The US shot down and captured an almost-completely intact Iranian surveillance drone in Iraqi territory in early 2009, not far from a refugee camp for dissident Iranians, WikiLeaks’ new Iraq logs confirm. The report, listed under “Events that may elicit political, media, or international reaction,” adds credence to US claims of Iranian interference in Iraq, while also demonstrating just how ethnically and logistically messy the US’s operations there have been.
The capture of Iran’s green-and-white, camera-carrying unarmed aerial vehicle in a border region northeast of Baghdad on February 17, 2009, was all the rage in US military and diplomatic circles. While US officials confirmed the shootdown to the media a month later, those initial news reports held few telling details. But many such details were included in the WikiLeaks report, including intelligence officers’ assessment that the downing was “potentially a politically volatile matter” in a crowded corner of Iraq’s strategic chessboard.
