Obama demands Iran return downed US drone

President Barack Obama said Monday the United States has asked Iran to return a US drone that Tehran says it brought down while the aircraft was flying over its territory.Weve asked for it back. Well see how the Iranians respond, Obama said at a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.It was the first open confirmation by the Obama administration that the drone was in Iranian hands.With respect to the drone inside of Iran, Im not going to comment on intelligence matters that are classified, he said.The bat-winged RQ-170 Sentinel, designed to evade radar for surveillance flights, was on a CIA mission when it went missing, according to US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.The episode has handed Iran a propaganda coup and Iranian state television has shown images of a robotic aircraft that experts say resembles the Sentinel.Iran has vowed to reverse engineer the drone but has given contradictory accounts of how the aircraft went down on December 4. Tehran initially said it shot down the drone but later claimed the military managed to hack into the planes flight controls.