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Why has the US removed all of its bombers from RAF Fairford · DEEP INSIGHT

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  Speaker 1: The United States has withdrawn every one of its strategic
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  Speaker 1: bombers from RAF Fairford here in the UK. The 12
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  Speaker 1: B1s left in a hurry on Sunday, some of them
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  Speaker 1: taking off before the tankers needed to refuel them over
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  Speaker 1: the Atlantic, had been prepared. The US still has permanent
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  Speaker 1: bases in Britain with fighters at Lakenheath and tankers at Mildenhall.
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  Speaker 1: But Fairford, with its 10,000-foot runway built for heavy bombers,
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  Speaker 1: was the launch pad for Operation Epic Fury. hosting more
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  Speaker 1: than 20 bombers at its peak. Last week, six men
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  Speaker 1: were arrested over an alleged plot near the base, five
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  Speaker 1: young Londoners and a British-Iranian dual national. All six have
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  Speaker 1: since been released on police bail. The Prime Minister has
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  Speaker 1: suggested there were strong indications Iran had played a part.
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  Speaker 1: US officials told the New York Times the threat became
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  Speaker 1: more specific in the past 24 hours before the bombers
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  Speaker 1: left on Sunday. Let's bring in our security correspondent, Frank Gardner.
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  Speaker 1: who is with me in the studio. And what is interesting, Frank,
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  Speaker 1: is the pace with which this all unfolded.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it kind of gives the impression of
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  Speaker 2: something approaching panic, because clearly there was an additional threat
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  Speaker 2: that has been communicated to the Americans, to the Pentagon.
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  Speaker 2: They were taking no chances. And you've got to remember,
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  Speaker 2: the context of all of this is that the.
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  Speaker 3: US is at war.
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  Speaker 2: We're not. And yet bases that are on British soil
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  Speaker 2: are are being used by the Americans in what's called
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  Speaker 2: defensive strikes against Iranian missile sites and drone bases that
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  Speaker 2: are attacking shipping and other targets in the Gulf. But
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  Speaker 2: that makes the UK a target in Iranian eyes because
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  Speaker 2: the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said in July that any
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  Speaker 2: country that allows its bases to be used for attacking us,
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  Speaker 2: we consider that a legitimate target. And they communicated that
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  Speaker 2: direct to London. The other context of this is that
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  Speaker 2: the US has lost a lot of very valuable hardware
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  Speaker 2: already in this war. It's been going on for seven months,
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  Speaker 2: as we know. But I mean, the most visible hit
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  Speaker 2: that it took, I think, the most damaging hit was
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  Speaker 2: on March the 27th, when a precision-guided Iranian strike, probably
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  Speaker 2: with Russian or Chinese help, targeted Prince Sultan Air Base
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  Speaker 2: just outside Riyadh. And it cut in half an E3
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  Speaker 2: Sentry AWACS early warning aircraft, which is, that thing is
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  Speaker 2: worth over half a billion dollars. Now, those Lancers that
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  Speaker 2: you saw pictures of there, the B1s, they cost about
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  Speaker 2: $ 330 million. So think of it, the US had between three,
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  Speaker 2: had around $ 4 billion worth of hardware that took to
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  Speaker 2: the skies last night, which they didn't fancy having blown up.
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  Speaker 1: Right. I mean, we can talk about the strategically strategic
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  Speaker 1: implications for the US operations over Iran, but this surely
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  Speaker 1: hands Iran a boost. I mean, if they are behind it,
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  Speaker 1: which we don't yet fully know, they've pushed US bombers
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  Speaker 1: out of Britain without any attack actually taking place.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a win-win for them, because the Iranians
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  Speaker 2: are saying, nothing to do with us. In fact, they've
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  Speaker 2: gone further than that. They have made a formal complaint
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  Speaker 2: to the British government about the allegations made against them, saying,
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  Speaker 2: we have no part in this, stop blaming us, but...
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  Speaker 2: I spoke to Whitehall officials this morning. I said, look,
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  Speaker 2: is there anything linking this departure definitively to an Iranian threat?
