[LINK] Talking about drones ....

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Bernard notes,

> http://www.dilbert.com/2014-01-28


Speaking of Predator and Reaper drones ..

<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/world/asia/afghanistan-exit-is-seen-as-
peril-to-drone-mission.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20140127&_r=1> 
(snip)


WASHINGTON — The risk that President Obama may be forced to pull all 
American troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the year has set off 
concerns inside the American intelligence agencies that they could lose 
their air bases used for drone strikes against Pakistan ..

If Mr. Obama ultimately withdrew all American troops from Afghanistan, the 
C.I.A.’s drone bases in the country would have to be closed, according to 
administration officials, because they could no longer be protected.

The official added that the administration was determined to find 
alternatives, if necessary. 

“We will be forced to adapt,” the official said, “and while perhaps less 
than most efficient, the United States will find ways necessary to protect 
our interests.”

Mr. Obama has made “no decisions” on troop levels, said Caitlin M. Hayden, 
the spokeswoman for the National Security Council. 

“We will be weighing inputs from our military commanders, as well as the 
intelligence community, our diplomats and development experts, as we make 
decisions about our-post 2014 presence in Afghanistan,” she said.

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, however, Mr. Obama is 
expected to say that by the end of this year the Afghan war will be over — 
at least for Americans — slightly more than 13 years after it began, making 
it the longest war in American history.

Mr Obama’s hope is to keep 8,000 to 12,000 troops — most of them Americans, 
some from allies — in Afghanistan after the NATO combat mission ends this 
year. 

In recent years Pakistan has accelerated its drive to build small tactical 
nuclear weapons — similar to what the United States placed in Europe during 
the Cold War — that could be used to repel an invasion from India. 

But those weapons are considered more vulnerable to theft or use by a rogue 
commander, and they are one reason that American intelligence agencies have 
invested so heavily in monitoring the Pakistani arsenal.

A scare in 2009, when the United States feared that nuclear materials or a 
weapon was missing in Pakistan, led Mr. Obama to order the basing of a 
permanent monitoring and search capability in the region.

But the complexities of bringing those capabilities to an end are forcing 
the intelligence agencies, which run the covert strikes into Pakistan, to 
scramble. 

Their base inside Pakistan was closed after the raid into Pakistani 
territory that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. Crucial to the surveillance 
of Bin Laden’s house in Abbottabad was the use of an RQ-170 drone. 

Pakistani officials talked openly in the weeks after that raid about their 
fear that the unmanned aircraft was also being used to monitor their 
nuclear arsenal, now believed to be the fastest growing in the world. 

The raid, and those drones, came out of American facilities just over the 
Afghan border.

“You hear about the president’s decision of the ‘zero option’ in the 
context of the future of Afghanistan, but this is really more about 
Pakistan,” said one former senior intelligence official who has consulted 
with the Pentagon and intelligence agencies about the problem. 

“That’s where the biggest problem is.”

The C.I.A.’s drone bases in Afghanistan, including one in the eastern part 
of the country, allow operators to respond quickly to fresh intelligence. 

The proximity to Pakistan’s tribal areas also allows the Predator drones 
and their larger, faster cousin, the Reaper, to fly longer missions without 
having to return to base.

“There certainly is an interdependence between the military and the 
intelligence community in Afghanistan,” one senior administration official 
said.

The Reapers, the newest, largest and most capable of the unmanned armed 
vehicles, have a range of up to 1,100 miles. That puts Pakistan’s tribal 
areas within range of some bases the American military has flown from, 
especially in Kyrgyzstan, where for more than a decade the Pentagon has 
conducted air operations out of a base at Manas. 

But the United States said last fall that it would pull out of that base in 
July.

Other allied countries are within the Reaper’s range in the Persian Gulf, 
for example. 

But the distances would be too great to carry out drone operations 
effectively, officials said, and it is very unlikely that any of those 
nations would approve launching the diplomatically sensitive strikes 
missions from their soil.

“There’s no easy alternative to Afghanistan,” one former senior American 
counterterrorism official said.


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