Predators Fight the War From Vegas
May 2, 2006 — -- Las Vegas is as far away from the war in Iraq as you can get, you may think. You're wrong.
"Nightline" anchor Terry Moran visited Nellis Air Force Base on the outskirts of Las Vegas, just off the runways where there's a small group of camouflaged containers. They may not look like much, but inside -- where no TV cameras have been allowed to go until now -- you'll find the front lines of the war.
Watch "Nightline" tonight at 11:35 ET.
"There's a truck where the people are. Yeah, it's a truck -- your standard Haji truck," said Maj. Shannon Rogers.
On a screen in their cramped quarters in Vegas, Air Force pilots determine their targets 7,500 miles away in Iraq by remote control.
They are controlling one of the country's most cutting-edge weapons of warfare -- the unmanned Predator drone.
The drones are 27 feet long, with a 49-foot wingspan. Their top speed is about 135 mph. They may not be the biggest or the fastest out there, but they are deadly and have become indispensable.
"It's very lethal," said Lt. Col. John Harris. "I mean, it, we go, it's just amazing, for me, that I can hit a 2-foot-by-2-foot square from 7,500 miles away. It's just -- it's an amazing piece of equipment."
Harris is the commander of the Predator squadron in Vegas. For the last three years, he has led his pilots and Predators on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, and helped open a door into a new kind of warfare where foot soldiers in combat, pilots in Nevada, theater commanders in the Middle East, and generals in the Pentagon are all linked.
"The Predator is the definition of global, 'netcentric' warfare," Harris said. "We fly the airplane, yet we're connected globally to multiple places on different continents, every day. It's a normal course of action."
From the air base in Nevada, the pilots' commands are sent along secure undersea cables to a U.S. facility in Europe then bounced off a satellite down to the Predator, as it hovers over the battlefield. The plane sends its pictures back up to the satellite, which gets them down to the troops on the ground and back to Las Vegas.
