Are having a very difficult time reaching the site Nic Robertson is tracking this story closely and joins us now with the latest. Nick. Now some 12 hours later, what do we know . Confusing and conflicting information. Jessica, from the irans Elite Revolutionary Guard Corps in Eastern Azerbaijan province right up there are northwestern iran. They said just a couple of hours ago that they had a signal from the helicopter they go out and got a Cell Phone Signal picked up from the helicopter as well that they knew where it was. But now we understand from their head of irans red crescent their equivalent of the red cross they dont know Rescue Workers do not know at this time whereabouts that the helicopter is the government and the president of the country the calling on people to pray the Supreme Leader rather calling on people to pray for the president at this time irans government, asked people to pray for their president so they did for hours, faith and the hope he survived or mountainous Helicopter Crash. All the country had to cling on to hours earlier. He was a Border Government Helicopter on the way to open a dam in irans far north west. It was a big deal on the border with azerbaijan. He met that countrys president , but within hours, racist helicopter carrying him irans Foreign Minister and other top officials back from the dam had crashed in dense fog, according to Iranian State news a Frantic Search And Rescue was launched ambulances rush to the area medics and Mountain Climbers searching for direction in the dense fog of the East Azerbaijan province, mountains the Weather Conditions in the rugged, remote region, too dangerous to use helicopters the head of irans armed forces ordered the mobilization of all facilities and equipment to assist in the search army, police, even the elite Islamic Revolutionary guard. As the search continued, irans Supreme Leader, telling the country, the government has the situation under control. Whats ran was be assured that there will be no disruption in the countrys affairs. The government authorities, since they have learned about the incident this afternoon, ive been working hard and hopefully everything will be fine the 63yearold racy was elected president then 102021 are hardliner. He has overseen a tightening of the countrys already strict morality laws. Before that, as former chief justice, prosecutor general, and deputy chief justice, he oversaw many executions of Activists Regime Ponens he also oversaw the bloody crackdown of antigovernment protesters following the death of mahsa amini in 2022 hardline enough to be seen as a possible successor to Supreme Leader ali khamenei. Both he and the Foreign Minister had taken a tough line negotiating Irans Nuclear program, as well as strong support for hamas in israels war on gaza now it does seem as if the government is wanting to keep a narrative at the moment that hope is possible. Even though 12 hours on these Cold Mountain sides and even if the rescuers cant get there, if there were a survivor or two, it mightve been possible you would think that they could they could walk out of the mountains down to remote village somehow raise an alarm. Nevertheless, we just do not have clarity, but we do know now the iranian authorities of asda, turkish authorities to lend them one of their helicopters has got nine right vision equipment. The turk turkish authorities have agreed to do that and in the last hour or so, weve heard from the russian saying that theyre going to send a couple of specialists plane specialists helicopters that should be arriving in iran over the next hour or so. Theyre going to send as well 50 professional Mountain Rescue people as well. So all of this help coming in from neighboring countries, but it really does feel like a race against time right now certainly. And still so many questions as you eliminated their neck. Thank you so much for that reporting. Lets turn now to our cnn pentagon correspondent, oren lieberman, whos here in the studio, studio with us and we know that the us is closely monitoring this oren, but they arent keeping their distance as well absolutely. President joe biden was briefed in the hour or hours right after this happened, according to the White House Press secretary. But at this point thats all the white house will say simply that he was briefed. We havent seen a Public Statement from biden. We also havent seen a public payment from Jake Sullivan, who is in the region having just met with the saudis and then the israelis. But thats not a surprise and there are a number of reasons for that. First, the us is trying to figure out exactly what happened here. As nick pointed out, this is in a very remote region, so its difficult to get information and much of that information will come directly from iran or Iranian State media. Second, of course theres the us trying to keep its distance, no reason to wait. At this point, especially when you have so Little Information. So the us is closely monitoring. But again, at arms length here, it is worth noting simply the situation in the middle east, iranian proxies have since the beginning of the gaza war, carried out scores of attacks on us forces in iraq and syria. Those have stopped with the past couple of months, but the us knows thats a lever that iran can turn on and off. And that of course is under iranian president Ebrahim Raisis hardline government, you were placed hassan rouhani, who was viewed as much more of a moderate to the us, has seen not only the crack on protesters, the carrying out of exit houstons that nick talked about when racy was head of the judiciary, but also the continuation of the hardline policies. It was also viewed as one of the potential successors for the current Supreme Leader now the only person whos viewed as a likely successor is the Supreme Leaders sun. So thats another dynamic that the us is watching very closely here the middle, we have seen its already d stable enough, so theyll also be looking for the possible spiderweb effects of this and whether that leads to more destabilization in the middle east. A lot to watch here, but for now, the is much more in an Information Gathering mode than trying to get out front of this oren liebermann. Thanks so much for that reporting. We appreciate it. And i want to bring in now leon panetta, who served as both cia director and Secretary Of Defense during the obama administration. Thank you so much for being here with us. We were were so glad to have you just to be clear to everyone out there, we still dont know whether the iranian president was killed in this crash. So we just can go off the Information Mission that we have right now and im curious what you knowing what we know right now, what do you think the fallout is in the State Of Play well i think its probably not a wise thing to speculate without really knowing exactly what happened. But right now we dont know what is happened and we probably wont know until rescuers are able to reach the sayyed of the helicopter and determine what happened in that may not be till the morning in iran time. I think the one thing that that we do know. Is that whatever whatever happened here is probably not going to change this with the government of iran or theyll continue to be hard liners the Supreme Leader will continue to be in charge along with the irgc. And i suspect that will continue United States will continue to have a difficult relationship with iran in the future