United States military officials are concerned that Tehran may have an opportunity to acquire information about the classified surveillance drone programme after one of the stealthy aircraft crashed in Iran. A senior US official yesterday said the drone was on a mission for the CIA but that it was unclear whether the drone's mission took it over Iran or whether it strayed there accidentally because of technical malfunctions.
Though the drone flight was a CIA operation, US military personnel were involved in flying the aircraft, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy involved.
On Monday, Iran's armed forces said they had brought down RQ-170 - known as the Sentinel - that violated the country's airspace along the eastern border. Nato's US-led force in neighbouring Afghanistan said Iranian authorities might have been referring to an unarmed US reconnaissance plane that went missing during a mission in western Afghanistan late last week.
Ever since it was developed at Lockheed Martin Corp's famed Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California, the Sentinel drone has been cloaked in tight secrecy by the US Government.
But now the drone that the Iranian military claims to have brought down for invading its airspace might be made far more public than the Pentagon or Lockheed ever intended.
Another US official with access to intelligence said that losing the Sentinel was a major security breach. The official, who was not authorised to publicly speak about the information, wouldn't say how the drone fell into Iranian hands, but confirmed that the downed drone was largely intact.
"It's bad - they'll have everything" in terms of the secret technology in the aircraft, the official said. "And the Chinese or the Russians will have it too."
Peter Singer, author of Wired for War, a book about robotic warfare, said it was not new to have drones downed in enemy territory, but that the RQ-170 represents the next generation of drone aircraft.
"It carries a variety of systems that wouldn't be much of a benefit to Iran, but to its allies such as China and Russia, it's a potential gold mine," Singer said.
Defence analyst Loren Thompson of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute doubted Iran shot down the drone or that there would be much left of it to sell.
"They were designed to be silver bullets that could go places that other manned or unmanned aircraft would not be able to go," she said.
"This is a high-flying unmanned aircraft that malfunctioned and then fell to earth.
"It's likely to be broken up into hundreds of pieces."
- AP
Poster Comment:
Why are they so worried if the drone is likely to be broken up into hundreds of pieces? Wishful thinking?