(NewsNation) — The U.S. military’s raid in Caracas, Venezuela, to capture President Nicolás Maduro was “incredibly bold and expertly executed,” according to retired Special Forces Lt. Col. Mike Nelson
The freshly imprisoned Venezuelan president appeared in a New York courtroom Monday, pleading not guilty to narco-terrorism charges. On Saturday, U.S. forces conducted a raid, capturing Maduro and bringing him and his wife, Cilia Flores, to American soil.
Nelson, who has extensive experience with the U.S. Central Command, told NewsNation on Monday that the raid was only something the United States could “expertly execute.”
“This was a precision operation that only the United States could have pulled off. The amount of planning, preparation, synchronization, and specialized skill that’s inherent in the forces that do it that Russia, China, nobody else could even attempt to do without a single friendly casualty, and nothing should take away from the expertise that was demonstrated, and the decisions from the strategic down to the tactical,” Nelson said.
Nelson called the ousted Venezuelan president “a thug, a communist dictator, and an ally to the world’s actors who were working against and opposed to the American interests in the Western Hemisphere.
“He had worked to bolster the government in Cuba. He had facilitated efforts by Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah to gain a foothold in the Western Hemisphere through Venezuela, and he was absolutely tied into the NARCO trafficking market and was an international criminal. So, his removal is good inherently in multiple ways,” Nelson said
Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez has taken Maduro’s place after his removal. She invited the U.S. to “collaborate” after President Donald Trump previously warned she could face a fate worse than Maduro.
Nelson said while it was reasonable to leave Rodriguez in power, it was a “somewhat flawed concept.”
“The president doesn’t seem concerned about that or to have said that this is an interest to the United States. He seems to indicate that the United States has removed a single, Communist dictator who would not work with American oil companies and instead left a Communist dictator who will work with American oil companies, and that our primary concern is access to the Venezuelan oil resources that our domestic companies can invest in, extract, and trade,” Nelson said.
Nelson noted that if the U.S. zeros in on Venezuela for its oil resources alone, “more maligned forces” would take advantage and continue trafficking drugs.
“There’s a great deal of what comes next that seems to be indeterminate that needs to be hammered out. Otherwise, this will be an example of tactical brilliance with no strategic follow-through,” Nelson said.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, defended the Trump administration’s removal of Maduro during a UN Security Council meeting Monday.
Waltz called Maduro a “narco-terrorist” and a “so-called president,” referencing the country’s 2024 election against opposition leader María Corina Machado.
“I want to reiterate that President Trump gave diplomacy a chance. He offered Maduro multiple off-ramps. He tried to de-escalate. … The United States will not waver in its actions,” Waltz said.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that Maduro and his wife did not know he was going to be captured by the U.S. military until 3 minutes prior to their arrival.
“He didn’t know they were coming till three minutes before they arrived. In fact, his wife said, I think I hear aircraft outside. They didn’t know, you know why? Because every single part of that chain did their job, and they did it flawlessly, and they did it protecting operational security, and they did it with a commitment to one thing, the mission, to getting that mission accomplished,” Hegseth said.
Hegseth elaborated, “When we think of we get a chance to see all the moving parts that go into a mission. If one thing goes wrong or someone doesn’t pay attention to a detail, then that aircraft doesn’t launch, and then we don’t have that option, and that target isn’t serviced, which means you create vulnerabilities for that helicopter. Every aspect contributes to mission success. So we had a chance to tell a few stories here at the table, some of which I can’t tell with our friends in the media.”
Hegseth said that almost 200 Americans aided in the capture of Maduro.
“And then we saw three nights ago in downtown Caracas, Venezuela, as nearly 200 of our greatest Americans went downtown Caracas seems those Russian air defenses didn’t work so well did they Downtown Caracas grabbed an indicted individual wanted by American with the support law enforcement without a single American killed,’ Hegseth explained.
During his arraignment in a federal courtroom Monday, Maduro said, “I’m innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the president of my country.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Sunday that he has been charged “with Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States.”