The mission to kill Osama bin Laden went almost perfectly, in that we killed Osama bin Laden. One hitch – we had to blow apart an extremely expensive (and extremely secret) stealth helicopter. And we left a big piece behind.
The tail of what most defence experts agree is some sort of highly modified stealth MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter has been sitting in Bin Laden’s former back yard since he was shot in the face about two weeks ago – which is enough to make the Pentagon pretty antsy. The SEALs blew up most of the helo’s secret goodies, but Pakistan having a big chunk of the vehicle that was able to slide into Pakistani airspace without their knowledge is risky – it’s probably a piece of wreckage they’d be eager to check out in detail.
Well, the beaten up piece of chopper is coming back home, with Senator John Kerry announcing today that he’s secured the tail’s return. This should downgrade American relations with Pakistan to holy-shit-incredibly-tense to oh-my-god-still-really-really-bad. [WaPo via DefenseTech]