Here's the heart of the misunderstanding that has kept this 'running gun battle' going past its sell by date.
Different tenses within the same communication from this NORAD commander have created a lack of clarity, I'll bet he wishes he had the statement back and I have no doubt that he was talked to about it
My take from the start was that the first part of the statement that used the word had indicates the problem is in the past, because it was in reference to the 3 balloons from the past.
You chose to go with the present tense 'we have a domain awareness gap', and he did state that.
Some reporter should have asked for clarity, 'which is it, we HAD an awareness gap or we still HAVE one?'
Why do I conclude that we 'had' an awareness gap? Because we picked the balloon up off of Alaska; de facto, awareness gap closed. Today's shoot down adds credence to my conclusion on the matter.
The American military had a “domain awareness gap” that allowed the three other balloons to transit undetected, the Pentagon general responsible for providing air and missile defense over North America said on Monday.
“Every day as a NORAD commander, it’s my responsibility to detect threats to North America. I will tell you that we did not detect those threats,” Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command said when asked about the three other balloons.
“And that’s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out, but I don’t want to go into further detail.”
