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Trump: “Total obliteration coming to Iran on Tuesday”, F-15 downed in botched operation
01:33:21
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome, everybody, to redacted on this Monday. So glad to have you all here. Thank you so much for subscribing. This show is actively being suppressed and you are being unsubscribed from our show. We've. It's unbelievable looking at the numbers overnight and watching YouTube just decide to unsubscribe people from our show. Like, they just don't feel like you should be subscribed. I know it's absolutely crazy what they're doing right now. So thank you for subscribing, whether on rumble or YouTube. And then if you, if YouTube decides to unsubscribe you and sign you up for CNN, I guess you'll know why. Anyway, just pissed off about it. I was studying the numbers overnight. I'm like, they literally are unsubscribing people from our show.
- [00:40]
B
And we hear that often. And obviously this is a war economy. We're going to talk about how there is an information blackout and so they don't want you questioning the war narrative. That's basically the crux of our show today is what can we know for real? We know the Trump administration is Victor lapping a military operation that we cannot figure out for ourselves. So we're going to go to the experts. They also now have a blackout on satellite imagery so we cannot see for ourselves. So we are flying blind here. We need each other. Thank you so much for being here.
- [01:09]
A
We're also going to look at that F15 downing. The rescue operation. The rescue operation. So many questions. What somebody in the chat room just said, are we. Will we ever understand the full details of the rescue operation? We're going to deep dive that with a special guest on the show today because hearing from F15 pilots and former members of Centco who've been texting me throughout the night, there's so many questions that we need to unpack about this entire. Is it a uranium heist? All of it. We're going to try to get to the bottom of today on the show, but first we want to tell you about our friends over at Bright Core. So listen to this little story here. Maria Maraia was born in 1907, when horses still shared the streets with cars. She lived through two world wars, the Spanish Civil War, the rise of the Internet. And when she passed away In August of 2024, at 117 years old, she was the world's oldest person. And after her death, researchers examined something remarkable. Her gut microbiome was remarkably diverse in beneficial bacteria. And scientists studied other similar people. They found similar patterns, people who lived to be over 100 years old, they had greater microbial diversity and stronger gut balance. So all of those centenarians out there had the same thing. They had immune health, heart health, even brain health, which is all linked to that gut bacteria. And that's why Maria's story matters so much, because longevity isn't just one miracle solution. Solution that's about daily habits that nourish your internal environment. And consuming kimchi is the strongest and simplest way to replenish beneficial bacteria and maintain microbial balance. That's why Bright Core created Kimchi one. Because if you don't like the taste of kimchi, you know, a lot of South Koreans love it, but maybe not a lot of Americans love that taste. Then you can get it all the benefits, in a single capsule. Delivering the benefits of fermented kimchi in a convenient capsule to help restore your gut's natural balance. Every day, I take it twice a day. It's part of my daily daily supplement stack, and you can grab it, too. And you get 25% off. Go to mybrightcore.com redacted or call 1-884-04-6312 to get 50% off. And free shipping. 888-404-6312. Well, President Trump says that the deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz and negotiate a ceasefire is tomorrow. And if they don't, basically, the entire country will be taken out in one night. Does this mean a nuclear weapon is at the ready? Watch what the president just said.
- [03:38]
C
The entire country could be taken out in one night. And that night might be tomorrow night.
- [03:45]
A
Yeah. So while we try to decipher what is real, what is rhetoric right now, the US has put a blackout on satellite images.
- [03:54]
B
That's right. This Planet Lab says that they have received a request from the US to blackout all images in and around Iran and surrounding regions dating back to March 6th at least, and possibly before the war. They're saying they have to comply. And other satellite companies are reporting that the U.S. is threatening sanctions if they don't. Why would they do that? Why would they not want us to access satellite imagery? Do you think so? How can we know what to believe? Joining us to discuss is Colonel Douglas MacGregor. He can tell us what he thinks of all of this. So first, let's start with the nuke. Do you think that's what that means? Is that the only way to wipe out an entire country in one day? Does that horrify you?
- [04:42]
C
Well, the possibility of a nuclear weapon Always horrifies me. I think there are some other ways that can be employed that could certainly disrupt power inside the country, quote, unquote, taking out the entire country. Sounds to me to be a little hyperbolic. And, you know, Trump is famous for hyperbolic statements. He's the born marketer. He stands up and grossly exaggerates everything out of proportion to reality. So my assumption is that he's not talking about a nuclear weapon if he does. Well, I think George Kennan said it best. He said that nuclear weapon was a suicidal device because there was no rational application for it. Even Stalin said that it had no real military utility because it destroyed everything. It was only useful insofar as you could protect your territorial integrity with it. So I hope that that's not what he's talking about. I think it's probably conventional and there are some innovative ways to disrupt power and essentially black out the entire country. Is that a permanent condition? No. Is it going to win the war? No, absolutely not. And I think that's the problem. And you were talking about censorship. Well, if you're winning and things are going well, you don't usually need censorship, do you?
- [06:06]
D
No.
- [06:08]
A
Well, the President released a, I think, pretty nice jovial Easter message on Truth Social.
- [06:15]
B
It was inspiring. Really.
- [06:16]
A
It was really inspiring. Like when the kids were, you know, doing their Easter egg hunt. Like, let's gather around and read the President's message because it was really inspiring. He said, Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the effin straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah. President Donald J. Trump. So obviously I'm joking about that being a warm Easter message, but open the strait, then Iran responds that they've lost the keys. We're not gonna be able to open the Strait of Hormuz. Sorry, we've lost the keys to that. In response, what do you think happens militarily next? About the Strait of Hormuz.
- [07:00]
C
Militarily, I think he's going to do exactly what he says. And the Air Force will go in along with naval there, and they will deliver a punishing series of strikes designed to destroy petrochemical plants, energy infrastructure, and anything that provides power and support to the government. There's no question about that. Again, will it be successful? I don't think it's going to make much difference. You're talking about a continental power. We're a maritime and aerospace power. That's why we don't maintain a large army. We don't need to. We have oceans around us. Iran is a continental power. That's why it has a million men under arms inside the country. That's why it's invested heavily in this ISR strike paradigm, which is to link satellites and space based intelligence and surveillance collection to strike systems. What they will do after Trump completes his mission on Tuesday night or whenever he decides to start it. You know, you got to take these deadlines with a grain of salt. He's not always completely honest about that. And what you may get is something earlier, who knows? But if it happens, the Iranians are going to respond. And they've already said what they will do. And I find that far more upsetting than anything we're going to do, because they're going to destroy everything of a similar quality in terms of energy infrastructure and power plants. And potentially, I don't know if we hit the desalination plants or not, but if we rob the country of power, I suppose desalination won't work anyway. But the Iranians can turn around and do that to the entire western coast of the Persian Gulf. And I think that will finish off the Gulf states. They have almost 67 million people living in that region that runs from Oman all the way up to Kuwait and southern Iraq. They won't be able to sustain themselves. They won't be able to drink water. They won't have any power. Now, I don't know how many are still there, but I think that's kind of a death sentence for those Gulf states and probably also Saudi Arabia, which is why I think they have been pleading with President Trump to do something else, to begin thinking differently. But this is something I wanted to add today that I think is very important. We need to understand that Israel's demand for this thing called Greater Israel, for more territory in Lebanon and Syria, ultimately Iraq, even at the expense of Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the Sinai and part of Egypt beyond the Nile. All of this forbids a Palestinian state, and it makes compromise with Iran, with any of the Muslim countries in the region, impossible. And ultimately, that's what we're fighting for. Because the whole purpose of our war is to essentially achieve Israeli goals. We have no territorial aims in the region. Our only interest historically was really in the oil and the 47 products around the world that oil produces, that petroleum is part of. But we have no interest in the territory there. But we're being asked to underwrite that expansion. And at the same time, we're being asked to make the region submissive to Israel. In other words, to subordinate everyone there to whatever Israel wants. I don't see that happening. I don't think the populations of the region will go along with that. I don't think they ever will go along with it. And I don't think the military is the right instrument to help Israel improve its position in the region. So everything that you're hearing right now is essentially a verdict on Israel and its destruction. It makes Israel's failure inevitable. There is no chance for them to achieve what they want. We can't make it happen. We don't have the military power to do it. We can't open that strait. That's the whole problem. Can't be done.
- [11:04]
B
Something the president said in his press conference today was, I tore up Barack Obama's Iranian nuclear deal because it disfavored Israel. Obama was choosing Iran over Israel. And why would you do that? I mean, I would do that at this point because Iran has not instigated a genocide before our very eyes in the last. So, you know, that curries favorably.
- [11:29]
C
Your point is accurate. They've killed an awful lot of human beings. They've driven them from their homes.
- [11:35]
B
And so what he said is, I had to choose Israel.
- [11:38]
C
This.
