U.S. denies Iran’s claim of downing drone

PanARMENIAN.Net - A key U.S. lawmaker on Tuesday, December 13, denied Iran's claims of having brought down a U.S. drone, saying 'technical' problems pulled the state-of-the-art unmanned aircraft from the sky and into Teheran's hands.

“I will say without hesitation that this is not something that anyone had anything to do with coming down with, other than a technical problem,” said U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, a Republican.

“There was a technical problem that was our problem, nobody else's problem. I think there's a lot of PR (public relations) going on,” he said at The Foreign Policy Initiative think tank's 2011 forum.

The bat-winged RQ-170 Sentinel, a stealth drone designed to evade radar for surveillance flights, was on a CIA mission when it went missing, U.S. officials, speaking anonymously, have said previously. The episode has handed Iran a propaganda coup and Iranian state television has shown images of a robotic aircraft that experts say resembles the Sentinel, AFP reported.