JohnR
01-10-2008, 07:50 AM
Almost surprised nobody was discussing this incident. Here is the article from the Globe. The Navy released a more detailed video that works better than the 20 second clip on TV but they still edited out 10+ minutes of the video for security reasons: http://www.defenselink.mil/dodcmsshare/briefingslide%5C320%5C080107-D-6570C-001.wmv
Five Iranian gunboats threatened US warships in the Persian Gulf on Sunday, racing within striking distance of the three vessels before retreating, according to the US Navy's top officer, who called the provocative maneuvers "extremely unprofessional, unsafe, and unhelpful."
Admiral Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, also said that US officers commanding the three ships - a destroyer, a cruiser, and a frigate - picked up threatening radio transmissions after unsuccessfully trying to contact the Iranian vessels.
"They came within a couple of hundred yards of the ships," Roughead said in an interview with the Globe yesterday. "They approached the ships in an aggressive manner and maneuvered close aboard."
The confrontation, which occurred in international waters just days before President Bush is due to make a high-profile tour of the Middle East, prompted a strong reaction from US military leaders who are seeking to avoid an armed conflict with Iran. It also raised new concerns about the hair-trigger tensions in the region and the potential for a deadly miscalculation between two navies that have no official mechanism to communicate concerns.
Over the radio, the admiral said, the US ves sels picked up comments "that were aggressive" and indicated the gunboats "were closing" in on the USS Hopper, USS Port Royal, and USS Ingraham.
In a conference call with Pentagon reporters, Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the US Fifth Fleet, said the transmissions were to the effect that the "US ships would explode" - sparking fears of a repeat of the suicide bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen in 2000 that killed 17 US sailors.
But Roughead said it was unclear whether the radio warning came from Iranian vessels or from shore along the Straits of Hormuz, a narrow, 34-mile opening into the Persian Gulf, through which an estimated 40 percent of the world's oil supply is shipped. Sunday's incident occurred at 8 a.m. local time when the three American vessels were entering the Persian Gulf through the straits.
"In that part of the Gulf, who was saying what [is] sometimes very difficult to determine," Roughead said.
Cosgriff also said that two of the Iranian boats dropped white "box-like objects" that floated in the path of the Ingraham, the final ship in the formation, but caused no damage.
Roughead said it was unclear whether the five so-called "fast attack" craft, which are outfitted with small-caliber weapons but not anti-ship missiles, were operated by the Iranian Navy or by the more aggressive Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or by both.
US officials described the incident as the most significant since the Iranian Navy temporarily took 15 British sailors hostage last year after alleging their vessel entered Iranian territorial waters in the northern Persian Gulf. They suggested that the US ships were only moments away from firing on the Iranian naval vessels before the Iranians retreated.
"We urge the Iranians to refrain from such provocative actions that could lead to a dangerous incident in the future," said Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman.
Mohammad-Ali Hosseini, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the Iranian vessels merely made a routine acknowledgement of the US ships. Iranian officials said they had no knowledge of any boxes or radio communication threatening explosions.
But Navy officers, who have frequent, businesslike radio interactions with individual vessels in the Iranian Navy, were concerned about the incident.
Iran controls the eastern side of the Strait of Hormuz, and Iranian Navy officers make contact with ships that pass through, asking them to identify themselves and state their course and speed. US naval officers respond by giving the name of their ship, the speed, and their course through international waters.
Sunday's incident, where it occurred and the hostile nature of the Iranian boats' maneuvers, are what "made this one so unusual," Roughead said.
"Professional navies do not operate that way," he said, during an interview with Globe reporters and editors. "That to me is an issue that does not help the security and stability in that part of the world. It is a very constrained passage, a very critical passage for so many countries. That sort of behavior is extraordinarily unhelpful."
The move follows a period of relative calm in the heated rhetoric between the United States and Iran. US military officials in Iraq recently have noted that the number of Iranian-made weapons entering the country has declined. Meanwhile, the latest National Intelligence Estimate determined Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
As Bush makes his first visit to the region, analysts said, the incident may have been intended as Iran's warning that it will not be isolated or ignored. The confrontation may have also been a signal for Arabic states in the Gulf, "who have to make their continuing decisions about aligning more closely with the United States, or accommodating the Iranians," said Paul Pillar, a former CIA analyst now at Georgetown University. "Whatever ideas the US may have to push Iran around, Iran has options to push back."
