Biden was told about the balloon on Tuesday
The White House said that President Joe Biden was first informed about the balloon on Tuesday. At the same time, the State Department said that Blinken and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman spoke to a senior Chinese official in Washington on Wednesday evening about the matter. In the first public statement from the US on the issue, Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder said Thursday evening that the balloon posed no threat, an acknowledgment that it did not carry weapons. He said that after the balloon was detected, the US government took immediate action to protect sensitive information.
How is the Chinese spy balloon a threat to America?
However, retired military general John Ferrari, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, says that even if the balloon is not armed, it does pose a risk to the US. He also said that China may have sent the balloon “to show us that they can do it, and they may have a weapon next time.” That’s why now “we have to spend money and time on it” with regard to immunity, he said.
That’s why Biden changed the decision to drop the balloon
According to senior administration officials, President Biden initially wanted action to drop the balloon. Some MPs also had the same opinion. But top Pentagon officials advised Biden against the move because of the risk to the safety of people on the ground, and the president agreed. Actually, Biden did not want an incident from the time of World War II to be repeated in his country. In fact, in May 1945, six people died when one of the thousands of hydrogen balloons carrying Japan’s bomb fell to the ground in Oregon, USA.
(with inputs from the agency)
