Retired U.S. general calls out the White House after days stuck in the Middle East

A general gets stuck, and speaks out

A retired U.S. Army general has been stuck in the United Arab Emirates shortly after the chaos exploded, and he is not staying quiet about it. Retired Maj. Gen. Randy Manner had a flight to Bangkok that never left the ground.

Now he is calling the government’s response a total failure.

He told CNN that Americans in the region feel abandoned, and he says the people left stranded deserve better than what they got.

Budget cuts left embassies with little to offer

Manner said the State Department was running in survival mode after the administration cut its budget by nearly half. He reached out to staff at two different embassies and got nothing useful in return.

The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem publicly said it could not evacuate or directly assist Americans leaving Israel. The U.S. Embassy in Qatar told citizens not to rely on the government for help getting out.

For Manner, who helped manage the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq in 2010, the response was hard to watch.

Around 19,000 flights wiped out across the region

The scale of the disruption is hard to overstate. Aviation analytics firm Cirium tracked about 19,000 flight cancellations to and from the Middle East since Saturday, after U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran triggered widespread airspace closures.

Airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, and other major hubs shut down or ran under severe restrictions. Dubai International, one of the busiest airports on the planet, took direct hits.

Cirium estimates about 90,000 passengers move through the region’s top hubs every single day on Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Etihad alone.

State Department told Americans to leave 14 countries

The State Department urged Americans to leave 14 countries immediately, citing serious safety risks.

The list included Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE, and Yemen.

Up to one million Americans are estimated to live across the region, though no official count exists. The problem: most airports were already closed or severely limited when that departure order went out.

Many Americans described the same contradiction: told to get out, but given no way to do so.

Hotline message told callers not to count on US help

Secretary of State Marco Rubio directed stranded Americans to call a State Department hotline at 1-202-501-4444.

But the automated message on that line told callers not to rely on the U.S. government for assisted departure or evacuation. The recording also stated there were no U.S. evacuation points at that time.

Multiple news outlets independently confirmed the message by calling the number themselves.

The hotline message was updated Tuesday night to say the department was committed to helping Americans, according to Roll Call.

Florida couple paid $1,000 to cross a border by car

Krista Jucknath Hickman, a federal employee from Florida, and her husband Mike were celebrating their anniversary in Dubai when their flight stopped on the tarmac Saturday as strikes hit Iran.

Hickman had registered her trip with the State Department beforehand but never got a security alert. She called twice and heard the same answer both times: no evacuation procedures in place.

So the couple did what they had to do. They hired a driver for $1,000 to take them across the border from Dubai into Oman.

Americans describe fear, canceled flights, and drone alerts

Odies Turner, a 32-year-old chef from Dallas, was stuck in Doha, Qatar, with no flights going anywhere.

Oliver Sims, a Texas resident on his way home from a wedding in India, said Iranian drone attacks woke him up in the middle of the night in Qatar.

Sasha Hoffman, visiting Dubai from Chicago, said she felt trapped after hearing the military operation could run four to five weeks. She said she had lived through the Boston Marathon bombing, and this felt worse.

A group of 10 Chicagoans on a birthday trip also found themselves stranded after their Emirates flight was canceled Sunday.

UK moved faster to get its citizens out

Manner said it was hard to hear that the UK was arranging transport for British citizens while Americans waited.

The UK Foreign Office confirmed about 130,000 British nationals had registered their presence in the affected region.

The UK government chartered its first repatriation flight out of Muscat, Oman, on Wednesday evening, March 4. British Airways also scheduled a flight from Oman to the UK for March 5.

Germany, Italy, France, and Spain also began moving their citizens out before the U.S. announced any charter plan.

State Department moves to set up charter flights

On Tuesday, the State Department said it was arranging charter flights out of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan for American citizens.

Assistant Secretary Dylan Johnson said the department was also actively securing military aircraft. Officials said they had been in contact with nearly 3,000 Americans abroad.

The department also said it would waive any requirement for Americans to pay back the cost of government-arranged travel.

Over 9,000 Americans had reportedly returned from the region since the conflict began, though that figure has not been independently confirmed.

Rubio and Trump respond to mounting criticism

Rubio told reporters he was confident the U.S. would help every American get out, though he acknowledged closed airspace made that difficult.

He said about 1,500 Americans had asked for direct help with departure.

When a reporter asked President Trump why no evacuation plan was in place, Trump said things had moved very fast.

Trump said the U.S. needed to strike quickly because Iran was preparing to attack Israel and other countries.

Rubio said the department was working on charter flights, military aircraft, more commercial options, and land routes to neighboring countries with open airports.

Lawmakers from both parties push back

Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey called the delayed warnings one of the biggest derelictions of duty he had ever seen.

Kim said the number of Americans who might need to evacuate could grow into the hundreds of thousands if the war widens. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut called the situation incompetence.

Sen. Roger Wicker, the Republican chair of the Armed Services Committee, said he had close friends trying to leave the region. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican, said the risks were clear going in and that war is ugly.

The military force assembled around Iran did not include Marines trained in noncombatant evacuations, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

What stranded Americans can do right now

If you are in the region, enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program at step.state.gov so the State Department can reach you directly.

You can also call the department’s around-the-clock hotline at 1-202-501-4444, where more than 120 people are now fielding calls. Commercial flights remain partly available out of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, and Egypt.

The State Department says it is helping Americans book tickets and arrange ground transportation to countries with open airports.

United and Delta are both offering travel waivers through March 31 for passengers caught up in the conflict.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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