Page 29 - 082517

Groton Daily Independent
Friday, Aug. 25, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 056 ~ 29 of 65
Up in the carrier’s control room, a book on Iranian naval and maritime forces sits above the radar screen. Commanders on the ship announce when a drone appears. Then, they go through a careful, planned response of attempted radio calls and warnings.
Gen. Joseph Votel, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, visited the Nimitz on Thursday, also stop- ping on the nearby USS Vella Gulf, a guided missile cruiser. The drone, he said, also ew over that ship.
“The proliferation of drones is a real challenge,” said Votel, who was nishing his 10-day trip to the Middle East and Afghanistan. “It’s growing exponentially.”
Speaking with traveling reporters, Votel said the Pentagon has sought to devise more high-tech ways to handle the drones through the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization, originally set up in 2006 to counter improvised explosive devices used by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan to kill and maim American troops.
Much as it did with that decade-old roadside bomb battle, the organization now focuses on how to deal with Iran’s drones, Votel said. He didn’t provide details, but he acknowledged that U.S. cyber capabilities could be used to defeat a drone or the network controlling it.
The military is training troops on drone response, he said. But right now, said Byrne, they’re still follow- ing their normal procedures. And he still hasn’t been forced to shoot one down.
Byrne described how a helicopter from the Nimitz ew by the drone to ensure it wasn’t weaponized. In the month the Nimitz has been in the Gulf, efforts to speak with the drone operators have been hit or miss, he said.
“Sometimes they answer, sometimes they don’t,” he said, echoing experiences American forces have had with small Iranian fast boats that pose a similar threat of coming too close by sea.
When the Iranians do answer, Byrne said, they often “challenge our assertion that they are ying into danger.” The drones y out of air elds up and down the Iranian coast, mainly watching U.S. ships and taking photos.
On Thursday, the Nimitz was about 40 miles from the Iranian coast, halfway between the Islamic Re- public and Bahrain.
RNC to vote on condemning, but some roll eyes By THOMAS BEAUMONT, Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Still cleaning up after President Donald Trump’s comments about a deadly protest in Virginia, the Republican National Committee is headed toward adoption of a resolution con- demning white supremacists.
And while the rebuke of groups Trump waf ed on is expected to pass overwhelmingly Friday, some at- tending the summer meeting of the party’s most faithful are rolling their eyes at the move.
“It’s amazing that we have been lured into this argument that we’re not racists. It’s absurd,” said Colo- rado Republican Chairman Jeff Hays. “Why would we feel compelled to do that?”
The grumbling re ects a difference between some veteran Republicans concerned about the party’s image in light of Trump’s latest rhetorical thicket and newer, more ardently pro-Trump state Republican leaders. “There’s no debate. We’re af rming we’re the party of Lincoln,” Republican National Committee Chair- woman Ronna Romney McDaniel said, dismissing complaints about the resolution. “We are showing the
moral high ground by disavowing hate and violence.”
Despite the resolution, there doesn’t appear to be a softening of support for the president within the
party’s national organization.
Rather, what was to be a sleepy, pro-forma late summer gathering seemed to spark renewed backing
for the president despite a series of recent setbacks: the GOP’s stunning failure to repeal and replace “Obamacare”; the furious backlash over his comments about the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia; and the departure of crowd favorite Reince Priebus, the former RNC chairman, as Trump’s chief of staff.
“The president was not wrong to point out what the media has failed to point out,” that counter-protesters