- [11:39]
B
I had to rejigger all of my politics, which led to this major conflict in the Middle east, because I needed to center Israel as a priority. I don't think there's any other way to see it, is there?
- [11:53]
C
No. And I think we. He's put the global economic community on the road to a depression. It's only a matter of time until this depression strikes. Everybody thinks exclusively in terms of gasoline, but it's gasoline. It's diesel, it's plastics, it's fertilizer, it's feedstock. I mean, we just go down the list. All of these things are missing in the global South. And the Global south is in enormous trouble. So is Japan. Japan is trying to put all of its nuclear reactors back online. They have a lot of work ahead of them, but they're doing it. And at the same time, they're burning whatever coal they can buy from wherever they can get it. The same thing is happening in Korea. All of these states that we're talking about, whether it's Korea, Japan, India, most of Southeast Asia, most of Africa, these states are not our enemies. Most of these states have good relations with us. We are harming our friends, and we're sending them all simultaneously to the poor house. Now, that also affects us. President Trump doesn't seem to understand that Oil is a global commodity, so when the price rises in one place, it rises in other places. We're seeing it rise here. Right now in Germany, they're paying the equivalent of about $11 per gallon for gasoline. That's actually going to go up. The situation in Europe is dire, and people are now bidding for oil so that tankers that might otherwise go to Europe, that would ameliorate these conditions, they're not arriving because the Japanese, the Koreans, Indians, others, can offer more money than the Europeans can for the energy. So the whole energy system in the world is being disrupted and ultimately is going to have to be rebuilt, and it's going to take a decade or more. None of this seems to sink in, I think, until the stock market crashes. And I think that it will. I don't know if it'll happen in three weeks or three months, but it's definitely going to tank because we just
- [14:03]
A
heard from Ed Dowd. Ed Dowd just made a message about, from former blackrock guy, and he basically said, hey, right now we are entering a phase where panic buying is going to become a reality. You're going to see to your point about fertilizer shortages, all of these things. It's not just about gasoline prices. It's the wider spread, what you're seeing across the board all through Southeast Asia right now. So how long until that starts trickling into Europe and into the United States?
- [14:33]
C
Well, I think Europe is already crumbling. Germany in particular is just in the worst imaginable possible position. They've already been through this long process of de industrialization because Biden decided to destroy the pipeline that brought them cheap energy from Russia. They can't do business anymore with Russia now. They're dependent on external sources. And the pipelines that are reaching north are going to be cut off by. By the Iranians. What do you think happens when the Houthis finally cut off access to the Red Sea? All of this is going to combine to essentially bring the global economy to a halt. And as that begins to develop in a dramatic way and hits us here at home as well, I think President Trump's war is going to be ended involuntarily, ultimately, but he's going to be in a lot of trouble if he continues on this route. I think he's going to be a potential victim of the 25th Amendment.
- [15:34]
A
Well, questions swirling about whether or not he's even in his right frame of mind. Obviously, you served with, you served under him. I've interviewed him, I mean, dozens and dozens of times. He seems Like a completely different person than the person that I used to interview on a regular basis. There's concerns that he has dementia. I mean, he's been, you know, rumors about him being rushed to the hospital the other day, Alex Jones talking about his swelled up ankles, meaning that he's got some sort of a heart failure. Who knows? This kind of stuff spirals out of control. But you agree that something seems off.
- [16:09]
C
Yeah. This is not the man that I knew in 2020, when I had the opportunity to sit and talk with him, he was a very different person. He was much more relaxed. I would describe him as being very much in control of his faculties. And when I listen to him now, it's not the same person. So I think there are serious problems. I'm not a doctor, I can't diagnose it. But my point is that he's on a very dangerous glide path into hell, let's put it that way. These statements that come out in the middle of the night, like the last one on Easter, signal that there's a certain unbalanced quality about the man that has to be addressed. People on the Hill are noticing it. We just had Senator Curtis, a Republican, who finally said we should not continue with this war beyond 60 days unless we get a declaration of war. Well, hallelujah. He's absolutely right. It's a little late, I would argue, but thank God somebody's brought it up. Instead of attacking President Trump personally, which I think is a waste of time, people should stand up with Curtis, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, and make the same point. We're spending a lot of money over there. We're not getting much for our investment, in my judgment. So I think we need to bring this to a close somehow. Unfortunately, as I said before, we're committed to Israel's aims and the Israelis have proven very resistant to any form of compromise.
- [17:42]
A
I want to take your pulse of this. We see these stories about, like, the doomsday planes, you see it with, with Netanyahu, and then nothing comes of it. Then you see this story here from the Daily Mail just posted a few moments ago. Trump's doomsday plane spotted circling U.S. war Command center as Iran rejects ceasefire. His emergency command aircraft currently circling above a US base home to America's nuclear command Cent. The night watch Boeing E4B made several loops above the Offit Air Force Base in Nebraska today. What do you make of this? Anything to make of this? Or nothing, I hope.
- [18:23]
C
Not much. But it could be that the decision was made to do it at this point in order to send signals that they think are somehow another going to intimidate the Iranians or anybody else. You know, this sort of thing doesn't work. It never has. You know, we have threatened so many people so often under President Trump, every time he opens his mouth, he insults someone somewhere in a position of authority around the world. We've gotten to the point now where I think the answer to President Trump is going to be more resistance, more hostility, a greater readiness to fight. So I think, you know, in addition to what I mentioned earlier on Tuesday, I think you will see the use of some ground forces in the Persian Gulf. And I think that will be done on the assumption that this is somehow or another going to pry loose the Gulf. But it can't, because you don't have to sit right in the middle of the Strait of Hormuz in order to stop things from moving through it. All you have to do is make it abundantly clear that you have tactical ballistic missiles and drones that can destroy anything that tries to move it, move through it, and that can be done. And unless you can root out all of the strike systems within a few hundred miles inside Iran, unless you can stop the or disrupt the communication between the satellites which provide the targeting data for the strike systems, nothing is going to change. And no one in their right mind is going to underwrite the shipping with insurance. So I don't know why, I don't know why he thinks that this can be done militarily, because I just don't see it working.
- [20:11]
B
Something that Dan Davis has said on our show is that a nuclear weapon in Iran will be a nuclear weapon that affects Israel, too. What do you think of that? Is there a precision nuke that I don't know about?
- [20:27]
C
Well, nuclear warheads can be just as precise as conventional warheads, only at the detonation end, infinitely more destructive with long term effects. And we know what those are. You can poison the atmosphere, poison the ground. You could set up people to die from all sorts of cancer for years afterwards. So that's the difference. And that's why we don't want anything to do with nuclear weapons. You end up destroying everything. There's no real strategic benefit to it unless your goal is to murder. And you see, this is why, frankly, I don't believe that President Trump would employ such a weapon or anybody in the United States would do so, because I don't think our aim is to murder a million people in Iran. On the other hand, I do worry about Israel. All we have to do is listen to the things that they've said and see what they have done in various places. And they have, on hesitate, unhesitatingly murdered large numbers of people that they wanted to be rid of. So I do worry about the Israelis, and I don't see any evidence that we have any real influence over them. I only see influence going in one direction from them to President Trump and his advisors.
- [21:41]
A
I just want to come back to your military depth of knowledge and what this, when we look at ground troops, we look at seems like the massive mobilization across the board here, multiple aircraft carriers. Now in this space, maybe you could sort of game out what we're seeing and how you think this might unfold maybe over the next few days. Colonel?
- [22:05]
C
Well, if you have, as they do right now in the Gulf, persistent surveillance, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, anywhere from 600 to 1200 miles from Iran. In other words, just draw, you draw a circle and you go out from Iran's borders, 6, 600 to 1,000 miles. That means that you can see everything that is there, potentially, given the weapons they have, their missile technology. That means that if you're American forces, whether you are at sea, in the air, on the ground, in an airstrip or an airfield, or you are soldiers or marines trying to move into the Persian Gulf, whether you fly in or however they manage to insert them, you are operating in a killing zone. That's what has to be understood. It's one giant killing zone.
- [23:04]
A
And can you go.
- [23:05]
C
All they have to do is look at the screen and find you and you're done.
- [23:08]
A
And before you go on in that killing zone, what type of weapons does Iran still have access to? Are we talking hypersonics and others that they would be in that killing zone?
