How Utah's congressional delegation rescued Utahns stranded in Dubai amid Iran strikes

WASHINGTON — Shortly after the United States initiated strikes against Iran on Feb. 28, Utah Rep. Blake Moore began getting a number of phone calls and messages from constituents living in his district.

A large tour group consisting of Utah residents was stranded in the Middle East as airspace began closing down and some airports were damaged due to strikes. It threw Moore and other members of the Utah delegation into a frenzy to develop an evacuation plan for Utahns who were stuck in the area without a way to get home.

"We just kind of doubled down and spent the majority of the week focusing on getting Utahns out," Moore said, noting he individually fielded dozens of calls throughout last week with Utah residents, as well as their family members who were in Dubai.

After receiving those phone calls, Moore decided to pull Secretary of State Marco Rubio aside for a conversation when the top Trump administration official was on Capitol Hill last week to brief lawmakers on the strikes.

"I had a chance to pull Secretary Rubio aside and explain to him that the number of folks we had stuck in Dubai — particularly so in the United Arab Emirates — was a spot where we had a large tour group," Moore said. "I worked to get clarity from him and his staff about exactly what protocols we were supposed to follow."

After speaking with Rubio, Moore discovered that roughly 25% of the U.S. citizens stranded in the UAE were Utah residents, he told the Deseret News. That number, he said, was far higher than any other state reporting residents in the area.

The rescue mission was one that included every member of the delegation, Moore said, as other representatives would field him names of constituents they were alerted to while Sen. Mike Lee, for one, "worked directly with contacts."

Sen. John Curtis' office told the Deseret News that his office has remained "in constant contact with the State Department and the Utahns currently seeking to evacuate from the Middle East."

Although all of the Utahns in the Dubai tour group have been boarded on flights home, Moore said, there are some Utahns still in the area who are with their families or are coordinating other plans home.

Throughout the week, Moore engaged in phone calls "all through the day and night" with those stuck in the area but also with State Department officials who could help organize flights home.

"I've been blown away by the individuals I've worked with at the State Department on how communicative and helpful they have been," Moore said. "This is not an easy operation, and they've been amazing, and they followed through. And they're still following up to make sure that we have everybody that's in the region that is trying to evacuate to help us get them out."

Moore acknowledged how the attacks may have caught many of the tourists off guard, but stood by his defense of the Trump administration's decision to order the strikes without prior approval or notice.

The element of surprise, he said, was crucial in such a mission — but he noted there were some precautionary measures that could have been taken to make rescue operations smoother.

"An area of improvement, I think, could be having planes positioned in places that wouldn't necessarily tip off the ayatollah (and) if we had access to planes and charters that could immediately get folks out there," Moore said.

The impact of the strikes also likely had unexpected consequences, Moore said, such as closed airspaces and airports no longer in commission.

"Every day their flights kept getting canceled, and once we got word of a state-chartered flight, I mean, it was, it was like some significant hope," Moore said.

The Utah Republican said the flights posed a "sort of numbers game" to get some of the Utah residents onto a commercial flight that left around 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. while the others were able to leave on a state-chartered flight about seven hours later.

"Which is great, we'll take it. I don't think anybody was worried about getting a star rating on their on-time departure, we just wanted to make sure that they cleared airspace," Moore said.

Although the strikes posed one of the greatest challenges Moore has faced so far while in office, the three-term congressman said the outcome amounted to one of the most gratifying experiences he's had.

"You don't always get to do things that you know that either your constituents notice or (that) really does impact them. To be able to spend the week working on things that brought constituents some peace and some safety, those are some of the most gratifying things in this job," he said. "It's better than any bill passed, or whatever the case may be."

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