DIA - our enemies are MORLOCKS

GERTZ:

The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency told a Senate committee last week that U.S. adversaries are developing underground hardened structures that represent a new domain in warfighting, with dozens of deep underground bunkers built in the past year alone.

Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, the DIA director, stated in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the growth of hardened underground facilities pose new challenges for American warfighters.

"In the past year, our potential adversaries have constructed dozens of deep underground facilities for their ballistic missile forces, including theater and intercontinental ballistic missiles," Maples said. "The use of underground facilities complicates the intelligence community's ability to monitor ballistic missile activities, and it improves the survivability of these weapons."

Director of the Defense Intelligence Lt. General Michael D. Maples Getty

"We are witnessing the emergence of a new warfighting domain - the subsurface domain," Maples said. "Changes in warfare have dictated that nations to a much greater extent are constructing and relying on deep underground facilities to conceal and protect their most vital national security functions and activities."

Congress several years ago killed Pentagon funding for a nuclear warhead that could penetrate hardened underground facilities.

The Pentagon instead has been developing new and more lethal "bunker buster" bombs and missiles that are capable of burrowing scores of feet into hardened facilities before detonating.

Iran is known to have extensive underground nuclear facilities and North Korea also has placed much of its military, including aircraft bases, inside mountains.

And if we trash the entrances and exits under half a mountain?

The use of underground facilities is aimed at thwarting U.S. satellite surveillance and also aimed to preventing the greater firepower of precision guided missiles and bombs, Maples said.

In addition to major elements of the Iran and North Korean nuclear programs now hidden underground, Maples said the Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist group also used underground facilities to store weapons, conduct operations and launch rockets, as shown in the 2006 conflict with Israel.

Terrorist organizations also are building underground "havens," he said.

"Contributing to a large increase in underground facility construction are recent and rapid advances in commercially available Western tunneling technology," Maples said. "As potential adversaries improve their ability to build underground facilities, the U.S will find it harder to locate and successfully target these critical facilities."

Maples did not mention China's underground facilities. However, U.S. officials have said China has large elements of its nuclear forces hidden in hardened underground facilities in midwestern China. Chinese naval forces also have developed numerous underground submarine facilities.