Inside the Insane F-15 WSO Rescue in Iran by U.S. SOF | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Hey everybody welcome to another episode of IZone Geopolitics. Oh my God where people are lining in. They're packing in the place. Andy Milburns here. Hi Andy. We just started recording Jack Murphy, Jonathan Hackett. Oh Mark Polymeropolis too. It's so this is this is unprecedented full full full house here today. This is the first time it's happened. Jack. I didn't brush my teeth or wash my face yet. Great job. The one you're going to give you a slice of Ukraine. Thank you. Appreciate it. I don't need a big spotty. I don't need a big slice either. I almost appear off the thing. The crew jokes about why I wouldn't even say what they were about on signal. The about Jack's prop pending only fans. No, okay so great news for once. Great not about the only fans, but about the F 15 weapon system officer being rescued by a special operations raid that I'm going to give kudos to where they deserve that Jack Murphy broke first. And everyone doubted him, but let's go back to the story because that's the most important thing. Who doubted him? Come on bro. Come on bro. You saw the people chirp. Don't get me crazy Mark. It doesn't matter. It's just a peanut. Hey, before we turn to the Jack show and I do want to say up front. Yeah, I'm overjoyed and very happy that we rescued a false car from the hinterland of Iran. There's no there's no downside to that. But I am concerned that there's a there's kind of this incredible focus on this one very small event. I mean it is a it. Human lives never small. I understand that. It's because it's good news. That's why we've all been out. We've all been a war and we know saving one dude is good news, but it's a very small piece of the hole and and in the long run. Yes, we do these things. I think this one of you said I think Mark said we do these things very well or expected him to do very well. We have the well class organization that's dedicated to it. I don't want to diminish it. But what comes next and what else have we been doing or not doing I think should be focus of at least 5% of the show. But I don't want to take away from Jackson, already walked out. How dare you. Sorry, this was awesome. I'm back and I'll shut up. Awesome. That would have been legendary. Yeah, so I mean everybody knows the news now. Major raid happened. Some hiccups on the way out as well. But everyone got back safe. We had to blow up a couple of C 130s and a little bird. But all the Americans were safely returned to like friendly airspace. So a good story. And yeah, you're right Andy like the rest of us a should show. But you know, where do you guys want to start? I think we need to talk about this for sure. A little bit and then we'll talk about. You know, the impending you know bombing bridges and power plants day that's coming up on Tuesday. But yeah, Jack, tell us run it down for us and then we'll get into it and let the guys take over. Yeah, no, that sounds good. I'll try to keep it brief. To be clear to I mean, I don't know everything and don't want to put myself up like I do. You know, this thing is still developing and the military itself. I'm sure it's still doing all their after action reviews to try to figure out for themselves exactly what happened. But the broad pieces of it as no, there was a 15 pilot on the ground, you escaping and abating for about 24 hours inside Iran. And from what we can tell about the the effort to get him back, they did a lot of airstrikes to keep the Iranians off of his back. The Iranians have wanted a lot of assets into the area. We're actively searching for him. And meanwhile, we have to get, you know, a ground team helicopters and actually extract the guy. And as we now know, they set up what's called a far per forward error refueling point. So for like people who aren't familiar. When you have to fly helicopters, but also airplanes sometimes especially long distances, you have to set up some sort of like a fuel depot. You know, I did this many moons ago for little birds and in a ref, you know, just driving out somewhere and taking a full bullet out leaving it in a field for a little bird pilots. Sometimes this is a little bit more elaborate. There's a C 130 aircraft going in that was refueling some of these helicopters. And this kind of plays into, you know, how the pilot is actually pulled out of there. So they occupied this improvised landing strip set up the far. And the pilot was eventually pulled out by little birds. So those were record the smaller wider aircraft that 160 is wise shorter range than a CH 47 or MH 60. And so that kind of explains why the refueling part was so important to this. And I don't know all the tactical decisions that were made and why they use this airframe. But perhaps part of it was because he was in these mountains reportedly. I don't know how bad it was if you like hanging on the side of a cliff or something, but maybe it was difficult to get to. So they went in and extracted him. But then on the way out the C 130 got as I understand a wheel stuck in the sand, it like sunk into the dirt and the crew was trying to dig it out. And that resulted in some delays. It took them a while to get out off of that far and the Delta Force element that was standing by as a quick reaction force that they called in. They came in and helped blow up the aircraft. I mean, I know of C 130. One C 130 was blown. Some media reports are saying to C 130s. It'll I also believe at least one helicopter was blown up. I guess they just determined that they could not recover them and get them home for whatever reason. And after that happened, you know, whichever new aircraft probably helicopters that they flew in on the Q RF on they got everybody on those and flew them back home. And they were they were back over the Persian Gulf, probably around 1130 Eastern Standard time last night. And that was pretty much the end of the operation as far as that's concerned. But I mean, the air strikes are still ongoing. So that's like the thumbnail sketch and we'll find out a lot more in the coming days and weeks. I'm sure. What did they find out of check? I'm not sure. Well, I know the couple places where J. Sock has been pre positioned, but yeah, I'm probably wouldn't get into that right now. But but somewhere in the Persian Gulf. Yeah, that's very helpful. Yeah, that's that's tracking with everything. Obviously, Jack is on the broken so well done. Jack. I was tracking it all day yesterday as we all know because we were changing. Tax all day. And I think that's spot on at least for what I know. I would also agree just to start with with with Andy that this is this is incredible. You know, great news really does highlight the ethos of the US military. We never leave somebody behind and we take extraordinary method method measures to get them back. I'd also, you know, point out and I know Marx can have something to say about this. Great job. Start with great job to say to say the agency. They are they are telling people essentially they use a deception campaign and then found this individual and then factored in these heroic operatives of J. Sock to recover. Great news. We'd really like to see people adhere to the, you know, silent vessels because it does it does compromise. I think things in the future. So we're talking about it because it's in every news outlet in the world right now. But I'd also point out it isn't unique to this experience. If you remember a bada bada. It was like a race to tell every possible thing that went into that as well. And it exposed a lot of things that we shouldn't. So I'd start with that. But the kudos part as usual when you compare when you pair J. Sock and the agency. Super good things going to happen. And then I would shift right now and say now we got