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" The most important person by far for this year&amp;#039;s Special Operation Industry Conference in Tampa was a dead man: Osama bin Laden. The timing of bin Laden&amp;#039;s death was certainly fortuitous for this get-together. This year&amp;#039;s conference, an annual event sponsored the National Defense Industrial Association, a trade association, comes just weeks after the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) mission to kill the al-Qaida leader. The always-popular conference was even more packed this year: The exhibit space was sold out, and companies&amp;#039; displays overflowed into an outside area. Since details of the raid are still regarded as classified (even though much has been leaked to the press), speakers made thinly veiled references to bin Laden, bragging about certain elements of the now-iconic mission, such as the DNA identification. Raytheon Corp. even created a simulation with the raid on his compound as the centerpiece\u2014it transported two special operators outfitted with virtual reality goggles into the compound in Abbottabad.  But the question on the minds of those gathered in Tampa was whether the success of the bin Laden raid means more money for special ops. Todd Harrison, of the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says that while funding for Special Operations Command, which includes Navy SEALs, has increased in recent years, much of the money has gone to &amp;quot;expendables,&amp;quot; meaning things such as bullet and bombs. &amp;quot;I think the success of the Bin Laden raid will solidify a lot of support for the increase in funding for special operations equipment and training,&amp;quot; he says.  Congress has already moved to boost funding for Special Operations Command, and companies here are clearly hoping that will translate into contracts. Perhaps the most obvious way that bin Laden&amp;#039;s death has reverberated in the commercial environment is the increasing focus on technologies intended to track and target key terrorists. Speakers on topics like &amp;quot;sensitive site exploitation&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;high value individuals&amp;quot; spoke to standing-room only audiences, and exhibitors showed off new sensors and drones designed to track cars and people.  Special ops officials here spoke fairly freely\u2014by their secretive standards, anyway. One thing that wasn&amp;#039;t discussed in open forums were the modified, stealthy helicopters that transported the Navy SEALs into Pakistan. On the exhibit floor, however, people traded off-the-record gossip about the aircraft, which were a tightly guarded secret until this month.  There might appear to be a logical disconnect with a secretive military community holding a public event like SOIC, but these attendees know the limits of what they can disclose. Venues like this one are vital for the military to reach out to contractors who can fill technology needs and to see new technology options. And as for the details of the bin Laden leaks that continue to come out, the consensus in Tampa is that the people complaining about these leaks are the same ones doing the leaking: senior officials at the Pentagon and White House. Indeed, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates admitted last week that officials in the Situation Room agreed not to disclose details of the bin Laden raid, but &amp;quot;that all fell apart.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a6774/how-osama-bin-ladens-death-reverberates-through-the-defense-sector-5773298/>