SIGONELLA AIR BASE: US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta on Friday acknowledged what has long been an open secret -- that the CIA deploys armed Predator drones to hunt down militants.
The US government officially declines to admit to the spy agency's drone strikes, but Panetta -- who served as Central Intelligence Agency director until taking over the Pentagon in July -- made two casual references to the CIA's use of robotic aircraft during a visit to US bases in Italy.
"Having moved from the CIA to the Pentagon, obviously I have a hell of a lot more weapons available to me in this job than I did at CIA -- although Predators aren't bad," Panetta told an audience of sailors at the US Navy's Sixth Fleet headquarters in Naples.
Later at a joint US-Italian air base in Sigonella, Panetta thanked air crews for their role in the NATO air campaign over Libya as he stood in front of a Global Hawk drone, a larger unmanned aircraft that flies at high altitude for surveillance missions.
Panetta cited the important role of drones in the Libya operation, including the Predator drones.
Predators are "something I was very familiar with in my past job," he said.
After Panetta spoke, a Predator drone took off from the base -- right on cue.
The military does not hide its own drone flights in Libya or the war in Afghanistan, in contrast to the CIA's covert missions to take out Al-Qaeda extremists in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere.
It was not the first time Panetta has made references to the drone programme, which US officials credit with severely weakening Al-Qaeda.
As CIA director, he once alluded to the drone strikes against Al-Qaeda as "the only game in town".
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011
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