What Do You Think?

[troach]

The problem with being to dependent on high tech toys is that low tech toys and a little imagination can sometimes be very effective against them.





http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/05/9226787-drone-that-crashed-in-iran-risks-secret-us-technology


Drone that crashed in Iran risks secret U.S. technology



By Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News chief Pentagon correspondent

Dec. 5, 2011

An American drone that crashed in Iran last Thursday was on a mission for the CIA, and is now in the hands of Iran’s military, NBC News has learned.

U.S. officials tell NBC that CIA operators were flying the unmanned drone when it veered out of control and headed deep into Iran. The drone eventually ran out of fuel and crashed in Iran's remote mountains.

The nature of the drone’s mission was secret and sources say it's still not clear whether the drone was operating in Iran or Afghanistan.

Officials here confirm that the vehicle was a highly secret stealth drone called an RQ-170, which looks more like a flying wing than an airplane — the same kind of drone that circled over Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan as Navy Seals targeted the fugitive al-Qaida leader.

One major concern is that the Iranians could salvage highly sensitive technology used in the drone for cameras or sensors or even the stealth technology, and try to develop it for themselves.

Iranian media reported on Sunday that their country's military had shot down a U.S. reconnaissance drone in eastern Iran, but a U.S. official said there was no indication the aircraft had been shot down.

Iran has announced several times in the past that it shot down U.S., Israeli or British drones, in incidents that did not provoke high-profile responses.

"Iran's military has downed an intruding RQ-170 American drone in eastern Iran," Iran's Arabic-language Al Alam state television network on Sunday quoted a military source as saying.

"The spy drone, which has been downed with little damage, was seized by the Iranian armed forces," the source said. "The Iranian military's response to the American spy drone's violation of our airspace will not be limited to Iran's borders."

Iranian officials were not available to comment further.

The incident comes at a time when Tehran is trying to contain foreign outrage at the storming of the British embassy on Tuesday, after London announced sanctions on Iran's central bank in connection with Iran's nuclear enrichment program.

[loosebelly]

duh . . . iran is a big county, heck even some place like goose pimple junction is a big place if you are not sure where something is being hidden.

Not to mention by now the drone has probably been disassembled and tucked away with "research" groups all over the country if not the world. Considering the possibilities of other countries that I am sure have offered to help "take good care" of the little toy.


copied from:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/us-cancels-high-risk-commando-raid-to-recover-drone-from-iran/story-e6frg6so-1226217626168




US cancels high-risk commando raid to recover drone from Iran

by: Michael Evans and Martin Fletcher, Washington,
The Australian
December 09, 2011

THE US contemplated a military confrontation with Tehran to recover a stealth drone that went missing over Iran during a clandestine surveillance mission.

The incident last week, involving a jet-powered RQ170 Sentinel drone which the Iranians claim to have shot down over the eastern town of Kashmar, has exposed a previously unrecorded US operation of sending unmanned aircraft from an airbase in Afghanistan into Iran to spy on its military and nuclear facilities.

[loosebelly]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/iran-releases-images-downed-u-spy-drone-171144210.html

Iran releases video of downed U.S. spy drone–looking intact

By Laura Rozen
Senior Foreign Affairs Reporter
The Envoy – Thu, Dec 8, 2011


Iran's Press TV on Thursday broadcast an extended video tour of the U.S. spy drone that went down in the country--and it indeed appeared to look mostly intact.

American officials have acknowledged that an unmanned U.S. reconnaissance plane was lost on a mission late last week, but have insisted that there is no evidence the drone was downed by hostile acts by Iran. Rather, they said, the drone likely went down because of a malfunction, and they implied the advanced stealth reconnaissance plane would likely have fallen from such a high altitude--the RQ-170 Sentinel can fly as high as 50,000 feet--that it wouldn't be in good shape.

But Iranian military officials have claimed since Sunday that they brought down an American spy drone that was little damaged. And now they have provided the first visual images of what looks to be a drone that at least outwardly appears to be in decent condition, in what is surely another humiliating poke in the eye for U.S. national security agencies.

The Pentagon declined to comment on the released images Thursday, a Defense Department spokesman told Yahoo News. But military analysts said it appeared to them to be the American drone in question.

"I have been doing this for thirty years, and it sure looks like [a stealthy U.S. drone] to me," Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute and consultant to the RQ-170's manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, told Yahoo News in a telephone interview Thursday. "I think we are going to face the high likelihood that Iran has an intact version of one of our most important intelligence gathering tools."

Still, Thompson went on, the intelligence "windfall" to Iran from obtaining the advanced U.S. stealthy drone may be mitigated.

"I don't think the Iranians get as much out of it as they might hope," he said. "It probably came into their hands as a result of a technical malfunction. What that means is they still don't have a real defense against the U.S. flying other vehicles that have similar capabilities, without much fear of interception."

Analysts also noted that the video of the drone released by Iran did not show the drone's underside. "Pretty intact," the Center for Strategic and International Studies' James Lewis said by email. "Interesting that they covered the underside."

The New York Times reported Thursday that--unsurprisingly--the RQ-170 was lost while making the latest foray over Iran during an extended CIA surveillance effort of Iran's nuclear and ballistic weapons program.

"The overflights by the bat-winged RQ-170 Sentinel, built by Lockheed Martin and first glimpsed on an airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2009, are part of an increasingly aggressive intelligence collection program aimed at Iran, current and former officials say," the Times' Scott Shane and David Sanger wrote. "The urgency of the effort has been underscored by a recent public debate in Israel about whether time is running out for a military strike to slow Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon."

Iran in turn has complained that the drone overflights represent an act of aggression and violation of its sovereignty, and summoned the Swiss envoy--who represents U.S. interests in Iran--on Thursday to lodge a protest.

However, while the images of the U.S. drone surely allowed Iran to score another public relations blow against Washington, Iran may find it tough to generate much in the way of international sympathy for being the target of U.S. surveillance.

Last week, Iranian hardliners ransacked the British embassy in Tehran, prompting the United Kingdom to recall its diplomatic staff from Tehran and order Iran's embassy in London closed. Last month, the UN atomic watchdog agency issued a report raising concerns about research Iran is suspected by some nations to have conducted before 2003 on military aspects of its nuclear program. Iran has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful energy purposes. In October, the United States accused elements of Iran's Qods force of plotting to assassinate the Saudi envoy to the United States. The United Nations General Assembly voted last month in favor of a resolution condemning the Iranian plot.

Amid its growing international isolation, Iran, unsurprisingly, seemed intent to play up the drone incident for all it could.

"China, Russia want to inspect downed U.S. drone," proclaimed a headline from Iran's Mehr news agency Thursday.

The RQ-170 Sentinel, however, reportedly did not use the latest U.S. surveillance technology on board, in part because as a single-engine aircraft, it was thought more likely to occasionally go down.

"The basic principles of stealthy aircraft are fairly well known," Thompson said. "In terms of [the drone's] on-board electronics and information systems, it is fairly routine in combat to require authentication codes to make them hard to unlock."