US general pushes for unmanned ground vehicles

[Naveed Yaseen]

WASHINGTON: As pilotless US drones battle in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq from the sky, a top US Army general is urging the military to step up the deployment of unmanned vehicles on the ground. “It’s all about saving lives,” Lieutenant General Rick Lynch, the commander of the III Armoured Corps, said on Tuesday. “There’s got to be a sense of urgency,” Lynch told delegates at an exhibition featuring manufacturers of unmanned ground, maritime, air and space systems from around the world. The US military makes extensive use of unmanned drones against Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq both for surveillance and launching missile strikes. But ground operations are mostly limited to the use of small camera-equipped robots to detect improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Lynch, who also commands Fort Hood, Texas, the largest US military base in the world, said aerial surveillance and weapons systems were useful but “the bad guys know that if the weather turns bad we can’t see them from the air”. He said among the “immediate applications” for unmanned vehicles were route clearance, surveillance and in convoys. “We’re going to be fighting this war on terror for the next 10 years and the enemy’s weapon of choice is the IED,” he said. The general said unmanned vehicles should also be deployed to carry out what he called “persistent stare”. Unmanned robots can “watch IED hotspots for extended periods of time ... and kill those bad guys before they can plant the IEDs”, he said. afp

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