U.S. still has options for drones if denied use of Pakistani bases - Washington Times#pagebreak#pagebreak#pagebreak#pagebreak#pagebreak: "U.S. military forces will still be able to target al Qaeda terrorists in mountainous Southwest Asia with remotely piloted drones based in Afghanistan should Pakistan’s government deny the use of its territory to launch attacks.
Col. Dean Bushey, deputy director of the Army’s Joint Unmanned Aircraft Systems Center of Excellence, told an international-relations conference Wednesday that U.S. Reaper and Predator aircraft could still reach the “mountainous regions” of Pakistan without being based in that country.
“Our assets from Afghanistan have a long enough flight time to do it,” he told the conference, sponsored by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
In a subsequent interview with The Washington Times, he elaborated that “mountainous regions” referred to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, effectively a no man’s land and the place terrorism scholars think Osama bin Laden is likeliest to be.
Pakistan’s leadership last week demanded that the CIA provide more information on covert operations in their country and demanded that all military contractors leave, according to Pakistani and U.S. news reports.
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