- [23:18]
C
Oh, absolutely. You have tactical and you have theater ballistic missiles. An intercontinental ballistic missile does not exist in the Iranian inventory, contrary to what people are saying, nor do I think we're going to see one anytime soon. But certainly theater ballistic missiles that can fly 1,000 to 1,500 miles, yes, they exist, and they are precise, and they can be hypersonic. They can be unstoppable. But they can do the same thing with drones, albeit the drones will be slower, cheaper, but in far greater numbers, which is what we've seen repeatedly. And we have turned out to be very, very ineffective in our aim, in our efforts to shoot these things down or stop them. That's the problem. And increasingly, Israel is almost defenseless. I don't know what their Missile status is with regard to our weapons, the Thaad missiles or theater high altitude air defense missiles, PAC threes or GEMTs or whatever they've got. But I don't think they have enough to cope with the Iranian threat. And the Iranians have proven and demonstrated repeatedly they'll penetrate, they'll get through and they'll kill you. So my point is, how many Marines and how many soldiers can you airlift into the Persian Gulf area? Say you try to put them into uae, you try to put them into Kuwait, you try to put them into Qatar. Wherever you try to go, they're going to be identified and then you have to move them from wherever you stage them to the islands that you're trying to seize in the Gulf. Now, I hope that somebody somewhere, and I'm sure somebody has in the military has pointed this out and you can't guarantee that they'll get through without being killed before they even arrive at their target destination. That's the problem.
- [25:02]
B
I want to ask you in a minute, we're going to talk to Scott Ritter about the rescue mission over the weekend. The White House held an hour long press conference today with Trump and other military leaders, including the CIA. I was confused why they were there. I want to ask you what is the use value of doing something like that, a victory lapping a mission such as this? Because this may seem abundantly obvious, but you don't have to rescue people if you don't start wars. So why do you think they're doing this?
- [25:36]
C
Well, remember, we go after pilots with a vengeance because you're asking pilots to potentially fly into enemy airspace. And if you expect them to do that, they have to have some assurance that if they're shot down, you will try to rescue them. In other words, we don't send pilots on suicide missions, say, good luck, may never see you again, hope you get through. No, we tell them, look, you do the best you can, we'll give you all the support we possibly can. And if we were able to do so, we will definitely extricate you. And we don't leave people behind unless we can absolutely not avoid it. So I think that's important. On the other hand, Scott may be able to tell you more than I can about the details of the special operations mission on the ground in Iran, which I think was aimed at trying to secure enriched uranium. Now, that would involve the CIA. You can't do any of that without the Central Intelligence Agency. The expertise for that sort of thing is there and their ability to identify it, contain it, and Remove it would have to be part of the mission. Obviously, it does not seem to have worked. Now, how many people were injured or killed? I have no idea. And again, we're back to what you were talking about at the beginning. We're not going to broadcast that from the, from the wreckage that we have been able to see. And I don't know if that's all the wreckage or just some of it. I haven't seen very many remains or corpses or anything, thank God. Were they removed by the Iranians? I don't know. But obviously it didn't work. And I think there were a lot of people in the Pentagon who made the point that this was the proverbial needle in the haystack, and the chances for success of that mission were always very low. So I think the president is probably going to turn his attention now to the other kinds of missions we discussed earlier, but we'll see.
- [27:29]
A
Doug, before we let you go, I want to just get an assessment of what's happening inside of Tel Aviv, what's happening inside of Israel and the attacks. We see videos that then have been later confirmed. And yes, we see neighborhoods on fire. But it's very difficult, as you know, to get information out of Israel and those sources who are sort of speaking. Well, it's almost like it reminds me of the Leslie Nielsen from Naked Gun. He's standing there literally on the phone with. So I could. You can hear, you can hear missiles going off in the background. It's all fine, nothing to see here. And you can hear explosions in the background. First, on the Israel side, how are things looking there? What is Iran's ability to penetrate the Iron Dome, the other systems, and then also the Lebanon piece of this, and the destruction of neighborhoods across southern Lebanon. So maybe you could just unpack both of those pieces and where things stand there.
- [28:26]
C
Well, starting with southern Lebanon, it's pretty obvious that the effort in southern Lebanon is to gazify it, to essentially repeat in southern Lebanon what they've done in Gaza. There's also evidence that there's an interest in doing some of that on the west bank, although it's not as intensive. The bottom line is that they thought, or at least they insisted that Hezbollah had been put out of action. Hezbollah is absolutely not out of action. And Hezbollah has managed to launch a lot of rockets into northern Israel. Especially the people in northern Israel are very unhappy. They've made that abundantly clear politically. Many of them have been evacuated. Lots of Israelis have left. Now, where have they gone? I'm told Cyprus Greek islands, even all the way to Serbia in some cases and elsewhere. I think Israel is on the knife edge of serious internal disruption. Their government is suppressing dissent. It has to. Right Now, I think Mr. Netanyahu, if, and I don't know where he is, I have absolutely no idea where he is. But I think he and his government are hard pressed to hold things together. I don't think the Iron Dome is very effective anymore. I don't know how effective it was to begin with. It was never as advertised. And as we were talking earlier, how many missiles have they got? Anti missile missiles? I don't think there are very many left. As I've watched a number of these strikes that have been filmed and then disseminated to the West. You don't see much response to incoming missiles anymore. If there is any, it's very modest. In many cases, none at all. I think Israel's in a lot of trouble. But remember, Israel has an opportunity in the minds of Mr. Netanyahu and his government that they may not have again, and that is absolute unconditional support from the United States. They have real control over, over the decision makers in Washington, and they want to exploit that to achieve their larger aims, which are not just to subdue Iran, but to establish their supremacy across the region and to dominate the region to the point where they can expand their borders as they see fit or will. This makes any sort of compromise impossible. It makes an end to this conflict impossible. It gives the United States Armed forces mission impossible because we're there to beat everyone else into submission. We can't do that. It's beyond our resources and our capabilities.
- [31:05]
A
And finally, Doug, how devastated is Iran right now?
- [31:11]
C
Well, I think they've certainly suffered some serious civilian casualties. Thousands of people have been killed. How many thousands? We don't know. Now, Alister Crook, who has better access to the Iranian government and people in Iran than I do, seems to think that the Iranians thus far have actually sustained fewer casualties than they did during the 12 Day War, that they evacuated promptly into shelters, they got people away, they had alternatives to existing hospitals because the Israelis had destroyed a lot of hospitals and aid stations. That was done early on. They seem to have expected that, so they were prepared for it. They seem to have weathered it pretty well. Now, I don't know what President Trump has up his sleeve, but based upon what he's saying, I guess we should expect the worst. And I think the Iranians are preparing for that. And again, the key point is this is a continental power half the size of India with 93 million people. They will take the damage. They will absorb the punishment. Just as the Soviets absorbed the North. Enormous punishment in the past, during World War II and during the invasion of Russia by Napoleon. They. They are a large area, a large population. They can't protect everything, so they don't try. They accept the fact that they're. They're going to sustain damage. I think the Israelis have done that. But they also know how to mobilize their population and get them out there. And that's what happened with our special ops mission. My impression is that most of the people that did the fighting and many of those who were probably killed were actually local militia, as opposed to part of a regular military force. So they're prepared, and I think they'll take whatever punishment is dished out and they will counter strike. They will counterattack. Now, the final thing, and nobody mentions this, we have to keep this in mind. The Russians, the Chinese, the Turks, the Pakistanis, others are on the sidelines. They are watching this unfold. They are prepared to act at some point. They will not let this go on in perpetuity. And the pressure from the rest of the world to do something to stop us is going to become overwhelming. The Egyptians, they have the largest army in the region. They're the largest Muslim Arab state in the region. They are on a knife edge there. Sisi is in an unfortunate position. He doesn't want to attack right now, but he's under tremendous pressure from his population to act against the Israelis. He's got 100 million people there who are ready to fight. They're angry as hell. He might not last. I don't think most of the Arab governments that we see today will be there in a few months. So the entire region is going to go through dramatic turnover.
- [34:07]
B
Because you think the will of the Arabic population is to stop another Gaza from happening and has been all along. I mean, it's a source of great frustration that that was allowed to happen while so many powerful leaders sat on their hands.
- [34:24]
C
Absolutely. Okay, that's exactly right.
- [34:26]
A
Well, and so many corrupt Egyptians who are making millions of dollars off of building concentration camps in Rafah, you know, and who are really cleaning up on the black market and making so much money off of what will become this massive refugee crisis pouring into these concentration camps that they made all this money off of. So.
- [34:45]
C
And the ruling classes in the Gulf States, many of them are living in Egypt right now. They fled the area. They're sitting in Egypt. The Egyptian population is not oblivious to this. They're well aware of it. Remember we were instrumental in preventing the Muslim Brotherhood from seizing power. But the reason the Muslim Brotherhood came to power initially in Egypt was very simply because of the corruption that you're discussing. They're aware of it, they're sick of it, they're angry about it. That's why most of the Arabs in the Muslim Arab world don't have much use for the ruling elites in the Arabian Peninsula. They are seen as quote unquote, the fat and the corrupt. We have been backing all of these people for years. So you can imagine how popular we are.