to figure out what shot down the F-15. Is it a new weapon system that was introduced? If it was who did it. I don't believe the Iranians that they somehow just developed it on their own in the middle of war. And whether that's going to have an impact. And then second, and I'll hold until we get to this point. The war goes on. The war goes on. Like we're running out of deadline here. Looks like it's Tuesday now. We're talking about bomb and infrastructure, which of course is going to have a legal connotation to it. Bridges, which might indicate our Northland. The Russians going to have a quick make up. If we get into the old resolutions, then this is just going to go even more. I don't know if it's on a rate than one. It is right today that the F-15 went down. There's a rebirth. Not down. And then yesterday another one down. So I think they are using. It's called like the tire surface to air missile. It's something that they make that that's what's suspected. But there are Russian S 300 S 400 systems out there. I don't know if we've destroyed all of them or not. Hey, one thing I just want to throw out there because I send it in our most wonderful chat we have. If anyone ever gets a hold of that, we're all screwed by the way. But I was just thinking back to and again, with my background's a little bit different than everybody else. I was not in the military before, but I was in the agency obviously and did a lot of stuff with with Mick and others. And I just remember going through the isoprop protocols on the infill into back that when I was with Task Force 160 on their bird and I was flying in there. I'm like, I forgot everything I was supposed to remember. And so I want to know from you guys, do you actually, and Mick was honest in the chat. He's like, yeah, kind of, did you remember? Mark, protocols for you, behind-end-of-the-meal-line stuff. Yeah, got it. Just let everybody know what ISO prep means. It's, it's what we're probably, shouldn't we be talking about it? It's just a protocol of, you know, with your, when you're, if. So ISO prep card isn't classified, you can find it online. I selected. It's basically just information that you fill out so that in case you become a POW, during a war, that you can be identified and there are some. It's signals and stuff about your background. Right. You're gonna keep over radio and if someone's, if a, if a rescue force is coming at you, but I literally was like, I have no idea what I said. I'm totally screwed. So I'm gonna go through everybody. Jack, did you remember your ISO prep protocol? I think so. I think the question were so blatantly obvious, and it's no way I could, like, like, what high school did you go to, you know, things like that? Andy? Yeah, I, no one with you. I, I, I don't think I could, I can remember them. I, because when you have to. So imagine the Delta Force team comes in to rescue Andy Milburn or Mark Polymeropolis, and they're like, Mark, what's your hometown? Like, I don't remember, bro. I, oh, sorry, sorry, dude, we gotta leave you there. That's right. I had, I had more sophisticated ones than that. John, but Jack, I think it's, I'm sorry, go, go ahead, Mark. I just want to do a poll, John, then did you remember? So I didn't remember it when I was going into country, but then when I was working on personal recovery planning, I realized how important and actually all that stuff was, and I was like, I should probably start remembering this stuff. And then you already admitted you've, man. Yeah, right. I think Jonathan remembers everything. Yes, I have been in a situation where I started thinking about them. But Jack, I think you all have to remember that, you know? What situation you use, I said, prayer, and I didn't really apply in this case, right? Presumably, the pilot had a beacon for, and I'm, you know, for some reason, there was some delay and pick either in picking up the signal or they located the signal, but it was in an inaccessible area or maybe someone was telling me, actually, I better pause here because I don't think it's as classified, but there's different protocol for beacon activation when you're in combat from when you're training and training. It goes on automatically, but there may have been a delay, right? And that's normally how you, how you locate it down to pilot. Yeah. Pro, this is, yeah, this is outside my area of expertise. I'm not really an aviation guy, but I had someone tell me that the beacon is supposed to activate when they eject from the aircraft, but it also has something to do with like the angle of the aircraft and how they come out, like the pitch of the aircraft can affect that. I don't understand how that works, but apparently it does make a difference. And as far as how they actually located him, I don't know, no one told me, you know, for certain, this is how it happened, but I'm sure it was a beacon or a survival radio that they ended up picking up on. There's also, let me just throw in here because Mick alluded to it and it has been in the process. There's some, I guess reporting in multiple organizations, actually basically everybody, that the agency had some role in the recovery. Not only there was a deception campaign, but also in the actual recovery. And Mick alluded to just kind of what bothered me. And I was, of course, you know, howling about it in our chat, just the notion of this is not something that should be for public consumption. And it's clear that kind of agency public relations folks were sending this out at about two o'clock in the morning to news organizations, talking about that the agency had something to do with it. And you know, so we don't know what that means, how they were able to locate them. The quote they said was that it was based on exquisite capabilities. You know, you don't know if that's signals intelligence, if it's any kind of non-assisted recovery, you know, human intelligence network, who the heck knows what it is, things that people do and train for and prepare for. But I think we all would have preferred that not be out. And you know, it just goes to that notion of, and Mick's right, that, you know, this administration is going to do the same thing that other administrations did. You know, Obama came out and all the details of the obodabot operation to kill Ben Laden certainly filtered out. But it's better off if this is not, it turns into kind of who's bragging about it. You know, what's the, what's the old saying that, you know, success has a, success has a thousand fathers, you know, failure is an orphan. I can assure you that the agency would not have been emailing press organizations if this thing went kind of tits up. And so, you know, it's much better, I would much prefer if that would not be in public, because you don't know if they could potentially compromise stuff. And it does go to the notion of, in this administration, everybody is really working for one individual and that's the president and everyone's got to try to impress them. And so, heck, Seth is going to brag about this as is John Rackliffe. It would just be better if this was kept kept quiet. And again, a tremendous operation. I did have a list of, someone sent me a list of things that were lost. Obviously, it was the F-15, an A-10, two payfawks as well, three little birds, two C-130s, and at least three MQ-9s. And I don't know if that's accurate or not. The reapers sounds right. The payfawks, I don't think they were shot down, but they were shot up pretty pretty -shot up. Yeah. I mean, that's about a half billion dollars worth of, of airframes there. I would think about that. The pilots were hit substantially as I understand it. So again, it's so bringing in just incredible that this colonel gets to go home on Easter to his family and I'm sure we'll hear or about him because it once again, and this is just