Russian spy planes fly over USA with White House permission

By Rick Wiles April 16, 2001 © American Freedom News.

For 11 days, Red China and the United States of America faced off over the emergency landing of our EP-3 reconnaissance plane. The American plane was clearly flying in international airspace over the South China Sea.

Imagine the reaction of the American people if a Russian spy plane flew directly across the United States and Canada for 50 hours over five days. What would the reaction of the American public be if they were told that the Russian spy plane photographed US military bases and NASA?

What would happen?

Nothing.

It happened in 1997 and the overwhelming majority of the American public didn’t even know. Even if they did know, it is doubtful the American public would have cared. It is still happening today.

Why?

Because the public has been dumbed-down to accept globalization and disarmament.

With the full knowledge of the White House and Pentagon, a Russian AN-30 spy plane flew across Canada and the US from July 30-August 2, 1997. During the entire trip across the continental United States, the Russian crew clicked their spy cameras over top American military bases such as Fort Bragg, Fort Campbell, Robins Air Base, and Wright-Patterson Air Base. The Russians also flew over the Tennessee Valley and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The first Russian spy flight over American territory flew unchallenged across the United States of America. It attracted little public attention in the United States in 1997. Russian public television reported after the flight that “the task of the motherland was carried out successfully.”

The Russian television news report quoted Alexander Trushin, commander of the AN-30, as saying, “They allow us to monitor everything. We looked at America and Canada, up to Florida. It was very beautiful and inspiring.”

Colonel Mikhail Botvinenko, head of Russia’s TOS office at the Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, proclaimed on Russian television, “In the United States of America we were able to fly where we wanted to and photograph what we wanted, not what they gave us, but what we wanted. We flew over the Cape Canaveral airfield and over other military installations and it did not shock them in any way.”

At a news conference in Washington’s Dulles airport, Col. Botvinenko proclaimed in amazement, “They were ready to allow us to overfly the White House provided this is beneficial to the cause.”

The Russian spy plane is not the only foreign military aircraft that has been permitted to fly over USA soil and photograph anything. Germany, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine, and a host of other nations have also flown spy missions over the USA since 1994.

All the flights have the full permission of the White House and Pentagon.

It is part of the Treaty on Open Skies (TOS).

Former President George Bush introduced the treaty in the US Senate on August 12, 1992. President Bush told the Senate that the treaty “provides an important means of increasing mutual understanding of military forces and activities.” The Open Skies Treaty “establishes a regime of unarmed aerial observation flights over the entire territory” of the treaty’s signatories,” said former President Bush in 1992.

The father of current President George W. Bush declared that “Open Skies is the widest-ranging international effort to date to promote openness and transparency of military forces and activities.”

The US Senate ratified the treaty a year later. Former President Bill Clinton signed the treaty on November 3, 1993. Dee Myers, Clinton’s first press secretary, declared that the Treaty on Open Skies would give all participating nations a “way to obtain information about foreign military forces and activities of concern to them.”

By ratifying and signing the contracts, Bush, Clinton, and the US Senate, legally committed the USA to accept 42 short-notice foreign spy flights every year over American military bases. The Russian TASS news agency reported in 1998 that “the chief purpose of the Treaty is aerial control over military activity.” TASS also reported that the treaty “can apply to other kinds of activity: control over the state of the environment, the situation in emergency zones.”

TOS flights over the USA were inaugurated in August 1994 when 10 Ukrainian soldiers photographed American military bases from a US jet. The former Soviet republic was chosen to be the first nation permitted to take photographs of American bases. For two days, the military officers from the former communist nation snapped pictures of American military installations and other sites. The Ukrainian military crew photographed the New Orleans Naval Air Station, McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base, Pope Air Force Base, Fort Benning, Charleston Naval Yards, Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station, and Patuxent River Naval Warfare Center in Maryland. The US government processed the film for the Ukrainian military at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

The German Air Force made history on June 19, 1995, when its Soviet-built spy plane became the first foreign aircraft to fly over US territory on a surveillance mission. The German team, flying in a Russian jetliner once used by East German communist dictator Erich Honecker, took off from Dulles International Airport outside Washington. The pilot was a former member of East Germany’s air force before the communists were ousted.

The Soviet-built TU-154 German plane was equipped with cameras and infrared sensors for surveillance of US territory. After departing from Dulles International Airport, the German spy plane flew to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, the central staging base for all TOS flights over the US.

The treaty allows participating nations to send surveillance aircraft over the territory of any other nation that has signed the treaty. Photographs can detect the massing of troops and heat sensors can spot camouflaged military equipment. The aircraft can penetrate areas that are blocked by cloud cover. Furthermore, the treaty allows the cameras to be positioned on the aircraft to peer beneath roofs of buildings.

The treaty was designed to be a “poor man’s spy satellite system.” It helps smaller nations be equal with larger nations by being able to photograph military bases and weapons. Supporters of TOS say it offers a level playing field for superpowers and smaller countries when it comes to observing each other’s military strength.

The treaty allows for a quota of flights that each nation must accept. The US is committed to accepting 42 flights each year by other foreign nations over America. Each participating nation can decide the flight path it wants to follow – and reveal the flight path only 24 hours in advance. Furthermore, each nation must share its photographs with all other nations that have signed the treaty.

Nations cannot reject the flight paths requested by the other nations. Under TOS, if the Russians wanted to fly over the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the Pentagon would have 24 hours to clear the airspace above the DFW airport.

Russia has yet to ratify the Treaty on Open Skies. Following the expansion of NATO to include former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe , the Russian Duma stalled on ratification of the treaty. Despite the lack of ratification, the United States of America permitted the Russians to fly over the USA.

http://www.americanfreedomnews.com/commentary/spy_planes.htm

-- (What is going on@here.com), April 16, 2001

Answers

Nothings going on. Everything is just fine.

-- Pinko (yousillyameric@nsare toofun.ny), April 16, 2001.