- [35:32]
B
Right. And so I don't want to extrapolate too much here, but it's very possible that in the United States anyone who does not support Israel will become a desirable candidate for future elections because we see it, because there's a, there's a national frustration at AIPAC co opted politicians and that could also happen in the Gulf regions you say, which would be international, which would be an implosion of Israel's global support.
- [36:05]
C
Yes, I think that's true. And I think you also have to extend some of this to Europe because you have European leaders who are co conspirators in the war that we are waging. But more important, they've utterly failed to protect their own populations. Remember, when you're the leader of a country, you're supposed to shelter, feed and protect your people. What has happened in Europe, they're not being sheltered, they're not going to have enough to eat, they're not going to be able to power their systems, heat their homes, protect themselves, run hospitals. All hell is going to break loose in Europe too. We've been waiting this, you know, waiting for this. You and I and others, we've talked about the problems in Europe. Well, I think all of this is going to suddenly come to fruition.
- [36:53]
A
Colonel Douglas MacGregor, host of the National Conversation and read his great works over at the American Conservative as well. Anywhere else people can find your work lately, Colonel?
- [37:02]
C
Yeah, you might look on the sub stack. I've got a great substack now. I've been writing one major essay every seven days or so and I've also posted some older things that I've added and we've got tens of thousands of subscribers coming in. It's very successful and I urge people to go to that. I think they'll find what's there of great interest because I'm trying to stay on the strategic level. The tactical situation isn't going to change a lot. We're going to Continue to struggle strategically. What happens is key. And it's back to what we said at the very beginning, this economic catastrophe that is being created by the loss of 20% of the world's resources. It's more than that. Somebody said to me, well, it's about $15 million, 15 million barrels of oil a day off the market in the Gulf. Once you close off the Red Sea and the Houthis begin to operate at another 11 million, you're looking at a global catastrophe economically.
- [38:03]
A
And we should point out just. Here's an update, Colonel. $42 billion has been spent so far on this war, Israel's war in Iran. Just over about a month now. In length, about $1 billion a day. So up or 42 billion. Almost nearing 43. Maybe by the end of today's show, we'll hit that number. Doug, great to see you as always. Thank you for your insight. Everyone should read his substack and subscribe. Colonel, thanks so much.
- [38:32]
C
Thanks a lot. Bye.
- [38:33]
D
Bye.
- [38:34]
A
All right, coming up, we're going to talk about that F15 being downed, potential for that second pilot who was also captured or rescued. Who is responsible for exposing that. President Trump says he's going to go after the journalist who wrote that and expose that. It turns out it's an Israeli journalist, so we'll see if that actually gets held up. You're gonna go after an Israeli journalist for breaking that story?
- [38:59]
B
Exactly. And in fact, Miranda Devine was just saying. She's running cover on this, saying that it was Israel's Ministry of Defense, but now they're saying actually it wasn't after the President made threats. No, that wasn't. It's been deleted. We never meant that.
- [39:19]
C
Okay.
- [39:19]
B
Okay.
- [39:20]
A
So will we get answers about this? Was it a uranium heist? Was it a botched operation? Was the United States lured into a trap by the Israelis and at the last second got out of that trap? We're going to talk about that angle on all of this because there's so many interesting pieces of this to unpack. Um, we're going to be doing that in moments, but first, first, we want
- [39:41]
B
to tell you about our friends over at Ethos, because, you know, one of those things that no one really wants to think about, but you kind of have to, especially if you have a family, is insurance. Now, think about it. If something happens to me or Clayton, what does the future look like for our children? Not in some abstract way, but practically their home, their stability, their future, future tuitions for things, investments. Now, I've seen enough in real Life, you know, reporting for this show to know that things don't always go according to plan. So it's just responsible to think about life insurance because it matters. It's one of those foundational things that provide financial security even if you hope you never need it. And I hope you never do. That's what I like about Ethos. It's how simple they've made the whole process. It makes getting life insurance fast and easy. With Ethos, it's 100% online. You can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes. You can even get same day coverage. There's no medical exam. You just answer a few health questions online and you can get up to $3 million in coverage. Some policies are as low as $30 a month. A month. Which honestly makes it more accessible than most people think. And obviously if you do it now, it's going to be cheaper than if you do it next year because life insurance gets more expensive as you age. So lock in your low rates while you're this young. If this is something you've been putting off, I get it. Most people do. But there's a really easy thing to just lock it in, you guys. Get it done. Protect your family. With life insurance From Ethos, you can get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes. Go to ethos.com redacted application rates and times may vary. Again, that's ethos.com redacted. Ethos E-T H O S.com redacted take 10 minutes, be an adult. Just handle it. Lock it in. Ethos.com redacted well, you know, if you
- [41:40]
A
look at me, you might think, well, Clayton looks young. He doesn't look 49 years old.
- [41:44]
B
He is a spring chicken.
- [41:46]
A
Wink, wink. I wish, I wish that were the case. How I've been using Van man for the last few weeks. I'm telling you, they, they're a sponsor of the show and I, they sent me some to start. I was like, ah, I'm going to see if I like this or not. Then I fell in love with it and I've been buying it myself and now I have it on a subscribe and save where it's being delivered because the stuff is fantastic. It's beef tallow. It's beef tallow moisturizers not filled with any of the chemicals that you get from any of the crap that you can buy at the stores. The skincare is industry has been lying to women for years, selling you overpriced creams full of chemicals that do nothing but sit on your skin. The Van man company took a completely different approach. They combined the power of grass fed beef tallow with one of nature's most potent anti aging secrets, Wild Caught pearl powder. This isn't about looking younger, it's about actually supporting your eye health. And Van Man's pearl eye cream allows a combined with tallow as with Wild caught Pearl pearl powder, one of the most nutrient rich ingredients on earth for skin and eye health. This isn't just vanity. It deeply penetrates oils of the emu and castor, helps smooth skin tone while actually supporting eye health and vision. So right now, this is the ultimate skin tightening, collagen boosting eye cream. So ladies out there, if you're interested in this, give it a try. And plenty of stuff there for the men as well on their website. So I use like when I get out of the shower after I've shaved, I use some of their beef tallow face cream moisturizer. Because my, we're in Colorado. It's so darn dry here. You got to do something. You got to do something and don't put chemicals on your face. So I love their beef tallow. It doesn't, it's not sticky or anything like that. It absorbs right into the skin. It's fantastic. I mean, hey, goes back hundreds of years, right? Cowboys were using this stuff right on their hands back in the day. They knew something. They knew something. Van Man's tallow and honey balm. Try it. Give your eyes the care they deserve. Go to Vanman Shop Redacted news. Use the code redacted news for 15% off your first order. That's Vanman Shop Redacted News. That bottle right there is their shampoo. Also. They make a great shampoo. Use the code redacted news for 15%
- [43:51]
C
off your first order.
- [43:52]
A
That's Van man real ingredients, no exceptions. All right, well, let's talk about this. F15. And what has gone on over the past 48 hours has been a just a bevy of misinformation that's being spread from a lot of different people out there on the Internet. But what we do know is that there is a number of US aircraft that were downed destroyed. And take a look at your screen. This is exactly what we're talking about here.
- [44:21]
B
Well, the question is, why is the US Victory lapping this rescue mission when it is essentially an admission that we've been flying over Iranian airspace. We were shot down. The President says, well, sometimes they get lucky. They still have some stuff we destroyed Most of their stuff. But he, this is, this is the way he said it today. We destroyed most of their stuff, but they shot down one of our planes because they still do have some stuff and they sometimes get lucky. Okay, so let's ask some questions about why he was there. This, this pilot was what actually happened and what do we know? So is this a tall tale? And then why would they tell us this? We're just, these are questions. These are valid questions. So the President gave a press conference with military leaders on Monday saying it was the most daring thing ever. Let's try to decipher what we actually know. Here is wreckage of the craft that was posted by Iranian media. It was an F15. Now the president says the pilot was found over 100 miles away from the crash scene. Because he ejected so early. He says even a few seconds can mean hundreds of miles from the wreckage. I would like a military expert or a weapons expert to ring in on that. I don't know. But he was found over a hundred miles away. He said he was bleeding, he administered self first aid and then was able to hike up 7,000 foot mountains in order to find his rescue. Okay, so is that possible? We don't know the extent of his injuries yet. He hasn't said. Now he says that they brought in nearly a dozen craft to get him out over the weekend, but left behind several. At least two we know. He says we blew him up ourselves because we didn't want Iran to have them. We don't know if that's true or not either. Now we're going to go through further details, but it's worth noting that during the same weekend the US put a blackout on satellite imaging from Iran and the Middle East. One company, Planet Lab, says they will comply. And the US has threatened sanctions on other imaging companies that allows images of war zones. So that is typical information control during wartime. Obviously it's alarming. So we're gonna break this all down with Scott Ritter. He's a former UN weapons inspector and he can tell us. So first of all, I guess you know a general question. This story as it was told by the President today, does it pass your sniff test, the smell test, and why or why not?
