U.S. gives up covert plan to retrieve drone downed in Iran: report

Πηγή: People's Daily
By Xinhua
Dec 8 2011

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- The United States had considered but finally givenup a covert mission inside Iran to retrieve or destroy a stealth drone crashed last week,for fear that such actions could provoke explosive clash with Iran, U.S. officials werequoted as saying on Wednesday.

The U.S. officials insisted that the RQ-170 drone was not shot down by Iran, instead itdeveloped mechanical difficulties and remote pilots of the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA) lost control of the unmanned aircraft, the Wall Street Journal reported.

After immediately knowing the drone had crashed in eastern Iran, U.S. officialsconsidered various options for retrieving the wreckage. Under one plan, a team wouldbe sent inside Iran to retrieve the aircraft. U.S. officials considered both sending in ateam of American commandos based in Afghanistan as well as using allied agentsinside Iran to hunt down the downed aircraft, the report said.

Another option would have had a team sneak into Iran to blow up the remaining piecesof the drone. A third option would have been to destroy the wreckage with an airstrike.

But, the officials ultimately gave up the mission to retrieve or destroy the drone, fearingthey would have risked discovery by Iran. If an assault team entered the country, theU.S. "could be accused of an act of war" by the Iranian government, the officials werequoted as saying.

The RQ-170 drone is an unmanned aircraft which has been used for reconnaissanceand surveillance by the U.S. in Afghanistan.

Despite the Iranian claims, the U.S. officials denied that the drone was brought down byIran, either through hacking its satellite link or by shooting it down.

U.S. officials are concerned that the craft's falling into Iranian hands could lead tosecurity breach, although they said the aircraft's technology cannot be reverseengineered with ease.