Top general admits NORAD failed to detect earlier Chinese spy balloons
“I will tell you that we did not detect those threats, [in U.S. air space] and that’s a domain awareness gap,” ~Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck
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The Air Force general charged with protecting America’s air space from hostile threats acknowledged Monday that the U.S. military failed to detect some previous incursions by Chinese spy balloons, calling it a troubling “awareness gap” that needed fixing.
“We had gaps on prior balloons,” Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck told reporters.
The comment by the North American Aerospace Defense Command commander both raised concern about NORAD’s vaunted ability to detect airspace threats and also undercut a bungled weekend effort by the Biden administration to try to suggest former President Donald Trump failed to react to three incursions on his watch.
In fact, VanHerck told reporters during a Pentagon briefing, the Trump administration wasn’t told about the incursions because NORAD missed them and that they only recently were detected after the fact by U.S. intelligence agencies.
“I will tell you that we did not detect those threats. And that’s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out,” he said, declining to be more specific about how earlier flyovers of Chinese spy balloons were missed.
He explained in general terms how the prior incursions were discovered. “The intel community, after the fact… made us aware of those balloons that were previously approaching North America or transited North America,” he said.
VanHerck said the military deliberately moved slowly on downing the the most recent spy balloon after discovering it hovering near the Aleutian Islands of Alaska on Jan. 28. He said officials determined it posed no immediate threat of attack, and allowed it to maneuver across the United States while blocking its ability to collect sensitive data so that the military could learn how it missed the earlier spy balloons and how they worked.
“We utilized multiple capabilities to ensure we collected and utilized the opportunity to close intel gaps,” he said.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the earlier incursions dating to the Trump administration were discovered because “we were able to go back and look at the historical patterns.”
The explanations are certain to raise further concerns about NORAD’s ability to detect and defend against hostile threats. While relatively old technology, air balloons have been considered by China for deploying hypersonic missiles, and by the United States for deploying drones equipped with explosives.
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(TLB) published this article with permission of John Solomon at Just the News. Click Here to read about the staff at Just the News
Header featured image (edited) credit: Gen. Glen VanHerck/Getty Images
Emphasis and pictorial content added by (TLB) editors
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Appears that they’re all CYAing now that Mattis and others could be charged with treason for not informing Trump of Chinese balloons over the U.S. during his time in office . And, for Solomon to not mention that China could use those balloons to down our nation’s power grids and all above ground electronic circuits via EMP attacks is rather surprising. That’s what many of us believe China will do prior to invading.
Everyone should read the following 2003 speech by former Chinese Defense Minister, Chi Hao Tien, where he advocates softening up the U.S. by using biological warfare to kill a couple hundred million of us; then invading and killing every American man, woman, and child, except for native Americans genetically related to the Chinese. Chinese citizens would then be brought in to repopulate the U.S.
“Chi Haotian: War Is Not Far from Us and Is the Midwife of the Chinese Century”
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/war-is-not-far-from-us-and-is-the-midwife-of-the-chinese-century.30888/
Given this most recent Chinese balloon dry run and realizing that the Chinese are unlikely to have killed a couple hundred million of us with the near future via biological warfare, taking out all of our power grids and electronic circuitry would be a logical approach just prior to invasion.
There is intel that China has been loading hundreds (if not thousands) of ships, including roll-on-roll-offs with tanks, for some sort of invasion. Taiwan might not be the end goal since China could simply blockade that country into submission.
With the U.S. military decimating its forces via forced Covid-19 “vaccination”; and, Biden decimating much of our weapon inventory by sending it to Ukraine and having the IRS purchase millions of rounds, it appears that the current U.S. administration and the Obama administration before it, have been setting us up for such an invasion.
My uncle was in NORAD back in the 50’s. They can follow Santa but Not a baaloon. There lies the problem. Lying spirits all of them. This I believe. Be Blessed.
….and if you actually believe that lie, then you haven’t learned anything over the last several years.