- [46:52]
D
Absolutely. I mean it's, this is the real deal. It went down. There's, there's aspects of this mission that are not being discussed. For instance, what the assets that eventually rescued this pilot were originally tasked with doing and why they were diverted from that task to this task. The President hinted at it, but you know, the, the bottom line is that it's not unheard of for an F15E Strike Eagle to have a colonel sitting in the weapon systems operations seat, the rear seat. This tends to happen when there's a larger mission unfolding and the Colonel now serves not as the, the knob turner for the weapons delivery of this F15E but rather as mission commander of what the air component is doing in support. So the first hint is that there was something larger taking place, that this F15E was part of something larger. It got shot down. You know, I can't speak the, the ejection sheet seats are designed to, you know, to, to eject automatically. You start with the rear. That would be the colonel going out first and then the pilot will follow. Very short span of time unless there was a malfunction in the aircraft. You know this idea that, you know, hundreds of miles separation, who knows? I mean again I don't know the details of the performance of the ejection seat. The fact that you could have a malfunction is possible that there would be a delay between the rear, the passenger or the, the, the colonel and the pilot being ejected further down. Unless you had access to the ejection seats and all that to do forensic analysis, it's impossible to say. But you know, the fact is an F15E was shot down. They didn't get lucky. The, the Iranians have reconstituted their air defense. They have, you know, recognizing that the United States and Israel were using standoff weapons, very accurate weapons. Rather than sacrifice their air defense, they put most of it underground in storage. And now that the United States and Israel has expended the vast majority of their standoff weapons that are going to have to come in closer. Iran has pulled its air defense out and Iran has learned, you know, the suppression of enemy air defense sead that the United States operates, you know, airborne sead is done primarily using anti radar capabilities. You have electronic warfare aircraft that will jam radars and you know, target radar signals and then you'll fire anti radar missiles, harm missiles at them. The Iranians now are using anything but radar. They're using electro optically guided missiles and they're using missiles that are guided by infrared. We don't have the ability to, you know, interdict based upon IR heat seeking warheads and electro optical, you know, guys being guiding by eye line of sight. They and so when we bring our aircraft in, they're getting hit. We saw an F35 get hit, we saw an A10 get shot down. Now we see this F15E get shot down. You know, this isn't getting lucky. This is being good, this is actually being better than the United States. But now this, this, this aircraft's down. We send in a standard combat search and rescue package that's already on, on standby. Anytime you're going to launch into hostile territory you will have a combat search and rescue package standing by, ready to go. In this case that was two I believe HH 60 Pavehawks, United States Air Force special operations helicopters. On board would be a search and rescue team, Combat search and rescue team comprised of Air Force special tactics personnel, pararescue men. There might be a special forces contingent for ground security Rangers. And they, they sent the two helicopters in and they're, they're scanning now. You know, they have limited time on target so at one point in time they brought in an HHC130 or HC130A, a refueler and did a very dangerous, risky, you know, high risk, low altitude refueling of these helicopters. There was video showing that, but this is what's necessary to keep the mission going. You know, and the pre planners had already taken a look at Iraq Iranian air defense and, and found a stretch where we, you know, where we can execute this maneuver with a minimal chance of getting shot down. And apparently it succeeded. Now these helicopters found the pilot and went in and, and got him off the ground. On the way back they were hit by Iranian anti aircraft fire. Both aircraft were damaged. One was, was, was shown trailing smoke, you know, but both made it back but they're not flyable anymore. So now you have this second officer down. Now the United States originally suggested that both pilots had been recovered. You do this because you don't want the enemy to be looking for the other pilot. The President made a point. You know, I'm all about freedom of speech but sometimes you've got to be smart. And you know, the US media ran with a story that the, the Colonel was still on the ground. Now this creates a problem because now the Iranians are going after this colonel. Be a huge PR nightmare for the United States States to lose his colonel. Plus he was mission commander of a mission we haven't yet talked about. And you don't want him falling into the hands of the enemy because he would give away, you know, mission details that would compromise not just the mission that he was involved in, but compromise major elements of American military planning related to the ongoing campaign against Iran. So we need to get this guy before the Iranians do. This creates a sense of urgency. We lost the original Cesar package. And so they brought in a plan B. Plan B consisted of two MC130 special operations helicopters configured to carry AH or MH6 Little Bird helicopters. Now there's a lot of people out there saying this just doesn't make any sense. Then those people wouldn't know what they're talking about. The twin MC130 AH6 combination is a standard combat search and rescue rescue mission package put forward by Air Force Special Operations. In fact, you can go on the Internet May 9, 2023, you can see that there was an exercise in Wyoming where they exercised just this very scenario. They brought in two MC130s onto an improvised airfield. They offloaded four AH6MH6 Little Birds and then they went out and found a downed and injured pilot. They put teams on the ground, they recovered the pilot, brought him back, flew them back to the aircraft, got him on the plane, got the helicopters on the plane, and the plane took off. This is what they do. So for all the people out there saying this doesn't make any sense. It makes perfect sense if you know what you're talking about. And I'm just here to tell you that the twin MC130 AH6 MH6 combo is a standard combat search and rescue package flown by the Air Force under certain circumstances. And here it would make sense to use it when your plan A, the two pig hawks have gone down. But now we get, things get interesting because these guys are flying a mission profile that doesn't make any sense from a combat search and rescue standpoint. First of all, the President said there were three so little bird helicopters in a configuration that should have four. He also alluded to the package that might be on another aircraft with a lot of equipment, anti aircraft equipment, other equipment, he said, equipment used to scale mountains, etc. This implies that this, this, this MC130 was configured to support a different mission, not a combat search and rescue mission. Now why would they dispatch it? Because the media leaked. The Iranians are going after this guy. Actually, information shows the Iranians are getting close to this guy. There isn't time to offload the MC130s reconfigure them for this new CESAR mission. They were going with MC130s configured for a different mission profile. What was that mission profile? Well, again, other hints have come out. The, the men flying on the little birds were Navy Seals from Seal Team 6. This is Tier 1, this is the best of the best. This isn't combat search and rescue. These guys don't fly combat search and rescue missions that we have people specially trained for that these guys are there for something else. And why Navy SEALs? Well, because the Navy SEALs have a standing mission of nuclear recovery. This was a team configured to fly into Iraq, Iran, and assault the Isfahan nuclear facility. Tunnels where containers were are suspected of being stored that contain uranium hexafluoride feedstock for Iran's centrifuge program that's been enriched to 60% over 440 kilograms of this stuff. You know, they're. They're stored in 50 kilogram containers. And there's about 26 of these containers out there someplace. And, you know, Tulsa Gabbard implied in her statement to Congress that the United States knew where these were and these Navy SEALs were going to go in and they were going to get them. But they got retached because somebody in the media leaked that the Colonel was alive and the Iranians were closing in. And we had no choice. This was the only option available at the time. The two other helicopters have been shot. We had to go in with this. And so they launched. Now, the other issue comes in. Another aspect to this is that there were Delta Force guys on this aircraft. The President talks about over 100 men on the ground. You know, this implies that Delta had at least a half squadron, 30, 40 men there to do something that Delta doesn't secure airfields. That's a Ranger mission. You know, Delta goes out and does assaults. But in this case, Delta secured an airfield, which means that they were retasked that they had a different task. The task is based upon what we would assume is in the package. These guys were the assaulters. There might have also been EOD Special operations, Explosive Ordnance and Disposal people who were experts in, you know, blowing their way into tunnels and breaching secure facilities. But these guys were retasked to provide airfield security. And so the. The aircraft land. Now, here's the other issue. Before aircraft land on an improvised airfield, there needs to be an airfield survey done. Clayton, I'm saying this because I've been there, done that, got the T shirt. I've planned these missions. I've carried out these missions. I know what I'm talking about. You don't land aircraft on an airfield where you haven't done a survey, that it's an invitation to disaster. So normally, what would happen if you had the time available 24, 48 hours in advance, you would put a team in. They could be delivered either through free fall, parachuting, or they could be delivered using special operations aircraft, you know, small, twin or single Engine aircraft that would drop a team off, they would do the survey, then remove the team and they would come back and say the airfield is capable or is not capable of handling the load. We didn't have time to do that. So we apparently relied upon intelligence provided by the Israelis. You see, in June, Israel carried out a 12 day war against Iran. And during that war they had special operations forces operating inside Iran. They were also planning an operation similar to the one that the United States was just prepared to execute a special operations attack on Isfahan to get the nuclear material. In preparation of that, a unit called Shaldog Air Force Special operations unit with Israel did an airfield survey of this site. And they had reported that this airfield was usable by MC130 type aircraft. And this was the intelligence that we relied upon. You've heard that Israel provided critical intelligence. This is the intelligence that the airfield was usable. The problem is the Israeli survey was done in June. Very hot, dry conditions. It's the beginning of April. The, it's like quicksand.
