsequent Pentagon investigation confirmed the two officers had been struck by a laser beam but said it could not determine whether the laser was fired from the Russian ship. Daly claims the investigation into the incident was poorly conducted and that it tried to disprove that the two men had been injured by a laser. He filed an official report challenging its findings. Since then, Daly says, he has been passed over for promotion and faces the likelihood of having to retire from active duty later this year. Pentagon officials would not comment on whether there was political pressure to warn the Russians of the search and downplay the incident, as Daley claims. Several other intelligence officials, who requested anonymity, have said the Kapitan Man and other ships in the Russian Far Eastern Shipping Co. fleet have attempted to track Trident submarines ever since Puget Sound ports were opened to vessels from the former Soviet Union eight years ago. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., says he has received briefings confirming the Pentagon's suspicion. Daly alleged the Pentagon and the Canadian military halted the surveillance flights of the Russian ships immediately after the 1997 laser incident. One senior member of the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time told the Post-Intelligencer there was "a great desire to have this incident go away" because the Clinton administration was concerned about its relations with Moscow. Daly has undergone extensive treatment for the burns to his eyes at the Brook Army Medical Center in Texas. He says it is not known whether his eyes will fully heal or whether the pain from the lesions will subside. http://www.seattle-pi.com/national/lase10.shtml Bard Visit me at: The Center for Exposing Corruption in the Federal Government http://www.xld.com/public/center/center.htm Federal Government defined: ....a benefit/subsidy protection racket! DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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