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 ...
“It’s nice to know that our military, when they aren’t flat-out missing threats, bring up or withhold knowledge of them based on who’s in office.”
We know there weren’t any. There’s no way Xi would’ve pulled this crap while PDJT was in the White House.
I’m afraid there’s not going to be any way to change things for the better unless someone does The Unspeakable.
That’s right. I made a joke about it being launched from Alberta, but I’m only half joking.
Crap. Didn’t mean Russian balloons. Brain fart.
Thanks. I had a brain stall. Sorry.
So if they weren’t aware of them, how did they become so now?
I agree with that statement but the woke part has sped the rate of continued decline.
That’s entirely possible.
I think back to that picture of those Army soldiers in high heels - what a joke.
20 re the Canadian Air Force. Trudeau sold it on EBay for blackface money.
Total BS!
If we failed to detect these previous balloons, how do we know these were there? Kind of like if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears or sees it did it fall?
Yep. No way in hell they missed a 200 ft balloon for days.
Outrageous lies.
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