Although only recently procured in significant numbers by the United States, UAVs have had a century-old history in aviation. First included in Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft in 1920, UAVs were tested during World War I, but not used in combat by the United States during that war. Germany’s use of the simple yet deadly V-1 “flying bomb” during World War II, laid the groundwork for post-war UAV programs in the United States. However, it was not until the Vietnam War that UAVs such as the AQM-34 Firebee were used in a surveillance role. The Firebee exemplifies the versatility of UAVs – initially flown in the 1970s, it was recently modified to deliver payloads and flew its first flight test as an armed UAV on December 20, 2002.

Perhaps it wasn't covered any more than this one paragraph is that the system is being retired. According to DefenseTech, several Firebees were used in Iraq to spoof the Iraqi air defenses. This may be the last hurrah for a system that has been around since the 1950s, mostly as a target drone.

According to Aviation Week, the military used several old drones during Iraq to test the Iraqi air defenses. They stripped all of the mission payload electronics and flew the drones over Baghdad on suicide missions. This apparently explains all the claims of shoot-downs during the war. It also explains that bizarre incident where they were looking for a downed pilot in a river near Baghdad. The article used to be available on the AviationNow website but it's gone now. It was in one of the early April issues of the magazine.