Inside JSOC’s Most Dangerous Mission Ever | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

**Jack Murphy** (0:00)
On one hand, it's about a type of mission that JSOC has been training for since its inception, which is counterproliferation, counterweapons of mass destruction.
But it also zeroes in specifically on the case of Iran and the plans and the training exercises that JSOC has conducted to potentially go into Iran by force and remove the highly enriched uranium. And this is an operation that would be incredibly complex and incredibly dangerous. Some people in the command began referring to it as Eagle Claw 2.0, which is a reference to Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, in which Delta Force and the Rangers went to rescue hostages that were being held in Tehran. The whole thing ended in a fiasco at a desert staging ground called Desert One, where a helicopter and aircraft were blown up. Other helicopters were disabled by a sandstorm. The operation fell apart for a variety of different reasons. A lot of them were technical and mechanical, not because the guys didn't have the balls to do it. They certainly did.

**Dee Takos** (1:18)
Hey, everybody, welcome to a new episode, special episode of Eyes On Geopolitics. I'm joined with Jack Murphy, investigative journalist, podcaster, 43-year-old. Happy birthday, Jack. Jack's birthday today.
You guys have a new article, you and Sean Naylor on the high side, about basically detailing the entire raid that's been planned since the beginning of the war to go in and grab the highly enriched uranium out of a, I guess, once you dig into the article, it's two sites that they were really planning on hitting. But there's intelligence suggesting maybe it's at three sites, obviously an incredibly complicated mission.
Yeah, the article is great. Check it out at the high side. The high side, that link is down in the description. It's stuff that no other journalist, I feel like, get. So really good shit. I'm sure that people are freaking out down in... Where's JSOC based out of Tampa? Bragg. I'm sure they're not happy there today. Because you go into some good detail. Like you name the squadrons and everything. But like just give me the whole... Give us like the quick pitch on what the article is about.

**Jack Murphy** (2:38)
Yeah. So the story is called Iran WMD Raid Inside JSOC's Most Challenging Mission Yet.
I wrote it with my colleague, Sean Naylor at the high side. Sean's on vacation, so he's not here today. So I'm the best you get. Sorry, guys.

**Dee Takos** (2:56)
Sean's working on his tan.

**Jack Murphy** (2:57)
Yeah, I hope so.
And so the story is about, on one hand, it's about a type of mission that JSOC has been training for since its inception, which is counterproliferation, counterweapons of mass destruction.
But it also zeros in specifically on the case of Iran and the plans and the training exercises that JSOC has conducted to potentially go into Iran by force and remove the highly enriched uranium.
And this is an operation that would be incredibly complex and incredibly dangerous. Some people in the command began referring to it as Eagle Claw 2.0, which is a reference to Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, in which Delta Force and the Rangers went to rescue hostages that were being held in Tehran. The whole thing ended in a fiasco at a desert staging ground called Desert One, where a helicopter and aircraft were blown up. Other helicopters were disabled by a sandstorm. The operation fell apart for a variety of different reasons. A lot of them were technical and mechanical, not because the guys didn't have the balls to do it. They certainly did. But you ran into these insurmountable problems. And I think this operation, you know, I had a Delta Force veteran one time tell me, he's like, you know, Operation Eagle Claw was so complex that even today, with all the fancy helicopters we have and great technology, we probably still couldn't pull something like that off. And I think that was a thought process that went, you know, it kind of carried forward into this operation. And again, the guys, you know, the commands were certainly very eager to get in and do this mission. But there's also some trepidation in some corners about what the likely prospects are once the operators get on the ground.
What I mean by that is the movement into Iran, into a denied area, is difficult. You have to get there, you have to establish some sort of a staging ground. This operation would require an improvised landing strip, if nothing else. You'd have to land aircrafts for two reasons. The first is that you would have to land all kinds of engineering equipment, bulldozers and excavators and stuff like that. Because the tunnels that lead into these underground facilities have been collapsed and destroyed. Largely, they were destroyed by Operation Midnight Hammer, a few months prior to all of this kicking off, where we went in and bombed these sites. But there are also reports that the Iranians went in themselves and collapsed and booby-trapped some of the tunnels. So, you have to move in heavy excavating equipment. That's not a JSOC mission, per se. That's more of just a conventional army or a Navy operation. You're having to bring these guys in.