President Biden has ordered not to shoot it down because “it poses no military or physical threat to people on the ground”
The Pentagon reported on Thursday that the U.S. military has been tracking a suspected Chinese spy balloon at high altitudes over continental United States airspace in recent days. “The United States has detected a high-altitude surveillance balloon and is currently tracking it over the mainland United States,” said Pentagon spokesman General Pat Ryder.
Ryder has also specified that the balloon “poses no military or physical threat to people on the ground”, stating that “it is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic”, although he has not specified where it is located . would find, as reported by CNN.
In this sense, it has communicated that the US military has decided not to shoot it down from the air. The artifact was sighted Wednesday over Billings, Montana. It would also have flown over the Aleutian Islands (Alaska) through Canada and into Montana.
For its part, a senior defense official has specified that the balloon has “limited value” with regard to intelligence gathering “beyond what the People’s Republic of China can do through other means,” as reported by NBC News. .
In particular, the US Department of Defense believes that Chinese spy satellites in low Earth orbit are capable of providing comparable or better intelligence, limiting the value of what Beijing can glean from the high-altitude balloon, which is the size of three buses, according to what another defense official told CNN.
However, the US Executive has explained that instances of this activity have been observed in recent years, even before the current administration.
United States President Joe Biden has ordered not to bring down the Chinese balloon after being advised to do so by senior defense officials in his executive branch.
Senior officer in the US Armed Forces and President Biden’s top military adviser Mark Milley advised not to shoot down the balloon because it posed no military threat, insisting that the administration acted “immediately” to guard against the collection of confidential information, as collected by CNN.
Meanwhile, Montana, where the balloon was sighted, is home to underground fields of Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile silos, a potential target for Chinese espionage.
Source: La Verdad
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