US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday the US will continue to conduct intelligence operations from Afghanistan like the recent mission that led to the loss of a drone over Iran.
But the Pentagon chief and former CIA head left little doubt that the US finds Afghanistan a useful place from which to spy on its neighbor, and intends to keep at it. The operations benefit both the US and Afghanistan, Panetta said.
“These are operations that I will not discuss publicly, other than to say that part and parcel of our effort to defend this country, and to defend our country involves important intelligence operations that we will continue to pursue," he said.
The RQ-170 drone, known as the Sentinel, was lost over Iran two weeks ago. The Pentagon initially said only that it malfunctioned after being launched in western Afghanistan. But it later emerged that the drone had taken off from a base in Afghanistan and was flying a surveillance mission over Iran when it came down.
Iranian state television broadcast video of Iranians inspecting the aircraft, which was largely intact.
“Part and parcel to the effort to not only protect Afghanistan, but to protect the United States is to obtain important intelligence that allows us to be able to protect our people and to protect ours,” Panetta said during a news conference with Karzai.
Although the US is Afghanistan’s main patron, US use of Afghan soil to spy on its enemy Iran puts Karzai in a difficult position.
“Afghanistan has pledged to its neighbors the best of relationships,” Karzai added, and doesn't want to be involved in any "adversarial relations" between the US and Iran.
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