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United States Refuse to Share Drone Technology with Pakistan

2009-05-14 The Obama administration officials are vigorously resisting sharing the Drone technology with Pakistani security forces, a media report on Thursday said but admitted that officials from both the countries are saying "compromises are possible".

The New York Times quoted US officials as disputing a Los Angeles Times report that said Pakistan had been given joint control of armed American drones inside Pakistan.

The paper's comment are significant as US is the only country in the world to posses and operate armed Predator Drones which fire Hellfire missiles. The Americans have so far not shared this technology even with its close allies like UK and Israel.

The paper quoted American military officials as saying that there was no plan to allow the military to join the CIA in operating armed drones inside Pakistan.

But the paper said the US for the first time had provided Pakistan with a broad array of surveillance information collected by American drones flying along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

But it is not clear whether the cooperation will continue, the report said.

While American military drones flew a handful of noncombat surveillance missions along the border earlier this spring at the request of the Pakistani government, requests for additional flights abruptly stopped without explanation, the officials were quoted as saying.

The offer to give Pakistan a much larger amount of imagery, including real-time video feeds and communications intercepts gleaned by remotely piloted aircraft, was intended to help defuse a growing dispute over how to use the drones and which country should control the secret missions flown in Pakistani airspace, American officials told the Times.

American officials gave Pakistan advance word of planned Predator attacks, but stopped the practice after the information leaked to militants, the paper said.

"We're going after terrorists plotting directly against the United States and its interests," said one American counter-terrorism official. "Nobody wants to gamble with those kinds of targets.

We tried a joint approach before, and it didn't work. Those are facts that can't be ignored."

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has asked Washington for "ownership of the drone".

"Democracy doesn't believe in half measures. We have asked for the ownership of the drone," Zardari, who is in London for talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said when asked to comment on reports that US has agreed to pass control of the drone to the nuclear armed country.