TrendAttack UAV squadron deployed to Iraq this week

As we report in the first story in today’s issue, the U.S. intelligence community has concluded that the strategy the Bush administration has adopted for the war on terrorism is not working very well. The three main reasons: The war in Iraq, the safe haven al Quada is enjoying in the tribal territories in northwest Pakistan, and the spread of Islamic extremism which, in turn, is tied to the war in Iraq). The Bush administration said it would wait for the mid-September report from General David Petraeus on the military and political progress in Iraq, but with regard to Pakistan there will be no such waiting period. Administration officials indicated that while they are aware of the delicate balance Pakistani president Pervez Musharaf must maintain owing to the constraints of domestic Pakistani politics, the United States has lost its patience with his government’s hands-off approach regarding the rugged, mountainous, and fiercely independent northwest territory: The Pakistani government’s policies have led to the area becoming a safe haven for al Queda leaders and operatives, and it is now being used for training and equipping terrorists in the same manner Afghanistan was used before 9/11.

The administration indicated more than saying that it was losing its patience: Sources say that the United States is going to increase its activities — mostly covert — to hunt down and kill terrorists operating inside Pakistan. Against this backdrop, we note that the first unmanned attack squadron in aviation history will arrive in Iraq this week looking to deliver 500-pound bombs and Hellfire missiles to the enemy — all from the safety of a U.S. Air Force base in Nevada. The MQ-9 Reaper, manufactured by San Diego, California-based General Atomics, can be controlled through satellite link thousands of miles away from operational areas. The planes are launched locally, in this case Iraq and Afghanistan, but can be controlled by a pilot and sensor operator sitting at computer consoles in a ground station, or they can be handed off through satellite signals to pilots and sensor operators in Nevada’s Creech Air Force Base or elsewhere.

Note that the MQ-9 Reaper is the Air Force’s first hunter-killer unmanned aircraft. It is the big brother to the successful, if controversial, Predator aircraft, which General Atomics said this week had flown more than 300,000 flight hours, with more than 80 percent