Republican lawmakers pointed to the swift takedown of an unidentified object that entered U.S. airspace on Friday to support their stance that the Biden administration waited too long to shoot the Chinese spy balloon that traversed the country last week.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby did not say during a Friday afternoon briefing what the object was, only that it could have posed a risk to civilian air travel and that it was shot down as soon as it flew over Alaskan waters. Republicans and some Democrats were outraged last week when a Chinese balloon was discovered over Montana but not shot down for several days until it crossed the Atlantic Ocean near South Carolina.
WHITE HOUSE WON’T COMMIT TO SHOOTING DOWN FUTURE CHINESE SPY BALLOONS
“They just shot down an object over Alaskan frozen waters. Thank you for defending our country, but this proves all of their excuses about last week’s Chinese Spy Balloon was BS,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said on Twitter. The congresswoman said she “tore into” the Biden administration during a classified briefing Thursday about the spy balloon and “chewed them out just like the American people would’ve.”
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) tweeted Friday, “So we can shoot down suspicious objects BEFORE they get over our border… Just as I suggested.”
Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) also said the takedown proved the balloon should have been detected much sooner.
So, what we are hearing is the U.S. could have (and should have) shot down the CCP spy balloon BEFORE it spent days circulating over the U.S. https://t.co/YJLzRUiIRM
— Rep. Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) February 10, 2023
Kirby said a salvage operation for pieces of the unidentified craft is currently underway.
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“I can confirm that the Department of Defense was tracking a high-altitude object over Alaska airspace in the last 24 hours,” Kirby told reporters. “The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. Out of an abundance of caution at the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to down the object, and they did it when it came in inside our territorial waters.”
Investigators have determined from the pieces of the balloon shot down last week that its purpose was to gather intelligence, not meteorological research as China said.
