Observations on unmanned planes. By Brendan O'Neill

The US military is using more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to fight terrorists and insurgents than at any other time in recent history. The military may not have mastered artificial intelligence or created an all-talking, all-thinking Knight Rider-style killing machine. But it is investing millions of dollars in unmanned drones, which were deployed in Afghanistan and are currently crowding the skies over Iraq.

These planes are controlled by "fliers" who are hundreds or sometimes thousands of miles from the battlefield. Four years ago, the US military had only a handful of UAVs in operation - today, it has 700 in Iraq alone. They range from the 3ft Raven, which weighs a mere 4.5lb and flies at 100-300ft, to the Global Hawk, which has a wingspan of 44ft and soars at 60,000ft on sophisticated reconnaissance missions. A dozen varieties of unmanned planes with their bird's-eye view of postwar Iraq, are used to track insurgents, foil roadside bombings, protect US convoys and even launch missile attacks against suspected insurgents.

Unmanned Predators played a key, and often disastrous, role in the Afghan war. In 2001, President Bush described them as America's "eyes in the skies". In February 2002, a Hellfire missile launched by an unmanned Predator killed three Afghans who were scavenging for metal in Paktia. In May that year, a Predator fired a Lockheed missile at a convoy of cars in which Qaeda or Taliban associates were thought to be travelling; that missile destroyed a madrasa and killed at least ten civilians. Numerous unmanned drones crashed in Afghanistan. In November 2002, CIA operators of a Predator flying over northern Yemen fired a missile at a car and killed six Qaeda suspects.

Despite the obvious dangers of sending unmanned planes to do war's dirty work, the US military is relying on them heavily in Iraq. The armed Predator drones flying over the country are controlled from a command hub in Las Vegas, some 7,500 miles away. Once the Predators take off in Iraq, air crews in Las Vegas take over: they use joysticks to control the planes, watch what is happening on the ground, and make life-and-death decisions about whether to fire. It's like a computer game, but one with potentially deadly consequences.

Some US officials are now concerned that the skies above Iraq are getting dangerously crowded. Last year a small Raven aircraft crashed into a US helicopter, though it didn't cause any serious injuries. Earlier this year, two Predators - worth a cool $5m each - crashed near their base north of Baghdad. Such machines, it seems, pose a threat not only to Iraqis on the ground but also, potentially, to US servicemen.

It is not difficult to see the attraction of unmanned planes for the US military: they allow human pilots to stay out of harm's way and, by limiting the number of fatalities and casualties, they might help to stave off the "body-bag syndrome" that the military so fears in relation to Iraq. However, the wisdom of having hundreds of armed and dangerous planes floating above towns and cities in Iraq is surely worth questioning.

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