What began as a strange anecdote about Donald Trump’s old Air Force One was a secret deception to protect the US president. The action is explosive: Were people deliberately used as bait?
Bastian Brauns reports from Washington
From the start, something seemed fishy about this sudden rescheduling. Donald Trump left Ankara after NATO summit in July no longer with the new government aircraft donated by Qatar, but with his old Air Force One. “Old time’s sake,” Trump wrote, “out of old solidarity.”
This emerging nostalgia did not fit at all with the complaints that Trump had made for years about the old Boeing aircraft, which was put into service in 1990. The President also claimed that they wanted to show the new Air Force One to the soldiers stationed in Europe. That’s why he had the old plane again for the return flight to the USA taken.
But as the largest US media outlets, the Washington Post, New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, are now revealing with more and more details, all of this was actually a large-scale deception. It was intended to protect Trump from a suspected missile attack by Iran. Because the president flew neither in the new nor the old Air Force One, but in a third, secret aircraft.
The unusual event raises serious questions: How great was the danger really and why did the White House let the reporters, staff and even Cabinet members who were traveling with it sit on a plane that ultimately served as bait?
Sudden dangerous situation without your own information
What happened on that night of July 8th reads in the American journalists’ research like the script for a gripping political thriller. According to recent research by the Wall Street Journal, American and Israeli secret services had received indications of a possible attack by Iranian proxies.
Specifically, it was about the possibility that a soldier with a portable anti-aircraft missile, a so-called “Manpad”, could shoot at Trump’s plane as it took off from Ankara. The idea: An attacker could be around 800 meters away despite the massive security precautions around the NATO summit Airport Position yourself at a distance and fire at the aircraft taking off.
But then the confusion apparently began. Even within the US government, the danger situation was by no means so clear. Israeli information that Iranian allies were said to have discussed killing Trump was initially vague. At least some US officials did not consider this to be entirely credible. There were even speculations Israel With this threat scenario, Trump could want to further escalate the Iran war.
