CIA deception operation rescues missing US airman in Iran
Fox News contributor Paul Mauro explains the complex Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) deception operation that rescued a U.S. airman missing for more than 36 hours in Iran. The CIA used fabricated information to mislead Iranian investigators into pinpointing and extracting the airmen. Mauro emphasizes the important role of human intelligence (HUMINT) and synergistic efforts and emphasizes that despite technological advances, intelligence fundamentally depends on people.
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Paul Mauro said Monday that US intelligence agencies have already laid the groundwork needed to locate a missing colonel inside Iran, arguing that the operation depended on intelligence gathered long before the mission began.
“You have to collect, you collect, you collect and a lot of it sometimes you never get to use,” Mauro told “Fox & Friends.”
“The key is that it has to be there when you need it.”
Mauro pointed to the Maduro case, which unfolded in January on the orders of the Trump administration, in which the US military had the ability to find out where the Venezuelan dictator and his wife were supposed to live at the time to carry out an effective capture.
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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth shakes the hand of an American airman on a secret CENTCOM tour with troops in the theater. (Secretary of War/X)
“They caught him when they were running to a safe room without a scratch. Everyone comes out without a scratch,” he said.
“They caught them as they were fleeing. That’s how detailed the message was and how synchronized the operation was.”
Mauro said the same level of preparation and coordination was on display in the Iran mission, where US forces rescued a missing American weapons systems officer From a downed F-15E after a several-day search over enemy territory.
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Artificial intelligence is a big factor in the Iran war and Iran realizes this. (iStock)
Once his location was confirmed, American intelligence was able to take prompt action to recover the missing colonel.
“[This] This was one of those situations where the bell rang. ‘Guys, what? [have] you received?’ The President turned, [War Secretary] Hegseth wanders, [and] They all talk to Ratcliffe and say, ‘What [have] You got it, director?’ And luckily it was there.”
Mauro said this operation highlights a broader fact about intelligence work that is obvious to those working within its community: Its success depends on the people running the sources.
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“At the end of the day… It depends on the people,” he said.
“If you think you can sit somewhere and do whatever you want, that’s not going to happen. You need people in the country, in dangerous areas, Americans working on our behalf who you’ve never heard of… They’re running the sources so that, whenever you need it, they say, ‘My source is good.’“
