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CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the mission to locate and rescue a U.S. service member whose jet was downed in Iran was a race against time and required a deception campaign to keep Iran misdirected, describing the operation as a no-fail mission carried out under severe pressure.
Speaking Monday at the White House, Ratcliffe said finding the missing airman was a daunting challenge and compared the search to hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert. He said the CIA used human and technical assets to confirm on Saturday morning that the service member was alive, then passed that information to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who informed President Donald Trump and set the rescue mission in motion.
Ratcliffe said the pilot was concealed in a mountain crevice and remained invisible to the enemy, but not to the CIA.
Ratcliffe said the rescue effort was a "race against the clock" because it was critical to locate the downed aviator as quickly as possible while also keeping enemies misdirected.
He said the CIA carried out a deception campaign to confuse the Iranians, who he said were desperately hunting for the missing pilot.
Talking about the use of subterfuge in the rescue mission, Ratcliffe said it was critical both to find the pilot quickly and to ensure Iran was misled during the search.
He added that Iranian authorities were "embarrassed and ultimately humiliated" by the success of the rescue mission.
Ratcliffe said the CIA confirmed on Saturday morning that the service member was alive by using what he described as human and technical assets.
He said the agency relayed that information to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who then told President Donald Trump, setting the rescue operation in motion.
Ratcliffe described the search as a daunting task and said locating the airman was comparable to "hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert."
He said the service member was concealed in a mountain crevice and remained undetected by Iran.
Ratcliffe said the rescue operation was a no-fail mission.
"Because it is the unique tradition of U.S. Armed Forces that we leave no man or woman behind, this was a no-fail mission," he said.
He also stressed that no American would be left behind.
His remarks presented the rescue as an operation carried out under intense urgency, with the CIA using deception, intelligence assets and rapid coordination to locate a downed U.S. airman in Iran and help launch the mission that brought the service member out.
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