the way it is. We're going to see him at the White House. There's no doubt about that. But last point on this, exactly what Mick had said is there's got to be now a discussion of what happens next because Trump put out of the truth social posts basically. With the little Al Alakfar in the end, which I don't know if it's weird or racist or whatever the hell it is, but basically, you know, promising all sorts of Armageddon in the next 48 hours if Iran didn't open up the straight of our moves. We'd start hitting infrastructure targets. So interesting that the White House couldn't kind of bask in the victory of this. They then put this out and now the discussion does have to shift into what comes next. And so here we are. It's Sunday and that deadline, I guess, is on Tuesday. Let me get a hack in here, John. What's your take on all this? Well, when we talked about the nonstandard assistance recovery, I think it's important to know that there are people in the region that would be there to help whether that, whether we asked them to help or not. So in some cases, we would have set up some structures to have that. But in other cases, there are people there that are just like we want to help the American in the area because we don't support the regime. And there were some videos circulating yesterday evening in that village, a particular village that he was on the northwest corner of vehicles barricading the roads to prevent the erroneous security forces from actually affecting a search. And these people had their cars just kind of strewn all about. If you see the video, it's very interesting. It's almost like a passive resistance because if you remember, the regime's aircraft are all destroyed or obliterated mostly so they can't be used for the search and rescue. They can't use helicopters. They can't use any of these air assets except drones. So they're basically on the ground trying to drive to the location. And if you look on a map, this is like powder dirt area. It's really rough. Like when I heard the C-130 got stuck there, I was not surprised. Because it's basically like that moon dust that you'd see in like helmet province. For example, if anyone's been to Afghanistan, it's listening. You just get stuck in it. It's really tough. And that's the same problem we have with Desert 1 in 1980, that landing site, that it was just this moon dust that just eats stuff when it lands on it. So it was actually very nice to see that the locals there resisting the regime to try to help that American gain some time, just a little bit of embole of time to get up probably into that higher grounds that could be rescued. That's interesting. That is a natural part. That's the war area that's in the U.S. It's been very heated by the regime that they want. The pilot was actually lucky. You have gone down in that area. It's right south of Shiraz. And these people, the warry people are very tribal, very closely connected to each other. And they've been trying to get rid of the regime out of that area for a long time. So probably the first moment they heard about this, they said, hey guys, let's go out and start doing something. Before we go on to perhaps more momentous actually sites. I was surprised to see, I think it's the Wall Street Journal cover this story that you guys were just talking about, the deception claimed by the agency. And it gets back to, it does seem extraordinary. It doesn't it that an intelligence agency would announce that because, especially from Mick and Mark, doesn't that potentially compromise a method if they did use that method? It compromises using it again. I mean, they're saying that they somehow planted a story that gained momentum that the MN had already been recovered. No, I don't know how they did that. I mean, if it's, but it's not, it just, I'm not commenting that it seems unseemly, but it just seems extraordinary. Unless there was, unless there's some motive other than just beating. No, it's not this. It's not this. It's the notion of people trying to take credit and everyone's vying for their kind of supremacy and the national security pantheon. That's why, you know, Rackliffe and Tulsi Gabbard and Mark Rubio, all of offices at the White House, they spend a lot of time there. I just, you know, so I think, you know, is it going to compromise, you know, source and methods? I don't know, but it certainly doesn't help. And the problem is now that everyone kind of has the sniffing around on this. I mean, you can't email reporters at two o'clock in the morning, which is what the agency did. Then the reporters were then using the quote, according to a senior administration official, but it's not. It was the agency public relations staff. So now they're going to start digging. They wouldn't have been digging without this. And when reporters in Washington start digging, they're eventually going to get the story and someone's going to say something. And so to me, that was kind of just unnecessary. Hey, what's up guys? This is the, uh, could do us a favor and check out our Patreon page. It's patreon.com/teamhouse. You get both team house episodes and eyes on geopolitics episodes completely ad-free. You get them early too. You can ask us questions. You can also watch the team house episodes live as we shoot them. So, uh, and you help support the show and support what we're doing here. Um, it's patreon.com/teamhouse. Those links are in the description or if you're listening, it's in the show notes down below. So you can click it real quick and easy. And it helps us keep the lights on. Uh, so we appreciate it and we appreciate you guys listening. Thanks a bunch. And for, for the agency guys here, I mean, we have representatives from all over here, right? Even the range of regiment, uh, equal opportunity. But I, for, for Mick and Mark, specifically, I, and I think you made a comment about this mark actually in our chat, but there are, again, you know, I'm not downplaying this, but there are more important things in intelligence agency should be focusing on during this war. You know, I, I hate to hold up Mossad as, as an example, but presumably they know a fair amount about what's going on. Iranian intentions that they've been, they've clearly infiltrated, uh, Iran's regime to quite an extent. And they, you know, there's very been very little talk about what the Iranians do next. We broadcast what we're doing, presumably we're relying on the, on the Israelis to do this. Or I mean, do we, are we too focused on minutia, I guess, in the intelligence community is where I'm heading and to rely on, on our partners to get us to make a lot of a make the answer because I'm going to raise something with them. This is where kind of mix old world and what he did in the paramilitary side is so good. You know, there's 20 years of the GWAT and we perfected this and it's, and I had, I dabbled in it when I was a base chief and then I worked on some, some ISR stuff, but you know, the kinetic part of it manhunting or, or personal recovery or, you know, uh, kind of covert action. That's what Mick and his, SAC colleagues did and we're really good at it. What I do question now is, are we good at penetrating the Iranian regime in terms of, you know, an asset in the Supreme Leader's office? You know, plans and intentions. This is strategic intelligence that can formulate decision making and I wonder if the agency kind of got drunk on its own success in GWAT stuff and I'm guilty of it and, you know, and we wouldn't even say guilty. That's what we're tasked to do. But are we good at kind of hard target foreign intelligence operations where we can help the president and his national security team say, what's the Iranians going to do next? Then Mick, that's TN it up for you. Yeah, thanks, Mark. I mean, you know, we just had this summit out here and on the