Drones in Iraq now armed

Earlier this week, we read that the Pentagon claims that they were flying a few dozen missions over Iraq of manned and unmanned aircraft which were unarmed and “predominantly for reconnaissance purposes”. Yesterday they admitted that they are now arming the drones for “force protection” now that Americans have arrived.

“I would also tell you that we get paid to plan and prepare. The president has made no decisions about the use of kinetic force in Iraq, but it would be irresponsible for us not to be planning and preparing and thinking and to be ready in case he should make that decision,” [Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John] Kirby said.

The Iraqi government has called on the U.S. to bomb ISIL fighters. But U.S. officials have said more intelligence gathering was needed before the military would be able to effectively carry out such attacks. Obama has indicated that airstrikes are an option.

According to the Washington Post, e should bank on drones, though. They obtained a FOIA on drone accidents and there have been more than 400 since 2001;

Since the outbreak of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, military drones have malfunctioned in myriad ways, plummeting from the sky because of mechanical breakdowns, human error, bad weather and other reasons, according to more than 50,000 pages of accident investigation reports and other records obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act.

Yeah, see that’s the downside of gravity, just because something is supposed to fly, it doesn’t always. It’s better to have unmanned aircraft crash than the alternative, but obviously it’s not something that we can depend on to be the center of our strategy.

Oh, by the way, remember how there was only 300 troops going to Iraq earlier this week? Well, now it’s 500, according to UPI‘s count;

Pentagon spokesman Col. Steven Warren said, of the 500 American military personnel in Iraq, “Some of them are conducting an advise and assist mission, some are manning the joint operations center, some of them are part of the [Office of Security Cooperation] and yet others are Marines that are part of a [fleet anti-terrorism security team] platoon.”

Yeah, I’m just letting the Pentagon know that someone is keeping count out here.

Category: Terror War