Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré warned on Friday that the Air Force pilot missing in Iran after getting shot down is in more danger of being “tortured or killed” as a direct result of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowing to give Iran “no quarter” in the war.
Honoré joined CNN’s “Laura Coates Live” after Iran shot down two U.S. military fighter jets; two of the three American pilots involved were rescued. Asked how Hegseth’s threat could impact the missing pilot, he told guest host Victor Blackwell there is “a direct relationship.”
“And the concern we had at the time the secretary of defense made that statement, that we will give ‘no quarter,’ is a violation of our rules of war that we have trained our soldiers on,” said Honoré. “And it was practiced when we shot the Iranian warship off the Indian Ocean.”
He continued, “We gave no quarter. We did not provide assistance to the survivors. And the double strike on the small boats in the Caribbean — gave no assistance, by and large. And there was talk of a second strike.”
Hegseth said last month during a Pentagon news briefing on the Iran war, “We will keep pressing. We will keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.”
The Geneva Conventions state that combatants who offer to surrender must be taken prisoner. “No quarter” means they are killed, which would constitute a war crime.
Hegseth has overseen lethal strikes on suspected drug boats since September, when U.S. Navy Seals were ordered to kill the shipwrecked survivors of an attack off the Trinidad coast — a literal example of a war crime in the U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual.
Last month, a U.S. submarine torpedoed an Iranian frigate with 130 crew members aboard. They had just completed an Indian government naval exercise that also involved the U.S. Navy. The U.S. sub did not attempt to rescue any of the shipwrecked sailors.
“So the secretary of defense’s language and his rhetoric about giving no quarter would have direct impact on our airman that’s on the ground somewhere in Iran right now trying to survive,” Honoré told Blackwell on Friday. “That, if he’s caught, if the Iranians were to use the secretary of defense’s rule, that aviator will end up being treated very bad or even killed on the spot because that’s the way that’s translated: ‘Give no quarter to the injured or those who no longer can fight.’”
President Donald Trump’s war on Iran has already cost at least 13 U.S. military service members and more than 1,900 Iranians their lives. His former national security adviser, John Bolton, said Friday that Trump is “probably back in a panic mode” right now.