IRAN-DRONEGATE: Empires Don't Apologize: Iran in the Imperial Crosshairs: When initial reports surfaced that the drone had gone missing deep inside Iran, "CIA press officials declined to comment on the downed drone and reporters were directed toward a statement from the military," The Washington Post reported. Indeed, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the NATO-led alliance currently occupying Afghanistan, dismissed Iran's claims that the drone was operating over their territory. "The UAV to which the Iranians are referring may be a U.S. unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week," the ISAF statement read. Deep inside the media echo chamber, CNN informed us earlier this month that the drone had been "tasked to fly over western Afghanistan and look for insurgent activity, with no directive to either fly into Iran or spy on Iran from Afghan airspace." "A U.S. satellite quickly pinpointed the downed drone, which apparently sustained significant damage," the "senior official" told the network. CNN quoted the unnamed "senior official" as saying, "the Iranians have a pile of rubble and are trying to figure what they have and what to do with it." According to this reading, "the drone crashed solely because its guidance system failed, the official said." While first claiming that the CIA drone had strayed off-course, CNN reported after the Sentinel was publicly displayed, that unnamed "U.S. military officials" re-calibrated their tale and now said that the drone "was on a surveillance mission of suspected nuclear sites" in Iran. Anonymous officials told CNN that "the CIA had not informed the Defense Department of the drone's mission when reports first emerged that it had crashed," and that the U.S. military "'did not have a good understanding of what was going on because it was a CIA mission'." As with their earlier reporting, CNN's latest explanation was a fabrication.

by Tom Burghardt

After first denying that the Iranian military had captured the CIA's RQ-170 Sentinel spy drone, and then reluctantly acknowledging the fact only after PressTV aired footage of the killer bot, the Associated Press reported that "the Obama administration said Monday it has delivered a formal request to Iran" that they return it.

"We have asked for it back," Obama said. "We'll see how the Iranians respond."

A huge embarrassment to the CIA and the Pentagon, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters during a State Department briefing: "We submitted a formal request for the return of our lost equipment as we would in any situation to any government around the world."

Cheekily, Clinton said although the U.S. government has little prospect of getting their $6 million toy back because of "recent Iranian behavior," she then threatened the Islamic Republic saying, "the path that Iran seems to be going down is a dangerous one for themselves and the region."

In Washington's bizarro world where war is peace the United States, which has Iran surrounded with a string of military bases and where nuclear-armed aircraft carrier battle groups and submarines ply the waters of the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, the aggressor is magically transformed into the aggrieved party.

The Secretary said, "given Iran's behavior to date we do not expect them to comply but we are dealing with all of these provocations and concerning actions taken by Iran in close concert with our closest allies and partners." (emphasis added)