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UK/USA: RAF using drones in Iraq

01 August 2004

The Sunday Times newspaper has reported that Royal Air Force officers have joined a team of US pilots "in the desert in Las Vagas that is flying and firing missiles from unmanned Predator spy planes more than 7,000 miles away in Iraq." The report says that the British airmen are deployed at the Nellis base in Las Vagas and at Balad, near Baghdad, which oversees the takeoff and landing of the drones. The Predators are used to provide information on coalition targets for conventional aircraft and are capable of firing missiles themselves. The US commander of the Predator operations at Balad, Kurt Schieble, told the paper that it "was cheaper and more efficient to base pilots far from the combat zone. "When I'm back in Nellis I can fly a mission over Iraq with the Predator, and then take my children home"". The 18-hour flights are controlled using a satellite link between the bases in the USA and Iraq and when the drone identifies a target it can either destroy it with its own Hellfire missiles or alert other aircraft. However, the growing use of US air power - currently standing at about 1,300 strike missions a month - to quell the uprising against coalition forces has led to widespread concern about the number of civilian casualties.

Sunday Times 3.10.04.