Rep. Chris Carney: 'I want to be on the cutting edge of our national defense'

These drones are no bees, but they can sting, and one of their operators is a local congressman who says they are integral to the war effort in Afghanistan and Iraq.

U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, also known as Navy Reserve Commander Chris Carney, is one of the military's remote operators of unmanned Predator, Reaper and Global Hawk drones that fly and spy over the Middle East countries.

"I want to be on the cutting edge of our national defense and our defense technology," Carney said. "And this is it."

The drones look like smaller, thinner planes.

From thousands of feet in the air, they often just hover a day or more without refueling. Their high-resolution cameras silently send real-time video to their U.S. military operators who warn ground troops in Afghanistan and Iraq about the presence of enemy combatants or hidden improvised explosive devices, known as IEDs.

Operators such as Carney manage them through remote controls from thousands of miles away room at Langley Air Force Base in Langley, Va. These remote controls are far more sophisticated than but not entirely unlike the push-button devices a pro football fan uses to switch between games on a Sunday afternoon.

The difference is changing channels never killed anyone.

Predators and Reapers sometimes fire deadly missiles at enemy combatants or terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq and sometimes Pakistan. In August, a CIA drone killed Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban there and a major suspect in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Commander Carney was not in on that one, but he has been in on a few kills.

He trained to command the drones in 2007, and has been helping their operation in Afghanistan and Iraq during his two or three yearly, two-week reserve deployments since, most recently last month. He is the first Navy drone commander.

He will only say he has been in the chain of command when Predators and Reapers struck and killed, including last month.

"Yes, we hit people and vehicles. We hit bad guys," he said.

He did not push the button releasing the missiles. He would not confirm giving the order to fire.

"As a mission commander, I get to direct the birds," was the way he put it.

The drones figure into an ongoing debate within the Obama administration between supporters of deploying more American troops to Afghanistan and supporters of relying more on counterinsurgency units aided by drones. Vice President Joseph R. Biden is among those said to favor more counterinsurgency and reliance on drones.

"I don't think they can take over everything, but they certainly provide the intelligence and the surveillance that is required to make good decisions," said Carney, D-10, Dimock Township.

Critics say CIA drones have killed innocent people, including children. Despite the controversy, Carney defends their use, making clear he has never been involved in a drone attack that hit civilians.

"There is a pretty robust checklist that you have to go through to begin what is called the kill chain," he said. "It's real life. And that's the thing you always have to remember, even though you're on the other side of the Earth from where the actual action is occurring."

Without drones, the U.S. would have to deploy thousands more troops, he said.

"You have to have boots on the ground," Carney said. "You can't hold ground from the air. But that said, the Predator and the Reaper are extremely valuable weapons. They are an intelligence-gathering system and a weapons system all wrapped into one. They prevent the Taliban (and al-Qaida) from sleeping well at night. They don't know from one instant to the next whether they are going to be struck."

Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com