- [59:34]
A
It's like quicksand.
- [59:35]
D
It's wet, sandy material. So now these, these, these, hell, these, these MC130s land on the field. They were successful in landing. We know this because there's a photograph of two intact MC130s on the ground. They were able to discharge their aircraft. Three, six is the SEALs went out and they got this guy, they grabbed him and they brought him back. So far so good. They load the helicopters back up on and they load all the people on board back on. And the MC130 now going to taxi the end. They are heavy so they're going to need as much Runway as possible to take off. So they go all the way to the end of the Runway and begin to make that turnaround. But because the survey was incomplete, the front nose landing gear sinks into the sand, trapping it. Because the first one started to make a turn. You can see that airfield, he's already made his turn and he's down. The other one's behind him and it's down too. So now you have a choice. You have to offload the, the aircraft to reduce the weight to see if you can get the aircraft jockey back in position and then reload the aircraft. The President alluded that this could take up to four hours. This is time they didn't have. While they were rescuing the pilot, they were engaged in a firefight with militia members closing in on the pilot. Local villagers had recorded them landing. The word was out. Bombers were already dropping bombs to stop airplanes. And again we can talk about the B1 bombers specifically loaded for this mission. You know, this was supposed to be the Isfahan mission that got retas. And so they have a lot of assets out there, MQ9 reapers that are out there getting involved. A10s are out there, F35s are out there. This is the air operation that the back seater was supposed to be controlling when he got shot down. But so that now the decision is made that they, they can't come out with these aircraft. So they bring in three Air Force special operations covert aircraft. These are c, I think 295, they're twin engine turbojets that the Air Force uses. A squadron that uses it, I think it's the 473rd. I may be wrong on this. Nobody talks about. Because it's not supposed to exist. They don't. The Air Force doesn't talk about this dial missing because it's a covert unit. It's designed to covertly insert and extract, you know, special operations, CIA assets, things of this nature. They are brought in these three aircraft and they are able to make the landing because they're lighter and they don't need as much Runway. They're able to turn around without bogging down. And they're able to transfer the 100 plus people that were on these two MC130s onto these three aircraft and they were able to take off and get out of there. Meanwhile, they had configured these aircraft with explosives that, that blew them up and destroyed them, denying the Iranians access to the equipment that was on board and to the aircraft themselves, which contain a lot of classified material. And that's where we're at. You know, two MC130s and three little birds were, were blown up on the ground because we couldn't get them out. But the pilot was rescued and the rescue force was able to be successfully extracted.
- [62:51]
A
So two things can exist then, right? There is this. There was a uranium heist and there was also this failed extraction plan that
- [63:00]
D
coincided and there was going to be, I mean there. JSOC planned a uranium raid in Isfahan and that uranium raid was supposed to take place in this time frame. This was Donald Trump's war winning moment. This is why he's so mad, because he was, this team was supposed to go in and grab this uranium so he could declare victory and say, we've shut the door on Iran's nuclear program, they can never have one now, we own the material, we beat them, the war is over. But instead, because the media leaked that this, this second, this, this Backseater was not rescued, that he was out there waiting rescue. That that mission had to be retasked, and it's operating in a similar area. Who knows if they were going to use that airfield or another airfield? We don't know. But what we do know is that it's been. It's been compromised. The Iranians now are, you know, if they weren't already. They're fully locked and loaded. There's nothing going to get close to these tunnels. So that mission's gone. We're not going to get the uranium, if we ever were. I actually think this is a blessing in disguise because we got the pilot out or we got the backseater out. We lost two MC130s, we lost three little birds, and we lost a whole bunch of special mission equipment. That pallet had a lot of unique type equipment, but we didn't lose, you know, 100American military, which we very well could have lost had we done this raid on Iswan, because it would have gone bad, it would have gone south, it wouldn't have succeeded, and we would have dead Americans. We would have Americans captured and probably would have lost a lot more aircraft than we did. So in many ways, I view this as a blessing in disguise. Even though the President's angry. From the perspective of, look, the Iranians aren't lucky. They're good. And we would have flown into a trap if we'd gone into Isfahan, and we would have lost everybody. So this way, at least we got piling out. We left behind some aircraft. But there will be no Isfahan uranium extraction mission. That's over.
- [65:06]
B
There's no going back. You can only fail once. Is that what you're saying?
- [65:10]
D
Remember, it's top secret mission. You're not supposed to know about it.
- [65:13]
B
Right.
- [65:14]
D
We're talking about it. Means everybody knows about it, right?
- [65:17]
B
Yeah. And I guess, you know, I'm not a combat expert, but I was wondering why the head of the CIA got so much time at the press conference. Why was the CIA there? Why admit to the CIA? I mean, obviously, obviously, a mission like this would require the CIA the mission you're suggesting that it was, right?
- [65:39]
D
Well, the CIA would obviously be. It gets more complicated than this because the JSOC doesn't trust the CIA, even though they have a good working relationship today. Better than they did during Eagle Claw. But Eagle Claw was the original Iran rescue mission. And the CIA had assets on the ground, even assets in the embassy that were reporting back, details about, you know, the embassy configuration that Charlie Beckwith and the original Delta Force were using to. To plan the operation. But they wanted. They don't trust the CIA because the CIA isn't geared towards combat. It's geared towards intelligence collection. And they don't share everything. And so that's why they brought Dick Meadows, retired Special Forces officer, out of retirement. And they brought in two Green Berets from a top secret unit in, in Berlin. Scotty and Clemmie and Clement. And then they brought in, you know, an Air Force. Fred. An Air Force airman who was Persian, who spoke Persian. He came in as a linguist. And, uh, these guys covertly infiltrated into, uh, Iran as, uh, businessmen. And, uh, they. They rented a house and they set up a. Where they got a warehouse, they rented trucks, and they were doing the intelligence, they were doing the rehearsals. Because JSOC believes its own people, its own people are geared to the mission. So JSOC runs something called Advanced Force Operations. Afo. And you know, even though the CIA was there, I will bet a dime to a dollar that there were Advanced Force Operations also in place. People ask yourself why these C. These C295s were flying around? Because they've been infiltrating, exfiltrating AFO personnel throughout Iran who are collecting intelligence in support of potential operations. So, you know, we had them on the ground, but, you know, nobody wants to talk about afo. So the CIA comes in. The CIA also plays a role. Back in Desert Storm, the CIA had recruited a network of Iraqi Bedouin in western Iraq who would support downed pilots. So if a pilot was down, these people, their job was to find the pilots and get them into a safe house similar to what happened in France during World War II, and then have a, you know, an underground railroad type situation where you can move the pilots to a point where they could be rescued by, by, by helicopters. And the CIA was involved in that as well. Why the CIA is talking about their involvement, I don't know. You know, they talk about a deception, you know, but you don't need to talk about a deception. It's, It's. There's something weird going on about the CIA's role in this because normally, again, the CIA played a big role in Desert Storm, and nobody's ever talked about that. Nobody's talks about it. The CIA doesn't talk about. They haven't publicized any of this information. I only know it because I worked with the guy who ran it, you know, in Iraq. But the, you know, so nobody talks about this. So why suddenly Ratcliffe is there, there, you know, there's there's aspects of this, of this thing going on that, you know, the United States isn't talking about the total picture. You haven't heard the president acknowledge that this was actually a, a uranium, you know, assault mission. Nobody's talked about that yet. People are speculating about. But the president come out and said it yet. He's dropped hints, though, about the nature of the package. The CIA's involvement may be to disguise other capabilities in play, that the deception isn't being played against the Iranians, but be played against us. Who knows?
- [69:25]
A
We got a question here from our audience. Firefly girl in Christ says Scott. What is the conbobulator that Trump keeps babbling on about at his press conference? I'll get you to comment on that. And then also speaking to a source last night about this, one of the concerns was that we've been relying so much on Israeli intelligence, which has basically gotten us into so much trouble to our detriment. This source said source formerly at centcom. And so this was a big concern. We've used Israel's intel almost exclusively to our detriment, and that didn't happen on this mission. What I want to confirm, and my suspicion is that I think we were being set up. Do you have any concerns about that as far as Isfahan being in Isfahan and that the uranium would have been there and that the Israelis may have been using us to try to set us up for something nefarious?
