[Blood of Tyrants]

Who really needs the U2 when we have satellites?

[js1138]

Who really needs the U2 when we have satellites?

Good question, but anything you can see from 200 miles you can see ten times better from 20 miles.

[PhiKapMom]

Countries in the Middle East and other areas of the world are very good at timing when our satellites are over their areas to disguise what they are doing! U-2's are not only closer but they have no idea when they will fly over their country so Iraq cannot be hiding what they are doing from the U-2's.

[VMI70]

That's easy--Satellites are not provocative--Highly publicized U-2 flights are.

[ImphClinton]

A Predator can stay over the same area for hours. It can even fire upon targets. Satalites are either too high or only over an area every so often. They are also hindered by clouds.

I believe the U2 is wrong it is Predators we wanted flying over Iraq. This way we could keep our eyes on a building that we were going to inspect and catch them removing everything from it. Then we could follow to where they took it.

[Mr. K]

That is a mistake that idiot Carter made- he cut down funding for surveilance flights because 'we have satellites'...

The only problem is that satellites cannot see throug clouds, and fly a predictable pattern- the spy planes let you go under cloud cover and go whenever and wherever you need...

This is one of the fatal flaws that Carter and Clinton made, that will take us 20-40 years to recover from.

[GailA]

According to the History Channel saddam knew the timing of the Sats and halted movement of his equipment to fool them. Have they changed the timing schedules and gone to RANDOM searches? Thou shall NOT establish a pattern was a lesson that should have been learned after Pearl Harbor.

[rogue yam]

U2 flights go exactly where and when you want them to. Satellites are in a certain orbit and can only see what is beneath them and then only when they happen to be overhead. Also the instrumentation on a U2 can be better and is more versatile.

[pfflier]

Who really needs the U2 when we have satellites?

Other than commanded time on target, optimal sunlight angle selection, minimal parallax distortion, positive command and control and selectable sensor packaging I really can't see why a U2 is better.