Iran claims to have built "worlds first tilt-rotor drone."

Note: an article published on Iran's Ettelatt International website claims the Iranian military has succeeded in building "The world's first VTOL drone. Apparently Iran has never heard of Eagle Eye. 

TEHRAN - Iranian experts have succeeded in producing the world’s first vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drone, which will be unveiled in the near future. 


This Iranian drone enjoys ultra-advanced technology and has been manufactured for the first time in the world, an Iranian expert in the research team in charge of building the drone, Abbas Jam, told Mehr news agency on Saturday. 

He added that the drone would be tested on Saturday and would be unveiled during the 10-Day Dawn celebrations, which will begin on January 31, marking the 34th anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. 
He noted that the hushed drone does not require runways at all and can take off and land vertically.

Jam added that NASA has confirmed the manufacturing of this unmanned aerial vehicle and its information. 

Iranian researchers have recently designed and built a new radar-evading drone, named Liko, with the capacity of carrying 100 kg of cargo for 100 kilometers. 

It is also capable of non-stop flights for three hours. The 53-kg UAV can fly at an altitude of 16,000 feet and requires the shortest landing runway length. 
Karrar, Iran’s first indigenous long-range drone unveiled in August 2010, is capable of carrying a military payload of rockets to carry out bombing missions against ground targets, flying long distances at a very high speed, and gathering information. 

The country’s indigenous unmanned aerial vehicle, Shahed 129, unveiled in September 2012, can carry out combat and reconnaissance missions with its 24-hour nonstop flight capability.

Iran fires on US Drone

WASHINGTON -- An Iranian attack aircraft fired at least twice at an unarmed U.S. drone conducting routine surveillance in international airspace over the Persian Gulf, the Pentagon said Thursday. The aircraft missed and the drone returned to base unharmed.

The shooting in the Gulf, which occurred just before 5 a.m. EDT on Nov. 1, was unprecedented, Pentagon press secretary George Little said. The incident was not disclosed sooner because the military does not discuss classified surveillance missions, but agreed to answer questions after news reports revealed the shooting.

Little said the drone was about 16 miles off the Iranian coast when the Russian-made SU-25 Frogfoot warplane intercepted it and opened fire. He said it was the first time an unmanned U.S. aircraft was shot at in international airspace over the Gulf.

"Our aircraft was never in Iranian air space. It was always flying in international air space," Little told Pentagon reporters. "The United States has communicated to the Iranians that we will continue to conduct surveillance flights over international waters over the Arabian Gulf, consistent with longstanding practice and our commitment to the security of the region."

According to the Pentagon, the Iranian war plane made at least two passes by the slower-moving drone, firing "multiple rounds."

Little said that once the Predator drone came under fire, it began to move further out and the Iranian aircraft continued to pursue it "for some period of time before letting it return to base." The Iranian plane did not follow the drone all the way back to its base, Little said, declining to say where that base was.

He said there was no other U.S. aircraft nearby that could respond to the attack, and added that the U.S. believes Iran was trying to shoot the drone down.

This is the second incident involving a U.S. drone and Iran.

In December 2011 a U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel drone equipped with stealth technology was captured in eastern Iran. Tehran claims it brought down the aircraft, but U.S. officials said the drone malfunctioned and had to land.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY AT HUFF POST

Israel almost attacked Iran - in 2010

NYTIMES JERUSALEM — An Israeli news channel reported Sunday night that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak asked the Israeli military in 2010 to prepare for an imminent attack on the Iranian nuclear program, but that their efforts were blocked by concerns over whether the military could do so and whether the men had the authority to give such an order.

The report, by the respected investigative journalist Ilana Dayan, came in the form of a promotional preview for an hourlong documentary about Israel’s decision-making process regarding Iran, which is scheduled to be broadcast Monday night. Ms. Dayan said on the channel’s evening newscast on Sunday that Mr. Netanyahu, in a meeting with a small circle of top ministers, turned to Gabi Ashkenazi, the head of the Israeli Defense Forces at the time, and told him to “set the systems for P-plus,” a term meaning that an operation would start soon.

