anderson. >> pamela brown, appreciate it. thank you. cnn's fred pleitgen is the only western correspondent in tehran where it's early in the morning right now. he joins us. so president trump is saying it could have been a general or somebody who made a mistake and decided to shoot down this drone. is that -- what exactly are the iranians saying? ? >> reporter: well, the iranians are pretty much saying the exact opposite of that. i've been looking for any sort of statements, any iranian commander, anybody from the military or politics that said this could have been an accident or some sort of rogue commander or even the iranians possibly trying to walk this back, anderson. so far there's been none of that. the iranians are clearly saying this was a deliberate shoot down of this u.s. drone because they believe the u.s. drone infringed upon the airspace, violated their airspace. and the interesting thing about this is, i've been here 16 or 17 times now, anderson, and i have never seen the iranians on all levels, the moderates, the hardliners, the military, the politics, come out with so many statements so quickly.