we do know that its some 12 hours now since that helicopter went down and we have no Status Update on the president of iran. Are you surprised by this at all that we just dont know whats happened here. And its 12 hours later. Well you have to you have to understand this is very difficult terrain in that part of iran. Its very mountainous, very difficult to get to and in addition to that, theyre having terrible weather and a terrible fog situation. In terms of visibility. So when you combine all that together and a helicopter goes down or youre not quite sure where it went down, youre not quite sure just exactly what happened. Were there any survivors they now have the opportunity, i guess to get not Night Vision Helicopters from turkey. And probably the same from russia whether that will help or not, who knows. So i just think right now, we really have very Little Information about just exactly what has happened here. And are you surprised at all that so many highranking officials were onboard that same helicopter and that they were flying in these conditions. I mean, obviously youre describing the terrain, those conditions can change changes. Theyre flying through them. But does any of that surprise you . Well, you usually usually dont want to put your top officials in one helicopter. Thats not a good policy to follow. And when i was chief of staff, we never did that with the president or the Vice President and others we you normally would want to have them goh in separate helicopters. This was a big event evidently in azerbaijan they were dedicating a dam and so the president and the Foreign Minister went up there together they probably decided to ride together in the helicopter, which was a mistake and now as a result of that very frankly, iran and the world really dont know whether or not the president in the Foreign Minister are still alive and its been interesting to see how state media has handled this theyve been trying to give information, but it is state media and its a question of how transparent they can actually be. Are they actually want to be what do you make of the information that they so far have put out there . And the message theyre trying to get across, which seems to be were competent. Were in control, weve got this no. I dont think its a good idea to trust the information thats coming out of iran now, or in the future, very frankly because theyre not going to theyre not going to admit anything and they probably really dont know what has occurred here. Because as i said, his helicopter went down in some pretty difficult terrain but its clear that the Supreme Leader is sending a very clear message that hes still in charge. The hardliners will remain in charge. Theres no question in my mind and whatever ultimately is determined to have happened here the relationship with iran between iran and the United States and other countries for that matter. Its still going to be very strained because they remain an adversary i want to talk to you to about National Security adviser Jake Sullivan, who just left saudi arabia, is an israel trying to get this grand deal done before hamas attacked israel on october 7, the us was trying to move toward a deal that in part what have normalized relations between israel and saudi arabia something that the Administration Still wants to get done. And it sounds like based on their readout, they had a pretty productive conversation in saudi arabia. Do you think that they can get israel on board . Well as weve all recognized, there are a lot of crosscurrents that are occurring right now with regards to the israelhamas war and a lot of mixed messages as to exactly what, whats going to happen in the future. Netanyahu still wants to go into rafah and he says itll be a limited operation, but we dont know there are lives at stake there. Theres no plan to deal with those lives. Theres no plan as far as i noted, deal with how to govern gaza, which is a real problem because hamas continues to return, particularly to the north of gaza and theres no agreement with israel. And netanyahu as to developing ultimately a palestinian state. Having said all of that im really glad that the United States, so Jake Sullivan and others are continuing to try to pursue some kind of solution. Here. I think working with saudi arabia is important. I think thats one aspect that can help to try to move us towards some kind of agreement here. What is needed, frankly is some kind of ceasefire probably on a shortterm basis, develop a ceasefire develop a plan for what happens with the hostages everybody wants to see where these hostages are, whether there still alive develop an approach as to the future of gaza. Who is going to govern gaza . Otherwise. Very frankly, no matter what happens in rafah, a will continue to be a threat in that area and will continue to have war until there is a plan for how gaza is going to be governed and also deal obviously with the humanitarian needs, which are very serious. There so all of those things hopefully need to be addressed, but its going to take a lot of work on the part of all parties and the republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik was at the knesset today and gave a speech, i just want to play some of her remarks for everyone but total victory is something to many others throughout the free world fail to understand total victory starts, but only starts with wiping those responsible for october 7 off the face of the earth there can be no retrievable dignity for hamas, and its backers you were just talking about how hamas, weve seen them returning in Northern Gaza specifically among in this power vacuum thats been created after the idf leaves. Im just curious in your opinion that their object that israeli objective from the Prime Minister is to eradicate hamas to it, to wipe them off the planet. Is that possible to totally eradicate hamas all right. I think one of the problems involved in this war has been not really having a clear definition of what constitutes victory. I know that netanyahu talked about totally destroying hamas. Thats not going to happen Everybody Knows thats not going to happen. What you can do is go after the leadership of hamas that was involved in the october 7 campaign. And make sure that that kind of attack will never happen again the ability to do that represents in my mind the kind of victory that is needed in this war. But to do that, you do need a plan for the future. You do need a plan for gaza as two so whos going to govern gaza in order to make sure that hamas does not return. And continue this kind of war in the future that all circles back to those conversations that are ongoing amongst all those different parties. Weve been talking about secretary leon panetta. Thank you so much for joining us. Good to be with you thanks. Still ahead, President Joe Biden is in detroit where hes addressing and nwa cp dinner tonight is appearance just hours after he gave a Commencement Speech at one of the nations most prestigious historically black colleges. What his messages today. Youre in the cnn newsroom trump, hush money, trial, gavel to gavel coverage. The way only cnn can bring it to you, legal insight, expert analysis, and realtime updates live from the courtroom follow the facts follow the testimony, follows cn these days everyone staring at screens, am watching their spending good vision is more important than ever. 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