Anatomy Of A Hostage Rescue

Details Of The Elaborate Ruse That Led 15 Colombian And U.S. Hostages To Freedom

(CBS)  Seeds of the rescue, code-named Operation Checkmate, were planted a few months ago when Colombian intelligence moles infiltrated the inner circle of the FARC rebels, CBS News justice and homeland security correspondent Bob Orr reports.

Sources say surveillance flights had narrowed down the possible locations of the hostages. And government spies, masquerading in messages as top FARC commanders, worked to gain the trust of a guerrilla leader named "Cesar" who was guarding FARC's most important political prisoners.

It was an elaborate ruse, which began paying off when two unmarked helicopters touched down yesterday at a remote jungle clearing deep inside Colombia.

There, in a hot, grassy field, "Cesar" and a henchman, "Enrique," herded the 15 handcuffed hostages on to one of the choppers. The guerrilla leaders had been tricked into believing their captives had been summoned by FARC's supreme commander.

The flight crew - actually Colombian soldiers - wore T-shirts bearing the image of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara, further convincing hostage Ingrid Betancourt this was no humanitarian flight.

"I thought to myself, this is from FARC," she said, thorough a translator.

But, freedom for the three Americans and 12 other political prisoners would come just moments later. Once the helicopter was airborne.

The crew persuaded the two rebels to hand over their weapons, and then overpowered them.

With Cesar and Enrique blindfolded, stripped and held on the floor, the rescue leader gave the hostages stunning news.

As Betancourt explained, they said, “We are the National Army. You are free.”

A celebration erupted with the now-freed hostages jumping up and down, prompting Betancourt to remark later "the helicopter nearly fell from the sky."

U.S. officials play down any American role in the rescue, saying while the U.S. shared intelligence, and had Special Forces commandoes on stand-by, deception was the key.

Colombia simply outwitted a dangerous enemy that's ruled with terror for four decades.

[aggiekat2004]

Yeah, but JTalt2...

There''s a LOT of Obama backers that won''t even vote for him if Billary is on the ticket. If she''s on the ticket, I''ll vote McCain, even though I think McCain is worthless.

The Clintons are not honorable people. I don''t trust them, and neither do a lot of other Americans.

[aggiekat2004]

Yeah, but JTalt2...

There''s a LOT of Obama backers that won''t even vote for him if Billary is on the ticket. If she''s on the ticket, I''ll vote McCain, even though I think McCain is worthless.

The Clintons are not honorable people. I don''t trust them, and neither do a lot of other Americans.

[reptilian96]

FOX NEWS discovered the presence of a massive spy ring inside the United States run by the government of Israel. This seems a harsh gratitude from a nation which obtains 10% of its annual budget from the American taxpayer, $3+ billion a year. Over the years, American taxpayers have been required to send Israel more than four times what the US spent to go to the moon.

question is do we really need Israel? I don''t think so. Israel is a burden on us american tax payers, we could use our money here in USA. we don''t need backstabers. If muslims were not in that part then the battle would''ve been with christans and JEWS in that part of the world. Just like British Jews were doing to IRISH (IRA), see the new perspective. Anyway, we don''t need Israel for the simple fact that they are not in our good interest.

NOW i read that Israel can''t fight IRAN if USA won''t help Israel. I mean come on more American TAX $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

So all of you American Israeli supporters get ready to shell out some more doe without your permission JEWS will take you money like they always did. Us hard working Americans will be homeless for long, long time. ww3 coming soon. under construction by the Israeli JEWS.

[downsteamjim]

What a terrible day for the left! Wonderful, kind, considerate FARC shown to be cruel, stupid, drug dealers.

[offtheback]

It is painfully obvious that bush or the us military leadership had nothing to do with this action. It was sucessful and did not cost 10 billion dollars.

[offtheback]

The censorship here is crazy. I was trying to say that the woman (who wanted to be a man) decided to keep her v a g i n a in case she ever wanted to have a baby. What is wrong with that word?


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Posted by shippg

How about posting on the pertinant boars moron.

[shippg-2009]

The censorship here is crazy. I was trying to say that the woman (who wanted to be a man) decided to keep her v a g i n a in case she ever wanted to have a baby. What is wrong with that word?

[shippg-2009]

And yes, whatinthewld, that "man with baby" is just a lesbian woman who''s been taking testosterone for a long time (and had some surgery). She decided to keep her *** in case she someday decided to do this very thing. She quit the testosterone in order to have a baby (and now she''ll start it up again). (She was a little wishy washy at the start?) It is just the media (and her partner) that call her "a man."

[shippg-2009]

Why does everyone think the US was involved (other than flying spy planes overhead once in awhile)? If the American people knew about the hostages, the media would have raised a big stink, probably getting the hostages killed years ago (or somebody would have tried to pay ransom). The kind of sensitive information that the media gives out sometimes drives me crazy.

U.S. people could not have passed themselves off as Colombian terrorists. We don''t bother to learn foreign languages anymore.

Why not just accept the story at face value, and marvel at how well it was pulled off? It turns out that other countries (besides the US) have creative and daring people.

[whatinthewld]

I wanted to make a comment on the link that CBS News has to people.com http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20210491,00.html
CBS News apparently didn''t think it was worth their time to write up an article of their own, but just provided a link.

The headline states that "A man gave birth to a baby"
Truth is there really isn''t that much spectacular about this, except that she had some of the female appearances removed so she would look more like a man. So is this the first woman without breasts and with short hair to have ever given birth to a baby before?
Call this woman an man but needing artificial incemination to get pregnant?

I''m not left, I''m not right. I''m not Bush, Clinton or Obama supporter.
What kind of response do they expect to hear from us? Oh, wow, a woman dressed as a man gave birth to a baby!! WOW!! Amazing! What a miracle!
I wonder if the *** donor was a man or a man in women''s clothing