US ‘still assessing’ recovered parts from China spy balloon, says Pentagon

The US is still evaluating the parts recovered from the balloon, and precautionary measures were taken in time to limit the intelligence value that could be gathered, according to Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh during a press briefing on Monday.

In response to media inquiries about whether the balloon could transmit intelligence back to China, she stated that the US took preventive measures to protect its own military installations from foreign intelligence collection.

“So, on the balloon itself, right now, the FBI is leading, still assessing the parts that we were able to recover from the balloon. As we mentioned early on when we first started tracking the balloon, we do know that the balloon was able to be manoeuvred and purposely driven along its track but not going to get into specific sites it was able to hover over,” the Pentagon Spokeswoman revealed.

But what we did do is take precautionary steps to limit the intelligence value that it would be able to collect and, you know, again, we — we took steps to protect our own military installations from foreign intelligence collection,” Pentagon Spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said during the press briefing.

Speaking further, the Pentagon spokesperson said that due to the immediate steps the US took at that point in time, “we were able to prevent transmission of certain aspects of our sites to be transmitted.”

On transmission back to the PRC and what was able to be transmitted back, she said, “I just don’t have further information for you at this time. As of right now, we’re still doing an assessment of what exactly the intel was that China was able to gather, but we do know that the steps that we took provided little additive value for what they’ve been able to collect on from satellites before.”

Before being shot down by US forces, the suspected Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon had been hovering in the country’s airspace for a few days.

After entering American territory on January 28, the balloon passed above US nuclear missile facilities, including the Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, before being shot down on February 4.
China, on the other hand, has denied that the device is being used for surveillance. Earlier, the Chinese Foreign Ministry stated that the balloon in the United States is a civilian airship used for research, primarily meteorological research.

“The airship is from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on the unintended entry of a Chinese unmanned airship into US Airspace.