WASHINGTON, Feb 6 (AFP) - President Joe Biden on Monday (Feb 6) defended the decision to wait until a Chinese balloon crossed the United States before shooting it down, and the White House said valuable intelligence was being culled from the device.
China says the balloon was an errant weather observation aircraft with no military purpose, but Washington has described it as a sophisticated high-altitude spying vehicle.
A US fighter plane shot down the balloon on Saturday just off the east coast in the Atlantic and naval and coast guard forces are currently recovering the debris for intelligence analysis.
"Once it came over the United States from Canada, I told the Defense Department I wanted to shoot it down as soon as it was appropriate," Biden told reporters.
"They concluded we should not shoot it down over land. It was not a serious threat and we should wait till it got (over) the water."
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said US personnel "have recovered some remnants off the surface of the sea", although weather conditions have not permitted much undersea surveillance of the debris field.
They will "in the coming days be able to get down there and take a better look at what's on the bottom of the ocean, but it's just started", Kirby said.
Measures were taken to ensure the balloon's instruments were "mitigated" in their ability to spy during the flyover, while "at the same time increasing and improving our ability to collect intelligence and information from it", Kirby added.
"We're still analysing the information that we were able to collect off of the balloon before we shot it out of the sky and now we're going to recover it and I suspect we may learn even more."
Biden, who has tried to establish more stability in the relationship with China, said he was not surprised by the balloon incident.
"The question of the balloon and attempting to spy on the United States is something that is anticipated from China," he said.
"It's not a question of trusting China, it's a question of deciding where we can work together and where we have opposition."
