Rubio shrugs off Fairford bomber flit after terror arrests

Marco Rubio has breezily waved away any naughty suggestion that American bombers scarpered from RAF Fairford because of a suspected terror plot. The Trump administration, ever the picture of calm, simply insists the Gloucestershire base saw a perfectly routine redeployment. Nothing to see here, move along.

Six men nicked over the past week in connection with a plot aimed at the very base that had been hosting those US bombers for strikes against Iran. How inconvenient. The Pentagon confirmed the aircraft had been packed off back to their home stations in the United States, while stressing they can still hit anywhere, anytime. Comforting.

US officials apparently told The New York Times the pullout followed fresher details about threats emerging over the weekend. Rubio, speaking at a base stateside, would not directly tie last week’s drama to the move. Assets shift for exercises, redeployments, new planes in, old ones out. Standard stuff, he cooed. The Evening Standard noted his confidence in every US base and gushing praise for how cooperative the Brits have been on the investigation.

Downing Street, for its part, declined to comment on the bombers vanishing yet still managed to insist RAF Fairford remains perfectly safe. One can almost hear the collective sigh of relief. Rubio’s line is that nothing unusual happened, the timing is pure coincidence, and everyone is frightfully professional. Insider chatter might raise an eyebrow at how swiftly those aircraft found the exit after the arrests, but officialdom prefers the shrug.

So the bombers are home, the plot suspects are in custody, and the secretary of state is busy explaining that movement of assets is just what grown-up air forces do. Fairford carries on, Downing Street keeps schtum beyond the safety mantra, and the whole episode is filed under business as usual. Charming.