U.S. official: Iran does have our drone

A U.S. official tells CBS News that there is "high confidence" that a captured American aircraft shown on Iranian television today is, in fact, one of this country's most sophisticated spy planes.

The Pentagon declined to comment, but the American official says analysis of the video confirms the RQ-170 unmanned drone was captured. Exactly how that happened is still being analyzed.

CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports that the aircraft presented as the unmanned U.S. surveillance drone appeared to be nearly intact, though the undercarriage was obscured by propaganda banners draped below the wings.

The message on the left proclaimed, "America cannot do any harm to us." And on the right, against a background of American flags and skulls, the message read: "We have trampled on America."

U.S. officials - still studying the video - are convinced the aircraft is the stealth drone reported lost over the weekend. But, the Pentagon declined comment, with spokesman George Little citing intelligence concerns.

"We did have a UAV go missing, but when it comes to sensitive reconnaissance missions, we call them sensitive for a reason," Little said.

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Military officials originally said controllers lost contact with an RQ-170 drone as it flew over Western Afghanistan. However, sources say the spy plane was actually on an intelligence-gathering mission deep inside Iran.

The stealth drones, capable of sending back real-time streaming video, have been used for several years to monitor Iran's nuclear sites and search for other covert operations.

U.S. officials have denied Iran's shifting claims that the drone was either shot down or commandeered by a cyber attack.

But, the displayed aircraft showed no signs of a crash impact, meaning it came down in a relatively flat, controlled descent. U.S. officials cannot explain how the plane landed apparently undamaged.

Iran appeals to the U.N. on downed drone, calls surveillance an "act of provocation"

Iran now says it will exploit its propaganda prize by reverse engineering the classified systems and sensors. But weapons expert Joseph Cirincione says that may prove difficult.

"You can get dimensions, you can get chemical composition, but it's very hard to duplicate the performance of the parts you're trying to reverse engineer," Cirincione says.

Still, the U.S. is clearly concerned secrets could be compromised. Sources say officials considered launching a mission to either recover or destroy the downed drone, but ultimately concluded there was no workable option.

While getting much out of the downed plane will be difficult, the Iranians can glean details about the aircraft's mechanisms and sensors, and, worse perhaps, share that with Russia or China.

This photo released on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, claims to show the chief of the aerospace division of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, left, listening to an unidentified colonel as he points to US RQ-170 Sentinel drone which Tehran says its forces downed earlier this week.

/ AP Photo/Sepahnews

[Regtas]

So NOW where are our heroic Navy Seals?

...or do they just to carry out government sanctioned mob hits on unarmed families asleep in their homes?

[Jrow81]

Hopefully when the bombing over Iran begins, we can destroy the drone together with their country.

[SalthePlumber]

Why isnt there a Fail-Safe device to destroy these secret spy planes? With all of this technology, there should be an auto function to blow this thing to bits...

[foo8259]

Maybe we can get it back with a secret guns for drones deal?

[john3347]

Do we not have some kind of self-destruct capabilities built into our spy equipment to be prepared for such an incident as this? How can our intelligence community be so short-sighted?

[Zann-Zel]

EmpireGeorge___-- December 9, 2011 12:38 PM EST
Zann-Zel, I think art imitates life, because life doesn't imitate anything, it just is what it is....it can't imitate anything, because it has no thought or reason or the ability to copy, it's just life.
-------------------
Life does imitate Art every day. Everytime a kid sees something "cool" on TV and tries to do it himself. Like a kid that watches superman then tries to jump off the house! Or a kid that catches the cigarette commercials then thinks smoking is cool so he does it too. The question is does that go all the way up to someone watching Mission Impossible or James Bond and coming up with an idea how to get our drone back!

[Zann-Zel]

LOL...and if you think Art imitates life, then you're saying movies about spys stealing things from other countries could only be made after it had been done! ; )

[RizzRazz]

"Surely...it cant be that difficult"
Yeah sure..being the genius that you are you can show the C.I.A how to do it.

From reading all these comments..its really absurd..you expect the Iranians to be intelligent enough to have the more sophisticated Nuclear weapons and technology...yet so stupid ..maybe because "brown" people out to be, they can't master the finer points of avionics and wireless communication and interception.

Its very unlikely that there was no self destruct, if it wasn't there ..it goes to show that C.I.A and pentagon chaps as usual arrogantly thought the "stealth" plane could never get into enemy hands.
The Iranians intercepted the bloody spy plane., the US tax payer is down a few Million dollars..deal with it..they will probably sale the tech to Russia and China..in exchange for help with their nuclear program. So the U.S has done most of the R&D for them.

[parisdakar]

And we wonder why Iran is so beligerent? Imagine our reaction if we found some Iranian spy plane flying around DC? I love this country 100%, but we seem to be goofing up royally lately. Maybe we need to take a step back and rethink our foreign relations.

[foo8259]

If they do indeed have one, it must have had a major malfunction. ECM can fry transmission equipment/block signals, but shouldn't affect it's internal "homing pigeon" feature -- like a horse knows its way back to the stable after you hit a limb and get knocked off. Anyway I would think a simple mechanical booby trap, such as thermite (used to deny military weapons enemy capture) could melt the drones guts if/when someone unauthorized opened the hatch before disarming it?

[noloyalisti]

That's what happens when rogue terrorist countries like America spy on third world countries that our oil corporations want to take over using our taxpayer money.