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Edited by Christian Lowe | Contact

DRONES OVER IRAN: YAWN

pred_desert.jpgThe Washington Post may have put the story on page one. Drudge may have hyped it in gajillion-point type. But, really, I don't see why people are making such a fuss over the fact that the U.S. has been flying unmanned spy planes over Iran.

After all, we found out last month that American troops have been running covert raids on Iranian soil, to gather intelligence on Tehran's nuclear program. And there's been word for weeks that American jets of some kind have been buzzing through Iranian airspace, testing the Mullah's early-warning systems. So it's only natural, these days, to have drones support these efforts.

There was one interesting part of that story, though: that "the drones were first spotted by dozens of Iranian civilians and set off a national newspaper frenzy in late December over whether the country was being visited by UFOs."

Now, if the Pentagon had sent flying saucers to Iran, that would have been some news.

THERE'S MORE: Fox News is trumpeting a headline that the "Pentagon Denies Flying Drones Over Iran." But inside the body of the article, nothing of the sort takes place.

"Senior Defense Department officials said Monday they have no knowledge of any U.S. drone flights over Iran," according to Fox, "and U.S. intelligence officials would not comment on any such flights."

Maybe Fox had its greenest rookies reporting this story. But having "no knowledge" of something is a classic non-denial denial -- a cover-your-ass move, not a straight answer. And any reporter with more than a month of experience would know the difference.

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