Mr. Ashkenazi and Meir Dagan, who was the head of the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad, at the time, would later say that this was an attempt at “stealing a war,” Ms. Dayan reported, because in their view such an order required a decision of the full cabinet, not the smaller group in the meeting, who were then known as the forum of seven.

Both Mr. Ashkenazi, who is now retired, and Mr. Dagan, who stepped down after the meeting, have become vocal critics of plans for a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran, and of Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak’s aggressive approach.

Ms. Dayan said in the preview report on Sunday that the issue deepened a divide in Israel’s top echelon.

Mr. Ashkenazi was quoted saying of the P-plus order: “This is not something you do unless you are certain you want to execute at the end. This accordion will make music if you keep playing it.” But Mr. Barak told Ms. Dayan that “it is not true that creating a situation where the I.D.F. and the country’s operational systems are, for a few hours or for a few days, on alert to carry out certain operations means the state of Israel is compelled to act.”

“Eventually, at the moment of truth, the answer that was given was that, in fact, the ability did not exist,” Mr. Barak said in the clip that was shown on Sunday.

Ms. Dayan said in an interview Sunday night that she learned about the 2010 order from more than two people who attended the meeting, but she declined to name them. Mr. Barak essentially confirmed what she had learned in his interviews with Ms. Dayan, saying that such an order can always be reversed, something Mr. Ashkenazi and Mr. Dagan dispute.

The full report is scheduled for broadcast on the eve of the American elections, and could reopen the rift between Washington and Jerusalem over how best to stop Iran from obtaining an atomic bomb. The Obama administration spent much of the year pressing Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak to hold back on military action against Iran in favor of severe sanctions and intense diplomacy, though the issue receded somewhat after Mr. Netanyahu said in a speech to the United Nations on Sept. 27 that the moment of truth would come next spring or summer, not in 2012.

If the account in the documentary is correct, the episode came at a critical time. That summer, a lengthy effort by the United States and Israel to undermine Iran’s capability to enrich uranium using cyberweapons had threatened to unravel. The effort, code-named Olympic Games, had two goals: to slow the Iranians, and to provide Israel with an alternative to military action, which President Obama feared could start another war in the Middle East. It was partly exposed when a cyberworm found its way out of the Natanz enrichment plant, where it had destroyed or forced out of service nearly 1,000 centrifuges, and began to spread across the world.

In Washington and in Israel, officials met in secret to assess what to do, and Mr. Obama, who inherited Olympic Games from the Bush administration and accelerated it, decided to keep the effort going.

Ms. Dayan said that Israeli censors prevented her from saying when in 2010 Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak gave their order. If it came late in the year, it would suggest that they believed the cyberprogram, once exposed, had little chance of further success, and that they were turning back to plans for airstrikes like the one Israel mounted, on a smaller scale, against a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007.

The full documentary, the season premiere of Ms. Dayan’s weekly program, “Fact,” on Channel 2, tracks a decade of Israeli decision-making on Iran, from former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s discussions with President George W. Bush through Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak’s actions in recent years. The program includes a seven-minute interview with Mr. Netanyahu, conducted on Friday, though in it he declines to answer questions about the 2010 episode.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu, also refused on Sunday night to comment on the report, except to say that it was incomplete. “He does give a full interview, all about Iran,” Mr. Regev said of the prime minister. “He talks about America, he talks about a lot of things. It’s very interesting, what he does say. It would be best to wait until the full report.”

Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and David E. Sanger from Washington.

Benghazi's smoking gun

Following are excerpts from an Alaan TV report on the Benghazi Consulate attack, which aired on November 1, 2012.

Reporter: These documents were found by Alaan TV in the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, in the Tactical Operations Center building. The most important of these documents are letters written by the U.S. consulate staff on September 11 [2012], the day of the attack.

One of the letters was addressed to the Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or the MFA, as it is referred to in the documents. The other letter, which was almost identical in content, was addressed to the Benghazi police chief.

In the letters, the Americans complained about an incident that occurred on the morning of September 11, an incident they described as "troubling."