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  Speaker 2: They wouldn't go that far. But they did say that, look,
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  Speaker 2: amongst the current threats that we're dealing with, within that environment,
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  Speaker 2: the threat, the ongoing threat from Iran to UK bases
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  Speaker 2: and US bases in this country is very much a
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  Speaker 2: part of that threat. So it's a way of framing it,
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  Speaker 2: I guess. It's not tying it directly. And remember that
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  Speaker 2: there is an ongoing police, a counter-terrorism police investigation going
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  Speaker 2: on into the arrests of those, or the circumstances behind
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  Speaker 2: the arrests of those five men, plus the dual Iranian-British national,
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  Speaker 2: outside Fairford Air Base Sunday last weekend. So there's a
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  Speaker 2: lot of kind of different moving parts in all of this,
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  Speaker 2: And still a lot of unanswered questions. And I'd love
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  Speaker 2: to be able to give you definitive answers. None of
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  Speaker 2: us have got them yet.
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  Speaker 1: Frank, for the moment, thank you very much for that. Well,
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  Speaker 1: this time last year, the head of MI5, Sir Ken McCallum,
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  Speaker 1: described how Russian intelligence was recruiting proxies on social media,
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  Speaker 1: instructing them through encrypted apps and paying them in cryptocurrency. Iran,
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  Speaker 1: he suggests, is operating in similar ways. In a single year,
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  Speaker 1: MI5 said they tracked more than 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots.
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  Speaker 4: Iran's autocratic regime is likewise frantically trying to silence its
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  Speaker 4: opponents around the world, including in the UK. 2025 has
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  Speaker 4: required us to grow our counter-Iran effort once again. MI5
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  Speaker 4: has tracked more than 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots in
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  Speaker 4: just the one year since I last stood at this podium.
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  Speaker 4: The UK was among the first to call out this
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  Speaker 4: wave of Iranian transnational aggressions. but we're far from alone.
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  Speaker 1: Experts call it the gig economy of hybrid warfare. Disposable
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  Speaker 1: agents recruited online, often through telegram, with no real idea
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  Speaker 1: of who is hiring them. Since March, the authorities say
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  Speaker 1: attacks on Jewish targets here in London have been outsourced
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  Speaker 1: to criminals from a distance by Iran's Revolutionary Guard or
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  Speaker 1: other military elements in Tehran. There are suggestions that the
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  Speaker 1: release of the five involved in the RAF Fairford incident
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  Speaker 1: points to that exact model. Failure cost Tehran nothing. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: in this case, if the IRGC was behind it, they
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  Speaker 1: would probably see the withdrawal of US bombers, as we've discussed,
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  Speaker 1: as an enormous strategic success. Let's bring in then Philip Ingram,
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  Speaker 1: former senior British military and intelligence officer. Thank you for
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  Speaker 1: being with us. Sending bombers home and in a hurry
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  Speaker 1: is highly unusual. What does that tell you about how
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  Speaker 1: serious or how specific that threat might have been?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I wouldn't say it's unusual because we have to
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  Speaker 3: remember that RAF Fairford is a temporary site for these bombers.
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  Speaker 3: And if the Americans weren't going to use them again
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  Speaker 3: before the midterms to attack Iran, then sending them back
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  Speaker 3: at some stage is sensible. And if there's an ongoing
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  Speaker 3: threat to RAF Fairford and other U.S. bases, then Take
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  Speaker 3: the targets away. And this is where they're probably gone
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  Speaker 3: slightly earlier than planned. Take the targets away. And that
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  Speaker 3: takes the impacts away from any terror attack that there
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  Speaker 3: may be. And it's quite clear that I believe there
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  Speaker 3: is a terror attack being planned. It's complex, and that's
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  Speaker 3: why counter-terror police and the security service are having so
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  Speaker 3: much difficulty in dealing with it in a public way.
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  Speaker 3: There's a lot going on behind the scenes that we
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  Speaker 3: don't know about.
