"They won't find any thing of value on this drone, I promise."
Posted on 12/18/2011 5:11:02 PM PST by Hunton Peck
WASHINGTON – A U.S. official says Iran will find it hard to exploit any data and technology aboard the captured CIA stealth drone because of measures taken to limit the intelligence value of drones operating over hostile territory.
The official also said Saturday that despite Iran's latest claims to have hijacked the RQ-170 Sentinel and brought it down near the eastern Iranian city of Kashmar, the U.S. is convinced that the drone malfunctioned.
"The Iranians had nothing to do with it," the official said.
The official, who could speak about classified matters only on condition of anonymity, did not provide details. But independent experts say the data and communications of the unmanned aircraft are heavily encrypted, making it difficult for Iran to harvest much intelligence from them. U.S. officials previously have said the drones have no self-destruct mechanism.
The RQ-170 was nicknamed "the Beast of Kandahar" because it was first spotted over Afghanistan. It was used to conduct surveillance of Osama bin Laden's Pakistani compound before he was killed in a U.S. raid.
The Christian Science Monitor on Thursday quoted an unidentified Iranian engineer as saying that Tehran seized control of the drone by exploiting a key vulnerability in its navigation system, its reliance on GPS technology to guide it home when it loses contact with U.S. controllers.
The engineer said Iran's electronic warfare specialists jammed the RQ-170's satellite communications link and tricked its autopilot into thinking that it was landing at its base in Afghanistan when it touched down in Iran.
"The GPS navigation is the weakest point," the engineer was quoted as saying. "By putting noise on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot."
U.S. officials say Iran merely picked up a drone -- or large pieces of one -- that had lost contact with its controllers...
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Is this the same “US Official” who said, “There’s no way Iran could have downed one of our drones..”
And then, a few days later, said, “Well, they couldn’t have gotten it intact..”
Did Pentagon cutbacks lead to deletion of a self-destruct explosive charge?
“Above all,” said the anonymous source, “Obama handled it perfectly. It was basically the fault of those Republican congressmen who are constantly criticizing and stonewalling our incredible President! If not for them, it never would have happened.”
no. politics led to a drain of dedicated ranking officers in the pentagon
Considering that Iran is in possession of their own fake drone, I'm not surprised.
These are the same clowns who at first said they shot it down. Now they say they hijacked the GPS system. They cannot seem to get their story straight.
The Iranians remind me of Mussolini’s Italy.
Obummer said: CAN I HAVE MY DRONE BACK.... PRETTY PLEASE!
"They won't find any thing of value on this drone, I promise."
Well duh, it’s written in English. They speak Farsi. It will take them days to translate it. //sarcasm
Hmmm. BO-The-ZerO’s spin machine is working overtime on this. Obama just needs to hire Bagdad-Bob and be done with it.
I really doubt that you’d want a “self-destruct explosive charge” on a drone which routinely flies back to home base.
Safer to have it do a wing-over and fly straight down if contact/control is lost over enemy territory.
I still find it curious that the drone somehow managed to land at an airport with no damage. Photos I have seen on the “news” show the craft to be in pristine shape. I thought the CIA or the Pentagon or the Obama regime or someone said it crashed. I am also curious as to why a super sensitive, super secret, super high tech spy plane did not have a built-in self destruct mechanism. Curious. Very curious.
After getting through the keystone cop image of the CIA, the ineptness of the military and other MSM fantasies, remember one thing. We have the best technology on the planet.
I would seriously doubt a country, who’s AF consists of F14’s with no spare parts and other obsolete weapons, as well as technology and a ideology rooted in 7th century Islam is gong to break codes or bring down an advanced system produced by US engineers.
MI Ping
Maybe, but I bet the PRC and the USSR, er, Russians won’t.
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