Dick Cheney: Why didn’t Obama just destroy the drone when he had the chance?

(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - That’s a good question — and according to former VP Dick Cheney’s contacts, Barack Obama didn’t lack for options to keep the highly-classified drone from falling into the Iranian military’s hands. In an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Cheney wonders why Obama didn’t order an air strike on the downed aircraft while he still had the chance:

“The right response to that would have been to go in immediately after it had gone down and destroy it,” he said on CNN’s “Out Front with Erin Burnett.”

Instead, Cheney said, “he asked nicely for them to return it. They aren’t gonna do that. … Or, they’ll send it back to us in pieces after they’ve gotten all the intelligence out of it they can.” …

Cheney, who served with former President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009, said he “was told the president had three options on his desk and he rejected all of them.” The options all involved destroying the drone on the ground.

“You can do that from the air,” he said. “And, in effect, make it impossible for them to benefit from having captured that drone.”

Related Material...

• (Breitbart.tv) - Cheney: Don’t Underestimate Newt