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Leon Panetta, a former defense secretary in the Obama administration, questioned the Biden administration’s response to the suspected Chinese spy balloon that drifted across the U.S. before being shot down off the Carolina coast on Saturday.
During an appearance on CNN “Newsroom,” Panetta told host Jim Acosta that U.S. officials should’ve taken steps sooner and been more transparent with the American public about the balloon as President Biden “allowed it to simply cross over the country.”
“So the question obviously is, Pentagon said that there were risks here, I understand that argument that there were debris risks,” Panetta said. “At the same time. I think we should have acted earlier if our suspicions were valid, that this was in fact, on an intelligence mission.”
Biden reportedly ordered the balloon to be shot down on Wednesday, but those orders were not carried out until it was above the ocean.
