WASHINGTON — Former President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson hailed the daring rescue mission of the F-15E Strike Eagle crew who had been shot down in Iranian airspace as more complex than the historic raid to kill Osama bin Laden.
Johnson, who had served as general counsel of the Department of Defense during the time of the bin Laden raid, called the stunning rescue mission last week “remarkable” and called for more transparency about how the military pulled off the feat.
“This operation for the first pilot and the second pilot is a remarkable exercise, demonstration of US military courage, technology, and power,” Johnson told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“This kind of operation is more complicated than the bin Laden operation, for example.”
On Friday, Iran took credit for downing an American F-15E fighter jet with two crew members on board near Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province, which is close to Iraq. Iran had dangled a $60,000 reward for the crew members’ capture.
Iran also downed a second US military aircraft, an A-10 attack plane, but in that case, the pilot was able to steer into Kuwaiti airspace before ejecting.
US special forces retrieved the first crew member on Friday, then conducted a larger operation to rescue the second, who was injured but able to walk.
The second crew member had evaded Iranian forces for some 36 hours and had a beacon to communicate with the US, hiding in crevices and armed with just a handgun.
The rescue mission involved a bombing campaign by American attack aircraft to hit Iranian convoys circling around the crew member, while commandos engaged in skirmishes with the enemy before getting to the airman.
No Americans were killed in the rescue mission, according to President Trump.
“I’m not sure any of that justifies a $1.5 trillion budget request,” Johnson said of Trump’s proposed military spending submitted to Congress on Friday. “This was remarkable and I think Americans deserve to see a lot more about it.”
“I also believe that going forward, the president needs to provide a much more coherent explanation of the sacrifice he is asking of Americans.”
Johnson, who has long been critical of Trump, previously knocked Democrats over the government shutdown fights.
Trump is set to hold a press conference Monday to brief the public on the rescue operations, which he hailed as an “Easter miracle.”
“The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations, without a SINGLE American killed, or even wounded, just proves once again, that we have achieved overwhelming Air Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian skies,” the president exulted on Truth Social late Saturday.
