State Department hotline tells 500,000 Americans stranded in Middle East not to rely on U.S. government

Two days after Operation Epic Fury began, the State Department posted a social media message urging roughly 500,000 Americans in the Middle East to leave using commercial transportation — but the phone hotline it directed them to played a recorded message stating "Please do not rely on the US government for assisted departure or evacuation at this time." The contradiction emerged as regional airspace closures and airport strikes made commercial options scarce. Analysts attributed the failure to wartime operational secrecy that prevented State Department pre-positioning of evacuation assets.