Brian Williams - Predators

In addition to bases in Turkey, Sicily, Afghanistan, and (potentially once again) Pakistan, drones will be launched from forward staging bases that some advisers are calling “lily pad bases.” These bases include those currently found in Camp Lemonier, Djibouti, and Arba Minch, Ethiopia. 11Similar new bases may be built in Jordan and Turkey to help monitor Iraq and in the Seychelles Islands of the eastern coast of Africa to hunt Somali pirates. 12President Obama also authorized the building of a new secret drone base in the Rub al Khali Desert in eastern Saudi Arabia to carry out strikes on AQAP. 13In response to the takeover of northern Mali by extremists from Ansar Dine, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and allied Tuareg rebels in the winter of 2012–2013, the president called for the creation of a drone base in Niamey, the capital of neighboring Niger. 14Obama’s most recent defense budget calls for funding for the construction of an “afloat forward staging base,” that is, a launching pad for drones and special operations units that can be sailed around the world to potential hot spots. 15This base could park offshore and send CIA or JSOC drones into nearby countries to kill targets without having to ask the local government for permission.

The U.S. intelligence community keeps its plans more secret than the military, but these drone basing trends certainly reflect the CIA’s drone future as well. In fact, their drones have already flown from lily pad bases in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and perhaps elsewhere. The CIA division that controls the drones, the Counterterrorism Center, has grown from three hundred employees to two thousand since 9/11 and now represents about 10 percent of the agency’s workforce. 16Thus the CIA, which once focused more on espionage, will doubtless continue to carry out is counterterrorism drone operations in all the previously described contexts.

THE DRONE REVOLUTION

Whether one supports the drone strikes or is opposed to them, there is no doubt that drones are here to stay. A few facts about drones will make their permanence abundantly clear:

■ In 2000 the United States had just fifty drones. Today almost one in three U.S. warplanes is a drone. That translates to approximately 7,500 drones in the U.S. fleet. The majority of them (5,346) are Ravens, a small hand-launched surveillance drone used by the army. 17Nearly every brigade that fought in Iraq or Afghanistan had a Raven for “look down” or “overwatch” surveillance purposes.

■ In October 2012 the CIA asked the White House for ten more drones to add to its already existing fleet of as many as thirty-five. There has been discussion of deploying these additional drones in North Africa against al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, against militants in post-Gaddafi Libya, and in the vast expanses of northern Mali that were briefly conquered by al Qaeda–linked militants in the winter of 2012–2013. 18

■ Since 2005 patrols by drones have increased 1,200 percent. 19

■ The Air Force trained more drone pilots in 2011 than regular pilots. 20More than half of all undergraduate pilot training graduates are assigned to pilot drones rather than manned aircraft. 21Since 2008 the number of Air Force drone pilots has grown fourfold to eighteen hundred. 22

■ In nine years the Pentagon has increased its drone fleet thirteen-fold and is spending $5 billion a year adding to it. 23

■ A recent Defense Department plan calls for a 30 percent increase in the size of the U.S. drone fleet in coming years. 24

■ In August 2011 the United States revealed it would be investing around $23 billion in advancing its drone program. This at a time of steep military cutbacks. 25

■ Since 2001 the military has spent more than $26 billion on drones. 26

■ Globally over the next decade more than $94 billion is expected to be spent on drone research and procurement. 27

■ British military officials have said that almost one-third of Royal Air Force aircraft will be drones in twenty years. 28

■ More than fifty countries have built or bought drones. Even the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah has used Iranian-built drones. Many observers are worried about a future drone arms race that will see countries other than the United States hunting down their enemies with remote-control planes. 29

■ The UK has developed a $225 million jet-propelled drone capable of hitting targets on other continents. Known as the Taranis, it was named after the Celtic god of thunder. 30Unlike the ungainly Predator and Reaper, the stealth technology–equipped Taranis has an internal bomb bay that can carry a wide array of weapons.

■ In March 2013 General Atomic Aeronautical Systems agreed to sell $197 million worth of drones to the United Arab Emirates, in the first sale of drones to a non-NATO member. The unarmed version of the Predator is to be known as the Predator XP and will be used for surveillance missions. 31

■ The Pentagon intends to spend approximately $37 billion on a variety of drones including the MQ-9 Reaper and the Global Hawk, a high-flying drone spy plane. 32

■ The U.S. military currently has sixty-five advanced MQ-9 Reapers, and it plans to receive four hundred more of them. 33

■ The U.S. military has procured more than 250 MQ-1 Predator drones. 34

■ The 2011 defense budget sought funds for a 75 percent increase in drone operations. 35

■ The military plans to buy more than eighty Global Hawk surveillance drones, which cost $141 million per aircraft. 36

■ The U.S. Navy is developing a carrier-based jet drone known as the X-47B, which can fly ten times farther than manned planes and defend aircraft carriers from threats such as “carrier killer” missiles. 37

■ The United States recently launched a surveillance drone, known as the Phantom Eye, that can remain aloft for four days gathering intelligence. 38

■ The U.S. Air Force is developing nanodrones, such as the Wasp, that weigh less than a pound and can fly to a thousand feet. The Air Force has also planned Project Anubis (named for the Egyptian god of death) to build small killer drones that weigh less than a pound. The small drones will be used to terminate HVTs and could one day fly in swarms against an enemy. 39

■ The U.S. Army recently developed a small backpack-size drone, known as the Switchblade. This kamikaze aircraft carries explosives that can be launched from a tube, loiters in the sky, and dives at targets upon command. 40

■ China unveiled twenty-five new drone models at an air show in 2011, and Iran claims to have two drones, known as “messengers of death,” that are capable of long-range missions. 41

■ By late 2011 U.S. drones had logged 2.7 million hours of flight with the majority of that time (87 percent) being flown in combat. 42

■ The U.S. Army has developed a surveillance drone that can be flown by the crew of an Apache AH-64D Longbow attack helicopter to help it find its targets on the ground. 43

■ Predator drones are already being used to monitor the U.S.-Mexican border. Recently a Mexican police drone crashed in the United States. 44

■ America has already experienced its first attempt by a terrorist to use a drone to carry out a terrorist act. In September 2011 Rezwan Ferdaus was arrested in the Boston area after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) found him plotting to use seven-foot remote-control toy planes loaded with C-4 plastic explosives to blow up the Pentagon and other targets in Washington, DC. 45

■ Palestinian sources say more than eight hundred people have been killed by Israeli drone strikes in the Gaza strip in recent years. 46

■ The U.S. Air Force has begun purchasing a new jet drone known as the Predator C, or Avenger, that will allow it to deliver munitions to a target at a much faster speed than the propeller-driven Predators and Reapers in its current fleet. The Avenger carries even more ammunition than the Reaper. 47