Newest Manned Spy Plane Scores Points In War Effort -- USA Today
Coupled with use of drones, intelligence soars.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is increasingly relying on its latest addition of aircraft in efforts to gain more intelligence on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, records show.
Rather than an unmanned drone, the MC-12 Liberty is a four-person, twin-engine propeller plane based on a civilian aircraft used around the world.
Since Defense Secretary Robert Gates rushed the planes into service June 2009, the intelligence gathered by MC-12 crews has helped capture dozens of insurgents, disrupt networks that produce improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and discover such bombs before they could kill U.S. troops, according to information the Air Force declassified for USA TODAY.
Read more ....
My Comment: The line that I will remember from this story was what the author sysd at the end ....
Johnson interviewed, researched and wrote a paper for the Air Force exploring whether drones or manned planes were better at spying on insurgents.
"It turned out that we need both," he said in an e-mail.
Hmmmm .... Nuff said.
No comments:
Post a Comment