The Biden administration planned to keep a Chinese spy balloon that traveled across North America this year a secret from the public and even from Congress — and only came clean after members of the public saw a large white ball over Montana, according to a damning new report.
“Before it was detected publicly, there was an intention to study it and let it pass and never tell anyone about it,” a former senior US official told NBC News Friday, nearly 11 months after the balloon penetrated American airspace and began a tortuous tour of a week to a sensitive military site.
When the North American Aerospace Defense Command saw a large spy ship enter US airspace over Alaska on January 27, commander General Glen VanHerck called General Mark Milley, President Biden’s top military adviser, to alert the administration of the alarming intrusion.
But Biden himself was not informed until January 31, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was too “focused” on a diplomatic trip to Asia to pay attention, according to several officials in the administration and Congress.
An Air Force U-2 pilot watches over a Chinese spy balloon as it soars over the continental United States on February 3. AP President Biden absolved China’s Xi Jinping of blame over the spy balloon incident, claiming the intrusion was “more shameful than intentional.” AP
“They’re not paying attention,” said a senior US official.
By then, the balloon – the size of three school buses and equipped with solar panels and a load of surveillance devices – had crossed half of Canada and re-entered the US via Montana, sending the data it collected from a military base back to Beijing.
The Biden administration kept quiet until some Americans saw the ball well over their heads.
When the Billings Gazette, a local Montana newspaper, published photos of the strange craft on February 2, the story sparked national outrage.
The spy balloon and its cargo of surveillance equipment are so large that they are easily visible from the ground. AP Two US Air Force F-22 jets shot the balloon over the Atlantic Ocean on February 4. AP
A US Air Force jet shot the balloon down over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina on February 4, after it floated clear across the continent – and members of Congress were finally fully briefed days later.
A few months later, the president tried to give Beijing an excuse for outright aggression.
“I don’t think the leadership knows where it is, and knows what’s in it, and knows what’s going on,” Biden told reporters in June.
“I think it’s more embarrassing than intentional.”
“There is no intention to keep this from Congress at any time,” a Biden administration official said, stressing that the prolonged silence was necessary to “protect the intellectual equity associated with finding and tracking” spycraft.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