intel side, there was all different components in the agency. It wasn't just, you know, the PM dudes. Um, I think sometimes we, to be frank, we get too much credit, not credit, but like, it's just so much attention because of the, um, it plays well, put it that way. When a lot of what the agency does is behind the scenes and nobody talks about it and, um, they do incredible work. So I actually, yes, we're very good at finding people. That's why I was pointing out you put JSOC and the CIA together. We can do a lot of this stuff and it's, it's the most significant operations that we all talk about. And we should still be able to do that. And we should be able to do all of this, by the way. It's not this like a DC thing to say it's either or like, oh, either you do paramilitary stuff or you penetrate the crime on, I like, let's do both. Um, I think we do actually have really good human assets. If you look at like before the war in Ukraine, how much information we actually had, I think there's a lot of examples that were out, well, I think it actually breaks down and I get a lot of this from my last job is to people listen to it, right? Because it, you know, if, if, even if we have the best penetration, the best analyst, you know, analyst and the analytical product, it still has to be listened to by the policymakers. If they all go in their own presumptions as if they're just thoughts or just as important as, you know, the agencies and a local piece on what Putin intends to do is equal, then it's, it just doesn't necessarily work. So a part of it is, is whether it's used correctly. I always thought that we discuss policy, the intelligence community. So it's not just the AC, of course. That should be what sets the facts. If you, if they don't set the facts, then it's just personal presumptions and agendas that sets the facts. Then we go from there on discussing, you know, what we should do based on that. And I think that's where, and I'm not just in, you know, this administration, but other administrations, where they just, they treated it as just another data point. And I think we need to get back to, like, no, that's the entire 18. One thing on that, and everyone knows the president probably does the lessons to experts. You know, Marco Rubio still gets the PDB, the president's Delhi brief. So does Dan Kayn, the chairman, so does Pete Hegg's death. Basically, the entire National Security Cabinet gets the PDB. So with that argument, that that would then say that, okay, the intelligence, the analysis, everything was there. And then the entire national security team ignored it as did the president. And so to me, that's where I kind of, and that's where I think the congressional oversight's got to come in. Whereas Hipsy and Sissy saying, what was in the PDB? What was brief to people? And what did you, XYZ cabinet members say to the president? Because the argument that everything was there and everything was solid and good, fine, the president doesn't listen, but then, you know, does Rackliffe not brief him? What about Chelsea Gabbard? What about Dan Kayn? What about Pete Hegg's death? What about Marco Rubio? And so then the process really is falling down. If what are they scared of telling the president the truth? Or is he just not listening? So that's where I think there needs to be some more kind of certainly media attention. Yeah, so just quickly on that, I mean, I think you're spot on. And I think we're going to fly down, right? So the eminent threat, wasn't it? Wasn't it, you know, all regime change? What are the intelligence communities say collectively about the possibility of that happening? If it's in there that said, it's not going to happen. And then we went out and said it was, I mean, that's a choice. It's not a crime, of course. It's just a difference of the opinion. But we'll find out how accurate the intelligence community was on. It's a really good point. It's going to come out eventually. In the off-mars, seven-art cova, of course. You can know where we're going to ask the question, how does Israel with one of the most technically competent intelligence communities in the world miss all the pointers and pointers they were aplenty? And the answer is they didn't miss them, but no one was listening because they were so programmed into thinking that Hamas was not a threat. But the reports were being made and the briefs were being made. But I just want to follow on question for you guys because I mean, isn't it fair to say it's kind of rhetoric question, right? But isn't it fair to say, I mean, the US intelligence community is held most accountable probably among all Western intelligence communities, right? I mean, since you know, things like the Church Commission, the requirement to share certain intel with the with the committees. And so isn't it the case that whether our failures at least there is accountability and follow-up in the reckoning? So, Hipsy and Sissy kind of like high Congress into the intelligence community in a way that I don't think really exists even in other Western countries. It's like, hey, Congress, you're culpable for this as well. Yeah, I mean, I'm most other services. Am I thick like close to the power with us? They don't do near the same amount of oversight. I mean, I've talked to these rallies that say like, hey, all our lawyers do is write our wills. That's it, right? We obviously, I mean, it's with different country. I'm not complaining or saying she changed, but we get to answer this. We get to know the idea of what we're doing. It's an interesting kind of like dining. We have like powerful intelligence community, but at the same time, I mean, just the teamhouse podcast that we do, tell me what country would clear its intelligence officers, former intelligence officers to come and like talk about the profession and have some sort of interface with the public. So, America's in a very like kind of unique position in that sense. Not only that, but drink hot alcohol in a living room setting. That's the totally you, Milburn. Neil times, Neil times, close. We're very proud of that. Jack, I just got a note from someone and you'll like this because it's very highbrow. I'm not going to tell you who it is from the Atlantic, though. So, Atlantic's a pretty well reputable place. Let me find this. Hold on, here it goes. He wrote, you sent something, he goes, "Jack's take, smiley face." He said he has very good sources. There you go. You're getting to the site, Jack and his next article. I probably won't explain. You know, something to be said, I mean, you know, and just not to to your horn too much. but the importance of independent journalism is huge. And one of the things, and I think it's worth talking to a little bit is that what bothers me as both just like Mick, we work for established organizations, is a lot of the reporting is just regurgitation of some senior administration official calling someone a reporter and giving them their spin, and then it turns out they just kind of spew it out. And that drives me crazy, that's not deep dive reporting, that's not actually getting to the facts. And everybody kind of follows Axios religiously because they have a direct line into the administration on stuff, but it literally is a propaganda arm. And I love these folks and I know them. If you understand that, it's fine. I do want to hear what Axios reports on the Middle East, but I also know that it's coming from Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff directly. It's interesting, but it's not news. And so what you do and some others is actually really important because it's deep dives. A lot of times it's long kind of hard, several investigations. But you do get people to talk to you and talk to you not as an administration official spewing the line. It's actually what actually is happening. So