by Nikki Schwab at Daily Mail
- A top Pentagon official said the Chinese was 200-feet tall and had a payload the size of a jetliner
- Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command, divulged new details about the downed balloon on a call with reporters Monday
- The delay ‘afforded us a terrific opportunity to gain a better understanding, to study the capabilities of this balloon’ said the general
As Navy divers work to recover debris from the downed Chinese spy balloon, a top general said Monday that the U.S. is investigating whether it was carrying explosives, describing it as 200-feet tall, weighing thousands of pounds and with a payload the size of a jetliner.
‘So, I can’t confirm whether it had explosives or not. Anytime you down something like this, we make an assumption that that potential exists,’ said Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command, on a briefing call with reporters.
‘We did not associate the potential of having explosives with a threat to dropping weapons, those kinds of things, but out of a precaution, abundance of safety for not only our military people and the public, we have to make assumptions such as that.’
The general’s description followed a briefing by National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who defended President Joe Biden’s decision to wait and shoot down the Chinese craft until it was over South Carolina’s coastline on Saturday.
‘Because the president decided they wouldn’t shoot it down until he could do so safely – and that meant over water – that afforded us a terrific opportunity to gain a better understanding, to study the capabilities of this balloon,’ he told reporters on a call…
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