

RQ-170 Image: David Cenciotti via The Aviationist

The Pentagon is still spinning wheels around the truth, claiming The US Drone Shown On Iranian TV Was Likely Just A Model. I don’t think they are really in denial,– just not ready to face the American people and tell them their cutting edge ‘super secret’ drone, is in Iranian hands, what Martha Raddatz @ ABC characterizes as an intelligence ‘bonanza’.

Early Thursday, U.S. officials said, and ABC News reported, that the craft displayed did not appear to be the highly sensitive RQ-170 Sentinel and might be a model, in part because U.S. imagery indicated the Sentinel had not landed intact. Later, however, officials said it was possible that the Iranians had reconstructed the drone for display on television, but that the evidence was “inconclusive.” Pentagon spokesperson Capt. John Kirby said Thursday that U.S. officials were examining the footage aired in Iran for clues.

Reconstructed for display on television? That’s some talented fast paced model makers! Today the new mantra is that the photos are fueling debate over whether the drone in the photos is real. Delay, delay, delay.



Iranian MP Esmaeil Kowsari

Meanwhile in an interview with the Fars News Agency today Iranian MP Esmaeil Kowsari , Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee deputy chairman, said if the downed U.S. spy drone had been a jet fighter, “conditions in the region would have changed by now” and Iran would have “pounded all U.S. military bases across the world.”



Ambassador Mohammad Khazaii [Tehran Times]

Tehran Times is reporting that the Iranian Government has requested that the U.N. condemn the U.S. ‘for aggressive moves” violating Iran’s air space and called on the body to adopt “clear and effective measures”‘ … to “fulfill its responsibility to safeguard world peace and security“. Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Khazaii sent a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as well as General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, and Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s UN ambassador. Khazaii sent the letter on Thursday in response to the US invading its air space .

“Upon instructions from my government, I have the honor to draw your kind attention to the provocative and covert operations against the Islamic Republic of Iran by the U.S. government, which have increased and intensified in recent months,” the letter said. The letter added, “In the continuation of such trend, recently, an American RQ-170 unmanned spy plane, bearing a specific serial number, violated Iran’s airspace. “This plane (flew) 250 kilometers deep into Iranian territory up to the northern region of the city of Tabas, where it faced prompt and forceful action by the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Khazaii also wrote that Iranian government regards the U.S. provocative move as an act of hostility against Iran, which is in clear contravention of international law and the basic principles of the UN Charter.

All this against the backdrop of the US threatening draconian sanctions on Iran.