Kudos on that. I appreciate that Mark. And I just point out, I write a lot of this sort of investigative stuff with Sean Naylor on the high side. And we have a couple J Sock pieces we're working on now that I can't get into at the moment. But one of them will be coming out probably in the coming weeks and then the other, depending on how things shape up in the Middle East, when it if that will ever see the light of day. But yeah, thanks for that, Mark. Appreciate it. Hey, Jonathan, I got a question for you because I think where we should shift-- sorry, DM. Stealing your thunder on one. I was wondering. I was wondering if you would get this in here. So we just saw this really extraordinary ground up. It was a ground operation. There was a pilot or an aviator down-- sorry, we was out down-- the clearly US Special Forces on the ground, we lost maybe half a billion dollars worth of aircraft of firefight, all the stuff that happened. Thank God, everything's OK. Now, Jonathan, we're talking about the 82nd Airborne there, the 75th Ranger Regiment. There's the MU is now on station. What does the events of the last several days mean for US forces on the ground in Iran? It seemed to me the Iranians put up a bit of a fight. And so is it something American people should get-- OK, better get prepared because we're not going to get lucky again. That just doesn't happen time after time. And so what are your thoughts on now future ground operations, especially with Trump threatening Armageddon? It's interesting you asked that because actually right before this, I was on with BBC and they asked me the exact same thing. There you go. And I'll tell you what I said to them, basically, that the personal recovery mission is a contingency operation that's bolted on to the main operation. And it's not going to shift the direction of flow of what's happening in the decision space, both with Admiral Cooper and with President all the way between the two of them. So we executed that well successfully, but it doesn't change really the momentum of the larger operation going on. And still, I think the president's trying to decide, do I do a ground evasion or not? Do I take Carl Allen or not? Do I do the uranium or not? And I think there's a lot in the administration pushing him toward the infrastructure option, which would be a disastrous choice for a variety of reasons, not just from the international law perspective, but also if you want the will of the people in Iran to remain on your side, don't take out their electricity, their water, their food, their safety, what remains of it. And we've talked about this in the show before. That in 2003, we had a very successful invasion in the first few months. And we made some strategic mistakes in how we handled the people in the country. And that turned out very badly for every person involved on every side. And I think that we're nearing that kind of ledge right now, as far as decision which direction do we move. And I think hitting the infrastructure, which certainly take us toward that bad outcome. And I think that's what is probably the pressure going on right now and where do we go? But that personal recovery mission, I think, is kind of a nicely packaged success that's not exactly connected to that main effort that we're seeing moving forward. - Well, I'll answer. There's a lot of you guys. Someone has something to say. - Yeah, so Andy or Jack, I was somewhat, in terms of ground ops next. What is this? - What does this mean? - Yeah, I mean, John actually, John, he, John's like the darling of the BBC. But because he's tired, sometimes it being the poster boy, the British public, he farms out in a little way. He's like, yeah, you know, I've got a friend who can probably answer those questions better. And so I appeared on the telegraph podcast with Olafont, right? Roland Olafont, which is a real name talking about potential ground operations. And I'll keep this very quick because you guys, you know, I don't want to overstate the obvious, but we talked through five different types of ground operations from targeted, from targeted raids in the streets of Hallmouze going after specific target sites with an immediate withdrawal, right? All the way through to the uranium mission, which we can now discard, by the way, because the president said uranium's not important. So that narrows it down to four potential ground operations. And I'll list them just for the sake of it, if I've missed anything, let me know. So number one, lowest risk targeted raids. By the way, when I talk about raids and I talk about marine spring involved, and this is for argument among you guys, whether you're marines or not. But we're not talking about AAVs and amphibious shipping in the streets of Hallmouze. That would be insane beyond, you know, even my battalion commander's, a previous battalion commander's perception of risk. You know, we're probably talking long range insertion using the 22s with a massive aviation stack overhead. So it's a, it really is a limited, you can, it's just like the mission that just took place. You can't sustain that indefinitely, right? So anyway, targeted raids going after, two things, you know, things that could not be destroyed from the air radar, storage facilities, missile launches, missile launches, by the way, are notoriously difficult to hit from the air, right? Because BDA, I think one of you said and I couldn't agree more, BDA is always bullshit, unless you put boots on the ground to verify BDA. So you've got a kind of a, you've got the destruction element and then you've got the confirmation element and putting boots on the ground to do that. And the Marines can train to do that. And it's feasible. I didn't say it's a good idea, all right? It's still high risk and you don't really get a strategic gain because even if you knock out all these threats on the straight, in the straights of whole moves, on those half a dozen islands, you haven't eliminated the threat because you've got, you've got like a 30 mile coastline just to the north. And even if you, by the way, even if you secure that coastline, Iranians can lob things over the head of troops on the ground from the Iranian hinterland as we know and still hit shipping. So it's a difficult problem. So number two is carg island. Why we would want to seize carg island? I don't know, but let's just say for the sake of arguing, we're doing it to seize the export infrastructure so that we have leverage and driving Iran to the negotiations table. It's a couple of problems with that that anyone can talk about that Iran has other ports that can export oil from, not at the great same degree, but also if we close down a raw instability to export oil, we remove their incentive for keeping the straights open that all. So plus, now you've got to keep, you're only doing that. You're only have that leverage as long as you have troops on the ground. And entry is easy, force, buoy, entry is relative easy, sustainment, force protection are going to be a real challenge and it gets exponentially worse day by day that you have troops hanging out on carg island. And so you've got a third type of raid where you're seizing the islands in the Gulf. Same problems with that, even worse. Now you don't have a plan withdrawal. They're not really raids. Now you are a sitting target, a girl worked again well within range. So you see where I'm heading on this. Where is the strategic effect that you are having as you ramp up the risk for your own forces? Very limited. The last one would be a landing. There's a port, a band of jask, right? It's right at the mouth of the straight, opposite Oman would be a suitable landing site. Again, it would be long range, healerborne insertion. I say that that's probably a particular, you know, that would be a good beachhead to use. But you, and