Top US commander defends delay in spy balloon shootdown
by Jamie McIntyre, Senior Writer |
February 07, 2023 09:06 AM
‘YOU’LL SEE’ … TIME FRAME WAS ‘WELL WORTH’ THE WAIT: The top general in charge of the joint U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command says when he first saw the Chinese spy balloon approaching Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, he “could not take immediate action,” because it appeared unarmed and “didn’t exhibit hostile intent.” As it passed into Canadian airspace, he had to check with the Canadian government. “I have a boss in Canada as well,” Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck told reporters at a Pentagon briefing Monday.
“It was my assessment that this balloon did not present a physical military threat to North America, this is under my NORAD hat,” VanHerck said. Once the balloon crossed into Montana, one of five midwestern states that are home to Minuteman III missile fields, the U.S. military took “maximum protective measures,” while “multiple options [were] considered and asked for at multiple levels.”
In the end, “based on safety first, and then effectiveness and being able to take the balloon down within our sovereign airspace and territorial waters,” VanHerck said it was decided that valuable intelligence could be gleaned by tracking the balloon as it was blown across the United States by the jet stream.
“This gave us the opportunity to assess what they were actually doing, what kind of capabilities existed on the balloon, what kind of transmission capabilities existed,” VanHerk said. “I think you'll see in the future that that time frame was well worth its value.”
BY THE NUMBERS: VanHerck provided some rough estimates of the size of the Chinese balloon and the scale of the recovery effort roughly six miles off the coast of South Carolina in U.S. territorial waters.
Balloon size: 200 feet tall
Payload weight: One ton, or more
Payload dimensions: About the size of a small regional jetliner
Search area: 10 miles square
Ocean depth: About 50 feet
Debris field: 15 football fields by 15 football fields (1,500 meters square)
Ships involved in recovery effort: Five vessels, including an oceanographic survey ship, three Coast Guard cutters, and at least one unmanned underwater vehicle.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/top-us-commander-defends-delay-in-spy-balloon-shootdown
