Former CENTCOM commander calls rescue of U.S. airman a “hard lesson for Iran”

Retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, a former commander of U.S. Central Command, outlined some takeaways from the search-and-rescue mission for a missing U.S. airman on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” Sunday — and argued the mission’s success could deliver a “hard lesson for Iran.” 

McKenzie noted that Iran was unable to find the missing weapons systems officer, who hid in Iran for more than a day, even though the country’s leaders put out a “broad appeal to their people to turn him in.”

“That does not appear to have been successful,” he told CBS News’ Ed O’Keefe. “That’s maybe a sign of disaffection. Don’t know, but you can’t be happy with that if you’re a senior leader in Tehran this morning.”

McKenzie, a CBS News contributor, spoke to “Face the Nation” after one of the most harrowing two-day periods in the U.S.’s five-week-long war with Iran.

The American F-15E fighter jet was downed by Iranian fire on Friday. The plane’s pilot was rescued by two military helicopters later that day. But the jet’s second crew member had remained missing in Iran’s mountainous terrain, armed with only a handgun to defend himself, sparking an intense search operation involving dozens of American commandos and several dozen warplanes and helicopters, U.S. officials told CBS News.

President Trump said early Sunday the missing airman, a colonel, was found “deep inside the mountains in Iran.” It was a risky operation in which U.S. personnel used bombs and weapons fire to keep Iranian forces away, CBS News has reported.

McKenzie lauded the success of the search-and-rescue operation, saying the plan was executed “pretty effectively.”

“We train for this endlessly. It’s a part of every time we send air crew over enemy territory, we have detailed, elaborate plans to go get them,” McKenzie said. “It’s a very basic part of who we are as American fighting men and women.”

During the rescue mission, two transport planes were unable to take off from a remote base inside Iran and were destroyed to prevent Iran from seizing them, U.S. officials said. And on Friday, an A-10 Warthog that was part of the search operation took fire, forcing the pilot to eject over the Persian Gulf, where he was rescued.

The former CENTCOM commander noted that while the U.S. lost a couple of aircraft in the mission, “it takes a year to build an aircraft.”

“It takes 200 years to build a military tradition where you don’t leave anybody behind,” he said.