then secure key terrain up and down the coast. So you'd have to push north and west. You'd have to push inland a little bit to protect your beachhead. You're not talking about two mues now. You're talking about a division sized element. So two mues might move in and seize terrain, but then you're going to have to put in army guys, right? That's, you know, I can bring myself to say that word. To, and again, your fixed target. And now, and now you've got the Iranian ground forces maneuvering against you on interior lines. And you've got all the problems of sustainment. You're going to have to fly shit in from Oman and your risk ramps up and up. So I'll pause there and just say, it's really difficult for me to see a strategic gain from any ground operations that would be worth the risk. - And Andy, if I could elaborate on that a little bit. So we're talking about the inside of the Straisahormus in the Persian Gulf with all those scenarios, but that excludes the 500 kilometers of. that's outside the straight-of-formers that also belongs to Iran, that also has supports at it. And there are IRGC Navy port facilities on that outer portion, which to put it in context is the entire length of the Northern Oman shoreline as well. Yeah. Massive amount of territory and terrain that you cannot just go and seize with a single marine unit. Yep. You would need tens and tens of thousands of troops. They would be a full-scale invasion. I think, you know, you're spot on the course with all the marine port tactics and probably stuff works and why it's probably not a good idea. But I mean, I just wanted to chime in about, you know, okay, that's probably, you know, your point of view is probably the correct one. But which one is going to be the prevailing point of view on this topic? And I think that, you know, perhaps what last night proved to some people was that actually we can do ground operations in Iran after all. So I think we may be going down a different route and, you know, since the Maduro raid, maybe learning some of the wrong lessons on as some of you guys pointed out, like your luck is only going to hold out for so long before something really bad happens. And maybe we're making a mistake here and seeing JSOC is this easy button that you can mash to resolve some of these problems. And I think we are moving down the road to special operations raids and maybe other more conventional stuff too. But this is, and we've talked about this on the team house before too, but this is where, you know, we treat four star generals like vice-royes. They are treated like kings in the US military. And that's why so many of them cease to believe that they're even human beings. But the downside of that, the downside of that is this is the time to really dig in your heels and say, hey, boss, that's the risk is in worth the game. Right. And there is such a thing as an obligation to the constitution, which can be translated as an obligation to what you, you do know is right for food. Well, food, it's just for not just the rank and file, but what is or is not an American interest. I'm on thin ice here because people are going to say I'm challenging civilian control, the military. I'm not. I'm just saying best military advice means more than, hey, he didn't take my advice. So we just went ahead and did it. Yeah, I didn't grow away a thousand lives because I didn't want to say that. But I said it was a good idea, but hey, man, I got an argument last week about this. But let me talk about Andy's point first. What I agree with it all and I haven't seen that level description quite frankly out there. And it needs to be we need to actually talk about this. What this was actually in tail because people just say, we got Marines and a mew and it's. It's a very small element, right? It's going to have to be much more than the current. Capability we have in the region. So and I would I'd say is yes, if you tell Marines and Rangers to take the objective, they will freaking take the objective. Like they're a very similar species. And they don't they don't they don't not accomplish the mission. But the question isn't necessarily can we it should we and if we if we think we should we have to think about the consequences because there's a chance that we take carg island and we will take casualties. But the Marines and Rangers or whoever's assigned to that and all these other objectives, they'll take it. But what if it doesn't have the strategic impact we would like to see what if the Iranians say, okay, I guess you have carg island. We're just going to target you now until you withdraw. What if we get on the actual mainland of Iran just like and he's described and then it's all about being able to stay there and what if we leave and then they close the streets down immediately. We have to have a long term plan. We have to be thinking that way. It isn't just you know the military can do it. So let's do it. That isn't necessarily strategic thinking that's that's essentially some millions trying to do tactical and operational thinking. So we should have several steps ahead. How is this going to advance our strategic objectives and start looking and I know that we are I think we are for a diplomatic resolution because this just keeps getting escalated and escalated and it's important to point out. And somebody actually Vietnam that just pointed this out to me this week. The ground operations and Vietnam started with sending in the Marines to take the airport and the day and they said it was going to be a limited duration limited amount of forces and we all know what happened from there. I'm not saying that's what's going to happen here but we got to think this can't just be incremental. You have to think beyond the next phase of the campaign. Why are we doing this and how would we get out of it if it doesn't work and you know ego sometimes make a stay places much longer than we should where it's when it's already going past any kind of advantage that we would have. Here's a question for you guys because now I think we're getting to the discussion I just joke before Mick we had a bit of a toss a last week about about this issue just in terms of how much senior US military leadership should be kind of telling truth to power and then what if what if the policymaker doesn't listen but just taking that even a different step I think last week or several days ago the Army chief of staff was removed. Do you all with your experience in your contacts have faith in well let's let's the civilian leadership at DOD but also that there are the right people in place on even on the uniform side I mean it's so so when the Army chief of staff who even Fox News came out you know general key that the general king came out and said was not happy about this. You know what is the climate there in terms of dissent is the wrong word it's just you know telling truth the power hey we should not do this you know what are your thoughts on that because the I mean everybody I talk to and this is a great expert panel here is of the same mindset like what are we doing in terms of introducing ground forces this is crazy. Where's the uniform senior leadership on this and what about the civilian leadership of the Pentagon I'll be quick because I got to jump back on what's wrong with. I think we see we see 24 I mean Jack make or correct me if I'm wrong 24 senior like flag officers be. You know retired early to me that indicates that what you're saying they should be doing they're doing. They are saying and they're getting fired so what my concern is we're going to get down to people who I can't even retire yet. But also are the people who aren't going to push back but I do think the fact that we've seen that level which is got to be unprecedented in you know such a short period of time that they are doing what you