 The letters read as follows: "Early this morning, on September 11, 2011 [sic], at precisely 06:43, one of our diligent guards made a troubling report. Near our main gate, a member of the police force was seen I the upper level of a building across from our compound. It is reported that this person, who belongs to the police unit sent to protect the U.S. Special Mission, was photographing the inside of the U.S. consulate."

One of these letters contains important information about the police car that was present at the scene: "The police car stationed where this event occurred was number 322."

As is well known, there is no professional police force in Libya, and therefore, the police and armed groups often work together. Thus, it seems clear, from the tone of the letter, that the Americans were extremely concerned about this incident, describing it as "troubling."

According to the letter, they were hoping that the Libyan authorities would conduct an official investigation into this incident.

The letters revealed that since September 9, the Americans had been requesting special security arrangements, in preparation for the arrival of Ambassador Chris Stephens to Benghazi. These arrangements included the police guarding the front and rear gates of the consulate around the clock, in addition to a mobile patrol and a bomb-sniffing dog.

The Americans, however, were not granted these requests, as was made clear from the letter, dated September 11, just hours before the attack. "We are saddened to report that we have only received an occasional police presence at our main gate. Many hours pass when we have no police support at all."

This is how the attack on the U.S. consulate began, 15 hours after the policeman was seen photographing the building.

Video at this link:  MEMRI: TV Channel Exposes Security Breach at US Benghazi Consulate in Documents Gathered following Attack

Carrier Enterprise to be scrapped ..

Washington (CNN) -- The USS Enterprise is the nation's oldest active duty warship, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and a history-making symbol of America's naval might for half a century.

But it's now headed for the scrap heap.

Virtually all the weapons and ammunition has been off loaded. By the end of the week, it'll make its final return to its home port of Norfolk, Virginia. On Dec. 1, "The Big E" will be become officially inactive.

But one doesn't just take an aircraft carrier with eight nuclear reactors in its hold and park it somewhere. The Navy will spend three years and tens of millions of dollars removing the ship's radioactive fuel and reactors before cutting it into scrap.

Mike Maus, a spokesperson for Naval Air Force Atlantic, said the process starts just up the James River.

"Following the inactivation period, it will be towed over to Newport News -- to Huntington Ingalls Newport News Shipbuilding -- where it will be defueled. They'll remove all the fuel from it."

The fuel will be shipped to Idaho for temporary storage, Maus said. "Sometime at a later date, it will be disposed of."

While in Newport News, some of the Enterprise's equipment will be removed then the next phase begins.

The carrier, minus planes, ammunition and a propulsion system, heads to Puget Sound, the long way.

"It will be towed around (Cape) Horn to Puget Sound, Washington," Maus said.

The Enterprise, like America's other nuclear carriers, is too big to fit through the Panama Canal, so it must round the southern-most point of South America to get to Washington State.

"It'll be a very lengthy tow," he said.

Once it reaches the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, the long and difficult task of removing the eight reactors from the Enterprise's hold begins.

"In order to remove the reactors, it takes a lot of cutting and hacking on the ship to do that," Maus said. "They do cut through the flight deck and they may very well be cutting through the hull of the ship itself."

Once the reactors are removed, CVN-65 will be formally decommissioned.

According to a Navy Environmental Impact Statement, the reactors will be put on barges, floated up the Columbia River to the site of the former Hanford nuclear production complex where they will be buried in a huge trench near reactors from smaller decommissioned naval warships.

But unlike the USS Intrepid in New York City or the USS Midway in San Diego, the Enterprise is not destined to become a floating museum.

Removing the reactors essentially destroys the ship.

"Once the reactors are removed, to put the ship back in any shape to where it still resembles a ship the cost would be over the moon," said Maus.

So the ship, all 90,000 tons of it will be cut up and the metal sold for scrap.

But that doesn't mean the name Enterprise will fade from U.S. Navy history. There have been seven other warships to bear that name and there is already a petition to name a yet-to-be-built carrier the ninth USS Enterprise.