by Doug G. Ware at Stars and Stripe
The Chinese surveillance balloon that hovered over the United States two months ago might have picked up some intelligence from sensitive military sites, but it would be nothing more valuable than what Beijing could already collect with its satellites, the Pentagon said Monday.
“We are still doing an assessment of what, exactly, the intel was that China was able to get,” Sabrina Singh, the deputy Pentagon press secretary, told reporters at the Pentagon. “But we do know the steps we took provided little additive value for what they have been able to collect from satellites before.”
The high-altitude balloon was first spotted off the coast of Alaska in late January and later floated through parts of Canada before reaching the U.S. mainland. The airship floated from the northwestern states the across Great Plains to the southeastern states. U.S. jets shot it down on Feb. 4 when it reached the Atlantic Ocean off the South Carolina coast.
But an NBC News report Monday citing unnamed sources stated the balloon was able to collect data from sensitive military sites — including Malmstrom Air Force Base in north-central Montana — and transmit it back to China before the U.S. government could block it. The 341st Missile Wing of the Air Force Global Strike Command, which stores some of the military’s Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, is headquartered at the base…
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