say they should be doing that they are saying this is a bad idea I disagree when you believe the chief of staff of the army so a four star general who went from a private to a general. In the middle of a war that indicates that he was doing what you you're you're saying that he should be doing I don't have any direct knowledge of that but and he's just one of many right we've seen we've seen a lot of good things that's why the future that in terms of decision making is I mean so in some ways I hear what you're saying but you know that means we might be. They're not accepting dissent yeah that's a problem I think the self-traumatic was also booted right before the Maduro rate as well because he opposed the lead up to that Andy what are your thoughts I mean you're the most senior former you know big wig full bird what are your thoughts. I think you know I mean you you know my thoughts right now we talked about this on on the team now. Of course there's an obligation I hit everyone knows that there is an obligation to give best military advice what people differ on is what happens when that advice is turned down right and it's very interesting you know I I mean I can I I can opine about it but but it's very interesting to hear four star general. So I hear four star generals talk about this and and it and there is no agreement you know I've talked to general vote tell about I've talked to. At most the readers about it and they both they have a different view so it's so my point is it's kind of interesting that we don't nurture our offices as they go up the chain we teach them a lot of things we teach them all this joint operations ship but they don't we don't teach them what are the proper actions at that nexus between at the strategic leader ship nexus between the civilian leadership and the military and so they're all prepared for it and they're trying to make their own decisions. There's only been until this point there's only been one general who has reside on a question of principle because he his advice wasn't taken and that was a marine three star by the name of Greg Newbold in 2003 over going to the war in Iraq and it didn't make big news. He was he was the what's the basically the joint joint staff operations officer for rumsfeld and and kept saying hey this is a bad idea bad idea and then in the end resigned and wrote an article about it for time magazine and was was vilified I mean remember the Iraq war and it kicked off. Everyone and then subsequently everyone dissuaded but at the time he was vilified for what he did but I you know I happen to be a fan of he was my new commander and it was the only principle decision of resignation that I have seen among the senior officer and that's disturbing that's all I'll say is that we you know the officers at that rank should understand the procedure what does happen what does. happen if I think this is going to result in a catastrophic or just massive loss of life for no gain. I mean, and this and our last thing I'll say is, you know, I've been shone the face for talking about this before, but the reason why I've seen Ross's don't understand about this is they're not taught to, they're not taught to discuss it because everyone's afraid of being seen to challenge civilian leadership, which it's not. And it is the cause, absolutely the cause of disasters like Afghanistan, because Congress as we've seen, you know, the war power's actors is shite. No one wants to debate the war. And so what's the next line of defense with the next line of defense on the senior military officers, right? And again, I don't think that their duty is simply to give their best military advice and then meekishly accept whatever comes in the aftermath. And I'm not talking about this administration. I'm talking about generally speaking as a as a profession of arms. It's a massive gap in our in our collective education. Didn't you always have your resignation letter in your, you know, a top drawer? Yeah. Like Eisenhower, right before D. Day supposedly. So he said, I think he wrote it after D. Day when it was a success, but there you go. I think I think it was Chris Miller who told me there's like some sort of standing rule about you don't have more personal momentos in your office than you can carry in like one box because it can't. I think like that. And Jack, I got a quick question for you before we go and ask to do with, you know, this this threat from Trump in terms of infrastructure attacks. And there's, you know, and you know, I'm certainly not a lawyer, but there is some question on, there was two things. One is to the degree of which these are valid military targets or potentially war crimes. And I'm not arguing for that, but that's out there. There was a lot of questioning, say, well, wait a second. If we start hitting civilian targets, is that there is that the right thing to do legally? And then the other part is, you know, is that actually as we're trying to win the hearts in minds of the Iranians at some point, doesn't this shift to punishing the Iranian people? Is that a good idea there? But it does look like we're, you know, only several days or hours even away from doing this if we haven't started doing it already. So I just wanted to know kind of from your perspective on what seems to be the next phase. I mean, I think it's a terrible idea. We're talking about power plants, desalination plants, things like this. There is like legally a argument to be made if they're like dual use facilities. So like, maybe you're producing fizzile material for a nuclear reactor, but you can also use that to produce nuclear weapons. Not now you get into kind of a debate about like how much of this is civilian and how much of it is military. It's the same thing, like the conversation has come up recently about data centers. And are these data centers that are being hit lawful targets? Some data centers are dual use. And our jo-- our jags have looked at this issue in the past, including data centers in America where DOD contracts space out inside them for its own stuff. They determined that those data centers would be lawful targets in a war. So if the Iranians were to blow up a data center in the United States that the DOD share space with, that would be probably a lawful target. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand it, it would be considered legal. So those are some of the questions you get into. But then when you talk about like a desalination plant that's there to produce, you know, potable water for people, electrical power plant, I mean, this is like, yeah, you're depriving the Iranian civilian population of the things they need to survive. And it's absolutely going to drive them towards the regime and away from us. Well, we're there. We're almost there. Yeah, I think I think-- There are a lot of military targets as part of it, you know. So this is sort of the frustration that's being vented, you know, it's in my opinion an emotional decision being made. Also, I want to just mention like if we did go after the Yisphahan facility for the uranium, you know, and we set up shop for, you know, a couple of two to three weeks, right? While we're digging this up, and we have a Ranger or 82nd Airborne Security position, setting a perimeter, while our guys are going in, they're digging, and we have stacked upon stack upon stack of air power, bombing the shit out of whoever comes close to them. You're talking three weeks of like sustained operations where like yesterday, the, you know, Twitter and the internet was ablaze with like videos and things like that. And like, wow, this is like just, I try to picture what it would look like if we actually went through, we're trying to snatch the uranium. And like, just in the world, we live it now, things are going to get out and we're going to be able to