Posted on 02/06/2023 4:34:06 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Article Dig In The Air Force general charged with protecting America's air space from hostile threats acknowledged Monday that the U.S. military failed to detect some previous incursions by Chinese spy balloons, calling it a troubling "awareness gap" that needed fixing.
"We had gaps on prior balloons," Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck told reporters.
The comment by the North American Aerospace Defense Command commander both raised concern about NORAD's vaunted ability to detect airspace threats and also undercut a bungled weekend effort by the Biden administration to try to suggest former President Donald Trump failed to react to three incursions on his watch.
In fact, VanHerck told reporters during a Pentagon briefing, the Trump administration wasn't told about the incursions because NORAD missed them and that they only recently were detected after the fact by U.S. intelligence agencies.
"I will tell you that we did not detect those threats. And that's a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out," he said, declining to be more specific about how earlier flyovers of Chinese spy balloons were missed.
He explained in general terms how the prior incursions were discovered. "The intel community, after the fact... made us aware of those balloons that were previously approaching North America or transited North America," he said.
VanHerck said the military deliberately moved slowly on downing the the most recent spy balloon after discovering it hovering near the Aleutian Islands of Alaska on Jan. 28. He said officials determined it posed no immediate threat of attack, and allowed it to maneuver across the United States while blocking its ability to collect sensitive data so that the military could learn how it missed the earlier spy balloons and how they worked.
(Excerpt) Read more at justthenews.com ...
This is the briefing
“Q: Thank you. And on the prior balloons, was NORTHCOM involved in tracking the balloon that was at the early stage of the Biden Administration and also the three that transited during the Trump Administration, and what can you tell us about those that were different?
Thank you.
GEN. VANHERCK: So those balloons, so every day as a NORAD commander it’s my responsible to — responsibility to detect threats to North America. I will tell you that we did not detect those threats. And that’s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out. But I don’t want to go in further detail.
The intel community, after the fact, I believe has been briefed already, assess those threats to additional means of collection from additional means and made us aware of those balloons that were previously approaching North America or transited North America. I hope that answers your question.”
This is what was posted by DOD yesterday
“Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years. Once the balloon was detected, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information.”
screw it...
Look at this contradiction
Re:explosives
Yeah, so I can’t confirm whether it had explosives or not. Anytime you down something like this, we make an assumption that that potential exists. We did not associate the potential of having explosives with a threat to dropping weapons, those kinds of things, but out of a precaution, abundance of safety for not only our military people and the public, we have to make assumptions such as that. I hope that answers your questions.
Q: So — so just important clarification here: You didn’t have a reason to think there were explosives. You just — this was out of an abundance of caution, and you thought it might potentially have them, so you had to be careful. Is that correct, or did you have reason to believe there were explosives?
GEN. VANHERCK: I would say it was the prior. I did not have any corroboration or confirmation of explosives on this platform. That was an — an assessment that we wanted just to make sure for safety purposes
——
Q: Yeah. And could you answer the question about whether there was a warhead in the missile?
GEN. VANHERCK: Yeah, absolutely. There was a warhead in the missile. You can see that explosion on TV as it goes through the lower part of the balloon and right there through the superstructure.
Look at 41 & 43 - he’s full of contradictions
They keep trying to come up with something people will believe.
Talking to a couple of my friends who are still in the NAVY, they said I wouldn’t believe how low morale currently is. The next couple of years will be terrible for the military because of what they will have to do to maintain their current troop level.
Sure I believe that. NORAD can follow Santa’s sleigh but not Chicom spy balloons that are as long as 3 school buses.
The military should not be commenting on our detection capabilities in publc.
If the military failed to detect a balloon transiting the USA, anywhere in the USA, years ago, how can that be proven? It’s not like a balloon leaves a permanent scratch mark across the sky.
Oh, please, enough of the woke.
Operational failures have been occurring long before woke.
NORAD literally has one job, and they failed at it.
Well done, Billthedrill, well done. Thanks for clearing that up.
Russian balloons ? Nah, dees here are Chinese 🇨🇳
They looked at the schedule silly !
USAF probably gets a memo from JCS to ignore any and all balloons that may or may not be loitering across the continent on such such dates. The balloons arrive promptly , like clockwork apparently , as the “story” unfolds. /s (I think)
What ... you actually believe this???
What a sad sack. An Air Force General having to swallow his pride and throw his own people under the bus to cover for a lie.
I think they didn’t detect them because it never happened. It’s all for public consumption. They’re lying.
So.... they actually did not happen.
If this is the case how much stuff has China and Russia flown over the US undetected over the past decade?
What do you bet they never happened at all.
People, not the military but regular people looked up and saw the balloon. At any time in the US there are thousands of people scanning the sky. And they talk to each other. If it happened before... show me the Twitter posts.
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