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  Speaker 1: Well, exactly. Coming back to that idea of this being
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  Speaker 1: the gig economy of hybrid warfare, these contracts are put
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  Speaker 1: out in spurious ways on Telegram, money paid in crypto,
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  Speaker 1: which is very hard to trace, very complex networks. Do
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  Speaker 1: we have any idea... who is behind this, and what
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  Speaker 1: is the problem, do you think, in investigating it?
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  Speaker 3: The difficulty is the intelligence services from Russia, Iran and
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  Speaker 3: others are using plausible means to be able to suggest
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  Speaker 3: they've got plausible deniability or to create plausible deniability between
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  Speaker 3: them and what's going on. We've seen warehouses burned down
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  Speaker 3: in London linked to supplying equipment across to Ukraine. It
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  Speaker 3: was an organised crime gang that the individuals have been
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  Speaker 3: convicted and sentenced for that. We saw the attacks on
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  Speaker 3: Keir Starmer, our previous prime minister's private properties by individuals
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  Speaker 3: that have been recruited. And they're keeping this level of
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  Speaker 3: deniability that there is between different countries so that they
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  Speaker 3: can come in with the Russian doctrine of maskarovka, masking.
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  Speaker 3: It's been able to keep that bluff that it's not
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  Speaker 3: just us, it's someone else, we can throw the blame elsewhere,
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  Speaker 3: knowing that it'll create too much of a political debate
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  Speaker 3: in what's going on. The Iranians are trained in exactly
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  Speaker 3: the same way, and that seems to be what they're
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  Speaker 3: doing with regard to the threat around Fairford and elsewhere.
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  Speaker 1: And the incompetence is a feature. I mean, we've seen
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  Speaker 1: that one of the men involved with these vans that
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  Speaker 1: turned up at RAF Fairford rings the police himself. Clearly,
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't appear that he knows what's going on. The
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  Speaker 1: two men who were arrested and charged on Friday plotting
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  Speaker 1: attacks on synagogues in Manchester, pretty bumbly. But it doesn't
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  Speaker 1: really matter, does it, to Iran? If you can create
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  Speaker 1: that sense of havoc and chaos, that's all you need
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  Speaker 1: to do.
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  Speaker 3: Well, exactly. It doesn't matter at all. And whenever they're
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  Speaker 3: recruiting people who are not professionals doing this, they're organised criminals,
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  Speaker 3: they're paying them to do something else, they're giving them
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  Speaker 3: an excuse to do something, they will trip over themselves
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  Speaker 3: as they're going through something that's quite complex, especially whenever
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  Speaker 3: they're being watched by our security services or other organisations.
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  Speaker 3: They will hit triggers that wouldn't necessarily be expected from
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  Speaker 3: more professional intelligence services trying to carry out these acts themselves.
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  Speaker 3: But as you say, it doesn't matter. It's creating that chaos.
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  Speaker 3: It's creating that political debate. It's creating that security debate
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  Speaker 3: that's going on that takes up so much political capital
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  Speaker 3: and capital with our security services having to answer questions
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  Speaker 3: that are posed in the public domain and elsewhere.
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  Speaker 1: And what about the relationship? Because there are US security
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  Speaker 1: sources now pointing the figure at the UK that they
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  Speaker 1: can't defend their bases. On this side, there may be
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  Speaker 1: people pointing to America declaring war without consulting their allies,
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  Speaker 1: stirring up a hornet's nest, then hightailing and flying away.
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  Speaker 3: We knew what the Americans were doing. We were involved
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  Speaker 3: right up to the very beginning. The bluff that came
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  Speaker 3: out of Keir Starmer to say, you know, I'm not
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  Speaker 3: allowing the Americans to do this, has misled, from my perspective,
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  Speaker 3: I believe, misled the country because we were supporting the
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  Speaker 3: Americans in their preparations for their attacks into Iran. We've
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  Speaker 3: got a very good working relationship with the Americans, both
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  Speaker 3: through our intelligence services and our military organisations. We don't
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  Speaker 3: brief each other on everything all of the time, but
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  Speaker 3: we've got a good understanding. I don't think that relationship's
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  Speaker 3: been damaged in any way, shape or form.
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  Speaker 1: Philip, really good to talk to you. Thank you for
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  Speaker 1: coming on.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you.