Washington Plays Down the Fairford Withdrawal; No 10 Says Base Is Safe
Twelve B-1 Lancers left RAF Fairford so quickly that the refuelling aircraft needed to get them across the Atlantic were reportedly still being fuelled as crews were ordered to scramble. Marco Rubio declined to connect the move to last month’s security incident — “I wouldn’t just directly tie that to the move that was made” — and JD Vance called it “an abundance of caution”. Downing Street says the base is safe.
The manner of the departure undercuts the explanation offered for it. These aircraft had flown from Gloucestershire for seven months against Iranian missile launch sites, and they left in a hurry. Mr Rubio called it unremarkable — “It’s not unusual to see movement of assets to different parts of the world based on exercises, redeployments, people changing out” — while the vice-president put it down to caution and said Iran had spent 49 years engaging in acts of terrorism. British officials were blunter. They would not say what the new intelligence was, but told the BBC there is “an ongoing high tempo of threat from Iran to the UK, and it is logical that US airbases would be pretty high on any targeting list”. A NATO military source said it is “still believed that Iran poses an acute threat to US assets in the UK”. Whitehall has not disputed that Washington acted in response to the 27 September incident, and the decision is described as military rather than political, taken at operational level. Ezra Cohen, a defence official in Donald Trump’s first administration, called it prudent on practical grounds: the B-1 is a strategic asset, no longer in production and held in limited numbers. Five British men arrested over three suspicious vehicles near the base have been bailed, as has a sixth, a British-Iranian detained separately in London. Iran said in July that any country providing such a facility would be a legitimate target; Tehran denies any role in the incident. Watch whether the B-52s follow.