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Pete Hegseth compares US rescue of F-15E aviator in Iran to the Easter weekend Liturgical Triduum
US secretary of defence Pete Hegseth said the lost airman used an emergency transponder to show where he was, and his first message was: "God is good."
US secretary of defense Pete Hegseth, on Monday, compared the rescue mission to extract the missing weapon systems officer (WSO) of the F-15E that Iran shot down over its territory on Friday to the three-day liturgical Triduum, days celebrated by Christians worldwide spanning Good Friday to Easter Sunday, to celebrate the mission.
Hegseth said the lost airman used an emergency transponder to indicate his location, and his first message was: "God is good."
“Shot down on a Friday: Good Friday. Hidden in a cave, a crevice, all of Saturday. And rescued on Sunday. Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday,” Hegseth said in a press conference.
The defence secretary said the coordination call held by national security officials during the daring mission to rescue the US airmen lasted nearly two days straight.
“For 45 hours and 56 minutes, we held that call open for coordination,” Hegseth said, describing the call that was held in a secure facility. “Our mission was unblinking.”
Hegseth continued, “The meeting never stopped. The planning never ceased.”
CIA says “top-secret technology” led to the rescue of downed airman
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, while speaking at the White House press conference, said the agency used “exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service” possesses to locate the aviator after the F-15 was shot down in Iran.
At the same time, he said, the CIA mounted a deception operation to mislead the Iranians who were looking.
Ratcliffe said the search and rescue operation was “comparable to hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert.”
The CIA declined to respond to questions on Monday about the kind of technology used to locate the airman.
