[Article] Senator says briefing claimed drones could hit US

Victor

I'd love to seee evidence of this, the largest reported drone aircraft the Iraqi are publicly known to have had were converted L29(?) jet trainers with a maximum range of about 750km. In theory capable hitting Israel, but in practice they would have lost control once they passed the radio horizon. Note that it is only in recent years that the United States has gained a global drone capability.

google, your friend

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2003/12/17/story126158.html

Senator says briefing claimed drones could hit US
17/12/2003 - 7:34:47 pm

The Bush Administration told senior politicians before the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein had developed drones which could strike the east coast of the US with weapons of mass destruction, a Senator has claimed.

Democrat Bill Nelson said he was among around 75 Senators who received the classified briefing shortly before a Congressional vote last October, which authorised the removal of Saddam by force.

He said the Senators were told that Iraq had developed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) which could dump biological or chemical agents, including anthrax, on east coast cities, including Washington and New York.

“They have not found anything that resembles an UAV that has that capability,” Nelson said in a conference-call press briefing, reported by the Florida Today newspaper.

The Tallahassee Senator said the intelligence contradicted other reports senators had received before the war.

“If that is an intelligence failure… we better find that out so we don’t have an intelligence failure in the future,” he said.

The White House directed questions about the matter to the Department of Defence, which declined to comment.

President Bush referred to UAVs, otherwise known as drones, during a speech in October last year.

He warned of a “grave threat” from a “growing fleet” of the vehicles which might be used to carry out a September 11-style attack.

He said: “We have also discovered that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas.

“We are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using UAVs for missions targeting the United States.”

But Senator Nelson said the classified briefing went further, warning that Iraq had actually developed ways of hitting the eastern seaboard with drones.

bonkey

Well, any functional drone is "capable of hitting the eastern coast of the United States". Its just a question of where you launch it from...

I'm not being as silly as it might sound.....the obvious response which one would expect is for someone to clarify that they never intended people to understand it meant "...launched from Iraq", but rather "...transported here, and used against us".

Bit like the whole "no, no, we never said that there was proof Saddam was in league with bin Laden" thing really. Should this become an issue, I'm sure it will be another one where the Whitehouse administration play the "not our fault you misunderstood the truth in exactly the way we wanted you to".

The drone that I remember seeing on the news wasn't even a converted trainer. It was more like a kit plane, made from balsa wood and (I think) a lawnmower engine.