BBC is reporting today about top-secret high-powered microwave (HPM) weapons that may be ready for use in an upcoming US war against Iraq. HPM weapons now available to be used against Iraq are built, like bombs, as expendable one-time-use weapons. Many of the payloads are designed for carriage by cruise missiles like the ALCM, Tomahawk, Jassm or Britain’s Storm Shadow. “The combination of unmanned vehicles and HPM weapons also provides a way to attack the toughest targets in any foe’s arsenal”, said Gen. John Jumper, U.S. Air Force chief of staff. “If you combine directed energy with the UCAVs of the type we have today, you have a combination that [can] tell the SA-10 (an Iraqi surface-to-air missile) that it’s a Maytag washer on the rinse cycle rather than a missile about to shoot somebody down”. HPM weapons are only one of a wide variety of other directed energy weapons that are under active development and will probably see use in future wars.