- [70:21]
D
Well, what we, you know, what we can say is this, that we know that on two occasions since the 1980s, the CIA has lost the totality of their agent networks in Iran. The first was in the mid to late 1980s when Steve Richter was the head of near east operations and near east division. And he, they were using at that time a letter drop communication system, basically writing plain letters going through the open mail to a Munich post office box. And if you, if you run write only a few of these letters, you know, it's secret writing. They've been trained in the course they do their secret writing. They put the letter in there and the letter looks to, even if you open up and look at it, it looks like a normal letter. And often it goes, you know, and that's how they were communicating to the CIA station in, in Munich that was running Iran operations. Richter was told that you have to increase the reporting. And so instead of being smart, he issued the order to double or triple the reporting. And so suddenly you have a whole bunch of letters coming out of Iran to a Munich post office box and the Iranian counterintelligence guys are going, what's going on? It's a spike to this box. And so then they started taking a closer look at the letters and they discovered that it was secret writing. And then they went back and they rolled up the entire network and CI lost everybody. We rebuilt, we being the United States rebuilt this capability. But in the early 2000s we started again putting pressure on them. We said, we have to have more reporting. And so they, they opened up a mechanism of communication that used a Gmail account. You know, the details of that we don't need to get into here, but you know, basically you would communicate by Gma. And again, I can say this because we know for instance in when the CIA asset agent was or officer was rolled up in Moscow trying to recruit a FSB officer expert on the Northern Caucasus, that the instruction letter that he was giving to this guy talks about this Gmail account and how to open up this account. So you know, there it is, it's the CIA's own wording. But this thing, either the Iranians or the Chinese or the Russians, I can't know who, can't remember who came up with this first. But basically this system was broken, it was compromised and whoever did it first shared it with the Russians and the Chinese. The Chinese were able to roll up the CIA's network in China very successfully. The Iranians rolled everything up on the Russians. I think the United States was able to get in there and salvage the situation somewhat. But again, we don't have good eyes on Russian target either. But the point I'm trying to make is we're blind in Iran, totally blind. The Israelis aren't. The Israelis still maintain very credible network through the Kurds, through the mek, the Mujahideen Al Qult, through the Monarchists, through Baluch. The Israelis have a lot of eyes on the ground. And so we are over reliant upon the Israelis. We haven't been able to reconstitute our human networks. And so the Israelis are able to influence because they say, well, we know something you don't, our asset says this, etc. Etc. The Israelis also from a military standpoint, you know, have the, the example of June where they actually had special operations forces on the ground operating. And again, you know the details of infiltration, exfiltration, you know, how, you know how to, how to, you know, remain overnight, you know, your hide site, how to operate. They have that, so they're able to share this information and therefore dry things. But again, when you're putting American forces on the ground, especially joint special operations elements. We don't rely on anybody. We go in and do our own thing and so we will have our own eyes on the ground. You know, we were successful in some things. For instance, we were able to, our JSOC guys were able to put certain sensors on the ground near sensitive installations to monitor traffic in and out. So we have resources. I would say this, that politically we're very reliant upon the Israelis. But when it comes to tactical operations on the ground, normally we would do our own thing on this operation. The fatal mistake, the fatal error was that we needed to move so fast that didn't, we didn't have a chance to do an airfield survey. And as a result we put airplanes that were too heavy for the, for the airfield and they got bogged down, I guess.
- [75:11]
A
Final question, Scott, I just had. Are there any in your brain right now, any lingering questions that you, that you have, you have such, such a depth of knowledge of this entire rescue mission? Is there anything standing out to you that you want answers on why they
- [75:26]
D
thought they could get away with the, I mean, this is a sign of desperation. Why did they think that they could execute? Because this isn't a mission that was still in the planning stages to pull off something like this. This mission's been planned for a long time. I, you know, we just. The one thing about joint special operations is that they past patterns repeat themselves. You know, we, we know, for instance, to do the raid on Maduro, we, we had reconstructed his, you know, his, his residence. And so we had already trained everybody that went in there, had already run this on a full scale mock up training. Going in, the doors, the handles turn the right way, everything opens the right way. Boom. Bin Laden. We built the bin Laden compound. People trained on that compound, flew into that compound. When you do this kind of operation, there's airfields outside of, you know, Las Vegas, there's airfields down in Arizona and Yuma that we use to rehearse every aspect of this. So these planes with that configuration have already landed in an airfield in the United States. They have already pulled the equipment off, they've already flown out to a target that is designed to replicate the Isfaton tunnels. They have already used their explosives, their torches, they've everything to get in there. So they've rehearsed everything. And so this package that was deployed was there with a full rehearsal under its belt and they were getting ready to launch this F15E, I believe was the initial element of this, of this raid. They were getting ready to launch. I want to know what make because I, I think that we don't. We didn't know any. For instance, we made assumptions about Iranian air defense that were fundamentally flawed. That's why an F15 got shot down. What made us think that we weren't going to lose these aircraft? Yes, we were able to get to that airfield, but we were detected. We have people moving in. How long could the B1s provide a wall of fire? You know, how long would it take to bring this stuff out where we're going to be there for days, hours? You know, I want to know why the president, you know, because this is a political decision now. This means that military operations are being influenced based upon the President's political prerogatives that he needs to be seen as having a victory. How many Americans would have to die for this? These are questions that need to be asked because this raid would not have been successful. There's no doubt in my mind that had we been, instead of picking up a pilot, which is a one time in and out boom operation, had we actually tried to seize and hold an airfield for a sustained period of time while we're flying in special operations teams to try and blow their way into tunnels while the Iranians are responding, this would have been a disaster. So I'd like to know what was the decision tree on this one? Who was involved? Is this why JD Vance had to fire a bunch of people? Because people were saying this is crazy, this is insane, this isn't worthy. And now the next question is if that's the case, now that they failed, are we starting to, Is the President going to start to reconsider the yes men saying, wait a minute, you said yes to something? Wasn't going to work. Should I trust you again? You know, and then what? What's J.D. vance? You know, we know he was against the war. Apparently he's leading the American effort with the Pakistanis to, to broker a deal to bring this war to an end. Does this failed mission give him more credibility? I mean, are the war hawks diminished? There's, there's a lot of questions out there right now, not so much about the rescue, but about this bigger plan. What are we doing in Iran? What are we trying to do? You know, things of that nature.
- [79:13]
B
Those are good questions.
- [79:15]
A
Yeah, I guess. One last thought. Is that just speaking to, to some different sources, Air Force and otherwise, and F15 pilots adjacent, that these air defenses were with the help of the Russians. And what do you know about that?
- [79:38]
D
I mean, if it Is then that's good for the United States because we train on this. I mean again we, you know, all of these pilots fly, you know, what used to be called Red Flag, I don't know what they call it nowadays but out at Nellis Air Force Base they go out there and they, they fly realistic combat missions against opposition forces that are designed to mimic, you know, Russian threats. They, they are schooled on the, you know, radar capabilities of the S3 hundreds, 400 systems. They're jamming in their self defense. You know, systems in their aircraft are designed to, you know, operate in a radar environment which is what we're talking about here. What shot this airplane down. Some people are saying that it was a, a Russian missile fired from long range maybe. I mean again intelligence wise we'll know that because we'll know if there was a radar emitting, will have the launch sequence and will have tracked of the missile. But what's causing us problems right now isn't you know, Russian missiles. What's causing us problems are the Iranian missiles. You see Iran's reconstituted its anti air capabilities but they're not using exclusively radar guided systems because that's playing into America's strength. You know, we have an entire airborne suppression enemy air defense, you know, program in place designed to suppress the radars. We have jamming aircraft, you know, EA sixes, we have EF18s that go in there and they have special equipment specifically designed to counter these Russian and Chinese radars. What the Iranians have done is they're deploying electro optically guided missiles and missiles using infrared heat, a whole different thing. And you know, we're, we don't have, we haven't planned for that environment. So this means now in order to avoid that we have to fly higher. And when you fly higher you're not flying better. Especially when you don't, when you've run out of precision guided. And the higher you fly, the more vulnerable become to radar guidedness. So the Iranians are whipping us. I mean yes we can go in and drop bombs, but this isn't anybody who thinks that we have air supremacy over Iran. You don't know what you're talking about. The Iranians laid low while we were using standoff weapons. But now that we've exhausted our supply of standoff weapons we have to go deeper into Iranian territory. This F15E mission was one of the first ones to go in deep and it got shot down. And what we're seeing also is that Israelis, while they're not getting shot Down. They are terminating their attack profiles because they're being locked on earlier by air defense systems that shouldn't exist because we apparently thought we had killed them all, but we haven't. The Iranians are much more prepared for this war than we are. They've anticipated just about everything, and they're beating us across the board.
- [82:45]
A
Wow. Scott Ritter, former UN Weapons Inspector, US Marine thank you so much. I just was. I wasn't about to interrupt you at all. I think you really answered a huge, huge swaths of this story and hopefully put to bed a lot of misinformation out there. Scott, great to see you as always. Thank you so much.
- [83:04]
D
Thanks for having me on.
- [83:05]
A
Appreciate it. Wow.
