The U.K. insists that RAF Fairford is safe. That the U.S. saw removing the bombers as urgent suggests otherwise.
News from over in the United Kingdom this morning: “Asked on Monday whether RAF Fairford was safe, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘Yes.’”
That assurance is a little harder to believe now than it was a few weeks ago, particularly since the U.S. has withdrawn all its B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford and, in particular, because of how those bombers were withdrawn, at least as described by sources to the New York Times:
The need to move the bombers out of the base, R.A.F. Fairford, was deemed so urgent that some of the planes and their flight crews left while aerial refueling aircraft were still being scrambled to support their flights to the United States. At least three of the planes had landed at their home base in South Dakota by Sunday, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.
In early March, about a dozen B-1 bombers were stationed at RAF Fairford, “which could represent more than half of the U.S. Air Force’s mission-capable Lancer fleet.” When the U.S. operation against Iran began, then–Prime Minister Keir Starmer initially denied the U.S. the use of the air base but then changed his mind, stating, “Iran is striking British interests and putting British people at huge risk. The only way to stop the threat is to destroy the missiles at source in their storage depots or the launchers which are used to fire the missiles.” In July, Iranian state broadcaster IRIB reported that “a spokesperson for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said . . . that Britain would become a ‘definite and legitimate target’ if it supported the U.S. in any war with Tehran” and had noted “that U.S. bombers had recently used British airfields.”
The United Kingdom has now arrested six men; the sixth, a “25-year-old, a dual UK-Iranian national, was arrested on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts under section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006.” Like the other five, he’s been released on bail. (The U.K. authorities seem to have the same approach to arrested terrorists as Jerry Seinfeld’s car rental agency had for cars. You know how to take the terrorist, you just don’t know how to hold the terrorist. And that’s really the most important part of grabbing the terrorist, the holding. Anybody can just take ’em.)
There’s one other angle worth noting. Back in late July, the Pentagon launched a review of its forces in Europe. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby said the review is “designed to ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe taking primary responsibility for its conventional defense.” It is no secret that Colby and other voices in the administration would like to dramatically scale back the U.S. military presence in Europe. (Never mind the fact that our NATO allies are currently in a worsening state of hybrid war against Russia, and the U.S. military’s presence may be the lone effective deterrent against Russian aggression.)
If the U.S. can find reasons to deem RAF Fairford or any other base on European soil not sufficiently secure for U.S. troops and weapons systems . . . well, that would be an easy way to justify moving those troops and weapons systems to the homeland, wouldn’t it?