Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced at a Pentagon news conference yesterday that the US would deploy armed Predator UAS to attack Libya government forces .
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General James Cartwright said that the first Predator mission in Libya had been scheduled for Thursday night but was abandoned because of poor weather. The US military plans to maintain two patrols of armed Predators above Libya at any given time, permitting better surveillance – and targeting – of Gaddafi’s forces as they dig into positions next to civilian areas, Cartwright told the same briefing.
General Cartwright explained the benefits of unmanned, armed UAS: “…their ability to get down lower, therefore to able to get better visibility on particularly targets now that have started to dig themselves in to defensive positions,” said General Cartwright. “They’re uniquely suited for urban areas where you can get low collateral damage, and so we’re trying to manage that collateral damage, obviously, but that’s the best platform to do that with.”
The Predators are based in the region but typically flown via remote control by pilots in the US. The UAS for Libya had not been withdrawn from Afghanistan. Coalition commanders have been privately urging the Americans to provide the specialist unmanned aircraft, which have become a favoured – if controversial – weapon in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Their ability to hone in on targets using powerful night-vision cameras is considered to be one way of helping rebels in the besieged city of Misrata, where a humanitarian crisis has unfolded in the last week.
The Predator , outfitted with Hellfire missiles, has been used with effectiveness against pinpoint targets in urban and rural areas in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Yemen and is a signature weapon of the American military. Other NATO nations do not fly armed Predators, although they have unarmed versions for reconnaissance and targeting purposes, and the decision by Mr. Obama to add these weapons to the Libya operation was viewed as another example of the struggle to fill gaps in NATO’s capability to carry out a complicated, extended combat mission with significant American support.
The deployment of armed Predators, announced Thursday by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, was in part a reaction to changing tactics by the Qaddafi forces, which are intermingling with civilian populations and mounting attacks from unmarked trucks and other vehicles, making them difficult to identify and attack by high-flying NATO fighters and bombers.
“The president has said that where we have some unique capabilities, he is willing to use those,” Mr. Gates said . “And in fact he has approved the use of armed Predators,” the defence secretary added. “So I think that will give us some precision capability
Excerpt from Press Conference on BBC Website
Sources: BBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post