- [83:07]
B
I know. I mean, I had so many questions, and he just went like, check, check,
- [83:12]
A
check, you know, I'm not gonna interrupt him anyways.
- [83:16]
B
Yeah. Something the President said today in his news conference is the Iranians are very embarrassed by this, by what just happened. We're not. We love it. We feel so proud. Good for us. Rah, rah, rah. Right. And if in fact, no Americans died, that's wonderful. But they're not letting us know. And when a reporter asked how many Americans were flown in for this mission, he said, I'm not gonna tell you. That's classified. So we still don't know if there are American deaths. They're telling us there weren't, but we're not sure. Now, if the scope of the mission was this extreme danger, then, yeah, the Iranians are not embarrassed by it. And if you look at Iranian media, they clearly are not.
- [83:55]
A
Right. I guess on the Russian help question, specifically from some different sources I was speaking to on this, is that these are basically in many ways untrackable missiles because they're not using the sort of active, active radar, they're using a passive radar capability. So again, to Scott's point, if they are, that's, you know, that's incredibly interesting. But anyway, we'll have to continue digging into this story. We'll take some of your super chats here in a second. Any other questions? You have certainly.
- [84:30]
B
I had not thought of it the way he had, that it's lucky that it was a failed mission, that Americans got out safely, because it could have been a bloodbath. I guess what the President wanted was, we're holding the uranium. They don't have any more left. We're done here. Right?
- [84:45]
C
War over.
- [84:46]
A
But to his point, which would explain
- [84:48]
B
the extremely emotional tweets.
- [84:51]
A
Yeah. Well, and again, a couple of points. Right. On the yes men Question. You have to know that Pete HEGSETH was like, Mr. President, we got this.
- [84:58]
B
We can do it.
- [84:59]
A
We got it. We can definitely do it. We got it. You know, we're gonna go in there, we're doing Venezuela. And then the President loves that kind of intention, enthusiasm. He's like, all right, all right, Pete, great. You're saying it. We got it. Okay, great. And then this all falls apart. So no wonder there was a large number of people being fired. But who, who are the yes men that like, promised President Trump that this would be a win win situation, right? Go in and get the uranium out of these tunnels in this Special Operations Navy SEAL Team 6 Operation. Like, it's not going to be a bloodbath.
- [85:31]
B
This is not fantasy. I mean, those are in impressive titles, but still, this is extremely dangerous. All right, well, we're going to take some super chats, find out what you think of it all in just a moment. So get them in if you haven't already. Before we do that though, we want to tell you about our friends over at kickoff, because this is one of the things that really nobody explains to you until it matters, which is credit. You don't think about it until suddenly you do. You need to apply for credit to buy a house or a car, even apply for something basic. And you really realize how much of what you pay hinges on a good credit score. And for a lot of people, it's not that they make mistakes, it's just they didn't build it properly in the first place or they had a rough stretch and fell behind. It happens. The problem is that much of the system isn't designed to help you fix that very easily. That's why I love tools like Kickoff. I think it's so interesting. They are the number one credit building app in the App Store. And it's built around around the actual factors that determine your credit, like a payment history and credit utilization. So here's how it works. You open an account and your on time monthly payments get reported over time. That builds a positive payment history. And because the payments are small, this helps keep your utilization low, which is another key factor. Plans start at just $5 a month. There's no credit check, no hidden fees, and no interest. And they've got real data behind it. Users who start with a credit score of under 600 see an average increase of 86 points over time just by making these small payments on time. They also offer rent reporting. So something you're already paying your rent helps you boost your credit. It's Simple. You can sign up in minutes from your phone, set up autopay and just let it run. So if this is something you've been putting in off or didn't know how to approach it, here's a great way to start. Start building credit with Kickoff today. Get your first month for as little as $1. That's 80% off the normal price. If you use our landing page go to get Kickoff that's g e t k dash I k o f f dot com redacted. You're only going to get that offer, that $1 offer if you use our site getkickoff.com redaction redacted now you must sign up there getkickoff.com redacted to activate the offer. And it only applies to new Kickoff customers in their first month only. And it's subject to approval. The offer is subject to change. Average first year credit score impact is 86%. That was between August 24 and 25 for kickoff credit account users who started with a score of below 600, paid on time time and had no delinquencies or collections added to their credit profile during the year. So obviously you can't do things that hurt your credit while you're building your credit. That should be obvious. Late payments may negatively affect your your credit score. Individual results may apply. So one more time, that's getkickoff.com
- [88:25]
D
all
- [88:26]
A
right, just have one question there from somebody on. See if we can. I know if it's still. I clicked on it and then it's still been a while. So it might have disappeared. Someone said, I don't know. I haven't heard yet. One good reason why we've gone to war against Iran. Have you guys heard a good reason why we've gone to war against.
- [88:46]
B
Because Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. They just keep saying that Iran can. Israel can. They stole it from us. Totally fine. But Iran cannot.
- [88:55]
D
Yeah, yeah. They probably wouldn't want one if we didn't always mess with them. You know what I mean? Like most of those people want. Those want weapons justified us to keep us at bay.
- [89:10]
A
What is a steady state ngo? I don't even know what that is. Someone's asking about steady state ngo. I'm not sure but no, I've. I've never even heard of it. But thank you. If you don't stump Stumpy says if you don't want the truth, you shouldn't be here. Thank you so much.
- [89:27]
B
I think they were applying to some people who are saying you're talking negatively about the administration. What we do here as an anti war channel is break down war lies. Unfortunately, if you want to keep loving Trump, that's very hard to do because they are selling yet another war based on lies. So I don't know how to get around it. You know, our personal preference is not to talk bad about anybody. But again, we're now another administration, another new war. So this is, this is not Trump derangement syndrome. This is war derangement syndrome.
- [89:59]
D
And it says center for Advancement of a Steady State economy is a US based 501c3 organization advocating for a transition from unstainable economic growth to a steady state economy featuring a stable population and resource consumption. They focus on environmental sustainability, educating policymakers and the public on ecological economics.
- [90:20]
A
Okay, I've never heard of. Thank you for that. Appreciate you asking. Any other comments floating in that you're seeing that you want to comment on? I didn't see any other super chats, but thank you for your donation here. Ten dollar super chat. Thank you for your supreme, Steve. Appreciate that.
- [90:38]
B
No, but we appreciate the substantive comments, especially during our guest segments. You guys asked great questions of Scott Ritter and we appreciate that. If you want to say something of like, you guys are like cnn, just tell us why you guys are just talking bad about Trump. What is defensible that the President has said to bring this war about? So please, we appreciate your comments, but if, if you want to take a hit at us, do so substantively and we will respond.
- [91:09]
A
G. Fontes, thank you for your rumble rant, says your past guest, Steve. Stephen A. Cash is the CEO of the Steady State NGO that if you don't really know who they are, you might want to do a search. Is there a deep state? As deep state as it gets. Okay. Okay, thank you. G. Fontes, Stephen Cash. Okay, appreciate that.
- [91:31]
C
Elves.
- [91:32]
A
We have a Stephen Cash on. I don't think we've ever had a Stephen Cash. I don't remember that guest show.
- [91:37]
D
Well, we had, we had the whistleblower Stephen. Steve Baker. What is it, Steve?
- [91:41]
A
Oh, Steve Baker from. Formerly of the Blaze, who was from the January 6th Pipe Bomber Store. He's an excellent journalist and he was also arrested on January 6th. But no, not that I know of, a Stephen Cash, but sorry, anything else here? I don't see if we see any other. Yes, thank you guys and thank you guys for subscribing. As I mentioned off the earlier part of the show, you, YouTube is actively unsubscribing people from, from our channel. I had to get.
- [92:10]
C
I had.
- [92:11]
A
I had a viewer write to me and said, I've subscribed to your channel twice and YouTube has unsubscribed me both times. So I'm going to keep subscribing until, like, until they just give up. But I was looking at the numbers on the subscribers. Normally we get, you know, a few thousand per day. They literally, it's like if we get a thousand subscribers, they unsubscribe a thousand people. They just will never let us grow on purpose. It's kind of crazy what they're doing. It's crazy. Rumble doesn't do that. Rumble continues to grow nicely, but YouTube, for whatever reason, it's just crazy. Anyway, so thank you guys so much for subscribing, being a part of our community here. We really appreciate it. And don't forget to subscribe to our daily newsletter. We put it together every evening or overnight so that it's ready in your inbox first thing in the morning when you wake up. If you just go to redacted.inc. put in your your information, you will receive a welcome email from us. You just need to make sure it doesn't go to your spam folder and then you'll receive it the following morning. So Tuesday morning, it's great with your morning cup of coffee, cover like five or 10 of the big stories of the of the day, and a great way for you to stay engaged with us. So redacted.inc is the place to go.
- [93:17]
B
Thank you so much for being here. Stick with us. We'll see you here tomorrow, same time, same place.