see this in HD, right? Like geo located. I just wonder what that would do with like just, I don't know, people's thoughts on this war and even our own, the guys who fight the war. I don't know. It just sounds insane to me to think about. Yeah, it is. I'm not going to say too much about it, but I think at this stage, at this stage in the game, at some point, we're going to have to go in and get that enriched uranium in some manner. Now that could happen that there's a ceasefire and we go in under those pretexts or maybe we go in unarmed under those pretexts after a ceasefire and get it out of there, you know, peaceful it or we go in there in a denied environment and we do it by force. But leaving, you know, it's reported something like 400 kilograms of enriched uranium under the desert, you can't just leave it there because sooner or later some asshole is going to go and dig it up and you don't need 400 kilograms, you just need a couple milligrams of it to cause a really big problem to create a dirty bomb or something like that and detonate that in, you know, in the Middle East or Europe or whatever. So we can't just leave that fizzile material out there in the desert. Like at some point, in some manner, we're going to have to get it. And Jack, don't forget, that was the war objective. That's the that is the key objective of this entire campaign is that they leave you cannot. I don't care. Like I tried to make a stupid analogy day to day like all right. So we've sunk the entire Iranian navy and beaten the crap out of their, you know, their their land forces. Well, that's like, you know, the Los Angeles Dodgers beating the Vienna Little League baseball team. Like that's not, I mean, that's of course we should be doing that. But the key objective is the H.E.U. Is this is the Iranian nuclear program? If that, if that is not action properly, whether it's military, diplomatically, both, we have failed. And so to me, that would, you know, that's why I actually agree with you. And again, it goes to the whole signal versus noise thing. Like, you know, there's a lot of noise out there. But the signal is that this is going to have to be taken care of in some fashion. D, quick question for you. Here, here's, I don't know how we do this. You have tremendous, there's tremendous listeners here in this, whether it's an eyes on or the teamhouse, but it's this, it's a really unique network of, you know, national security, folks, former's current special operations intel. I wonder what a poll would be. If you took a poll of all the listeners of both shows, of all your shows, do they support this war or not? And I say that only because I keep running into people in this world and this ecosystem, who are really against it. And I'm, and that's not always the case. But I think it was based on the fact Trump ran on not doing this. But also everyone still has a lot of trauma from Iraq and Afghanistan. But it would be really interesting to know is your listeners, which are in a, which have a massive, you know, there's a massive number of them. What would be the percentages who are in favor of this or not? So, D, this is your cast to find out how we do this. It would be really a whole get freaking homework. It's unbelievable. Yeah. It would be extremely interesting. Yeah. I mean, if I had a bet, I would say most people are against it. I think, I think, yeah, probably one third in support and two thirds against that would be my specific. Yeah. I think it reflects the country, frankly, like I really do. Because I mean, you've talked about it last week, Mark, like, you know, the vet, bro, and those show compact plex, you see them more and more like they're not down with what's going on. I went that in an event recently, you know, a special forces event and met up with a guy who I know is a big time Trump supporter. Very nice guy. But it was interesting that he had apparently, you know, fallen out of love with Trump over this Rian War. He would not please it all. So, I mean, that's just a little anecdote. I was with, you know, I was with the family member last night, big, big, Trump guy, big Maggi guy. I'm not happy about this. I mean, I was really surprised. There's no rally around the flag piece of it. So, you know, we'll see. But that'd be cool if we could find out. I mean, I'd have. Yeah. I want to try to figure out how to do it. Maybe on our YouTube page or something like that, we could set up a room. Uh, uh, poll. Yeah. Um, yeah. Anything else? Jack, what else you track? And before we take off? Um, yeah, I, I, I can't really get too much into it. Working on a couple of pieces for the high side that hopefully will be out in the near future. Cool. Um, I want everyone to go check out the high side. That link is in the description. That's Jack's news outlet with Sean Naylor, who, uh, Army Times reporter wrote the actual book on J. Sock. Uh, J. Sock was freaking out when it was released. I've heard. And now it's like required reading. Um, really gives you like a, real look at what J. Socks about how it's structured and stuff like that. It's an incredible book. So that's the high sides. The link is in the descriptions of grab it there. Mark P of course, all the links are down there as well. All the boys are on. They had all jump off because they had other media obligations and they big time. Dust. It's fine. We're never forget. We'll never forget, but it's fine. Check their check their links out in the description down below. It just had the whitefish security summit and whitefish Montana. So next year, I think the eyes on it, teamhouse boys are going to be there. So it's going to be exciting. Check their posts up there. Daryl Blocker, ISBerry, bunch of teamhouse guests were up there for that. Yeah. Yeah. It's set up for all things that I've heard. It sounded like a great event. So if you guys are around the area, take a look. That link is in everything you need to know guys. If you want to find these guys, the links are down in the description. And the best place you can go to support to show is patreon.com/teamhouse. You get both teamhouse episodes and eyes on episodes at free and early. You can actually watch the teamhouse episodes live as we shoot them. And you support to show. So as always, guys, most likely, I wouldn't be shocked if like I had some of the guys at some point this week doing something because I'm sure something, something chaotic is going to happen at some point that we should talk about. So thanks again, guys. Just booked by the way. After your, oh, me. That's a, that's an amazing book. Yeah, we had him on the show Chris Koch. No. Yeah, that's a great. You crazy. You crazy. Good. You ever had. So I was like, I mean, I want to read the book first and then I'll listen to the show. Yeah, yeah, let me know what you think. All right. Thanks, guys. All right, guys. All right. Take care. Hey, guys. I want to take a moment to tell you about the teamhouse podcast newsletter. If you go and subscribe, it's totally free. And what it will do is aggregate all of our data, all of our content that we put out, the things that are on the teamhouse, on our Geopolitics podcast, Eyes On, things that I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the high side, anything else that we have going on, books we recommend, upcoming guests that we have coming on the show and also, you know, filtering in some fun stuff in there as well. If you go and check it out, we send it out just once a week. We don't want to spam you guys. It's just a kind of roll-up of all of our content on a weekly basis. You can find our newsletter at teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join. Again, the website for that is teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join. So we hope to see you there. The link will be down in the description. [BLANK_AUDIO]