Others said they believe the Iranians may have been probing the United States' willingness to engage their military. "I think it was an effort to test the US reaction," said Kenneth Katzman, a specialist on the Persian Gulf at the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress. Katzman has written a book on Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
"I think in the wake of the release of the US intelligence estimate, they were probing to see how the US rules of engagement might have changed, whether US contemplation of military action is more or less likely," he said.
The strategic waterway has been a flashpoint before.
In what came to be known as the 1987 Tanker War, Kuwaiti oil tankers sailed under US flags after the Iranian Navy mined the strait and fired on ships at the height of the Iran-Iraq war. The next year, US forces destroyed two Iranian offshore military installations after 10 American sailors were injured by a mine that Iran was believed to have planted.
After another US warship was damaged by a mine, Americans sank two Iranian warships and several armed speedboats. The one-day battle severely damaged the Iranian Navy.
Several security experts insisted yesterday the Iranian vessels are no serious threat to the American warships. They also doubt that the Iranians would want to shut down the straits, which are critical to their own economic well-being.
John Pike, who runs the think tank GlobalSecurity.org (http://globalsecurity.org/), noted that the Iranian gunboats that menaced the US warships lack heavy firepower and do not pose a significant threat, unless they are used in suicide attacks.
By contrast, Pike said, the US ships are armed with sophisticated, large-caliber guns that would "just shred" the Iranian craft. The Iranians, he added, "can do whatever they please to unarmed oil tankers, but why would they want to? Their financial situation is more precarious than everyone else's."
Nevertheless, Admiral Roughead said he worried such behavior could have escalated unintentionally into a military confrontation before either side could call for a halt. "I do not have a direct link with my counterpart in the Iranian Navy," he said. "I don't have a way to communicate directly with the Iranian Navy or Guard."
Article here: http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2008/01/08/iranian_boats_press_us_ships/
Five Iranian gunboats threatened US warships in the Persian Gulf on Sunday, racing within striking distance of the three vessels before retreating, according to the US Navy's top officer, who called the provocative maneuvers "extremely unprofessional, unsafe, and unhelpful."
Admiral Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, also said that US officers commanding the three ships - a destroyer, a cruiser, and a frigate - picked up threatening radio transmissions after unsuccessfully trying to contact the Iranian vessels.
"They came within a couple of hundred yards of the ships," Roughead said in an interview with the Globe yesterday. "They approached the ships in an aggressive manner and maneuvered close aboard."
The confrontation, which occurred in international waters just days before President Bush is due to make a high-profile tour of the Middle East, prompted a strong reaction from US military leaders who are seeking to avoid an armed conflict with Iran. It also raised new concerns about the hair-trigger tensions in the region and the potential for a deadly miscalculation between two navies that have no official mechanism to communicate concerns.
Over the radio, the admiral said, the US ves sels picked up comments "that were aggressive" and indicated the gunboats "were closing" in on the USS Hopper, USS Port Royal, and USS Ingraham.
In a conference call with Pentagon reporters, Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the US Fifth Fleet, said the transmissions were to the effect that the "US ships would explode" - sparking fears of a repeat of the suicide bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen in 2000 that killed 17 US sailors.
But Roughead said it was unclear whether the radio warning came from Iranian vessels or from shore along the Straits of Hormuz, a narrow, 34-mile opening into the Persian Gulf, through which an estimated 40 percent of the world's oil supply is shipped. Sunday's incident occurred at 8 a.m. local time when the three American vessels were entering the Persian Gulf through the straits.
"In that part of the Gulf, who was saying what [is] sometimes very difficult to determine," Roughead said.
Cosgriff also said that two of the Iranian boats dropped white "box-like objects" that floated in the path of the Ingraham, the final ship in the formation, but caused no damage.
Roughead said it was unclear whether the five so-called "fast attack" craft, which are outfitted with small-caliber weapons but not anti-ship missiles, were operated by the Iranian Navy or by the more aggressive Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or by both.
US officials described the incident as the most significant since the Iranian Navy temporarily took 15 British sailors hostage last year after alleging their vessel entered Iranian territorial waters in the northern Persian Gulf. They suggested that the US ships were only moments away from firing on the Iranian naval vessels before the Iranians retreated.
"We urge the Iranians to refrain from such provocative actions that could lead to a dangerous incident in the future," said Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman.
Mohammad-Ali Hosseini, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the Iranian vessels merely made a routine acknowledgement of the US ships. Iranian officials said they had no knowledge of any boxes or radio communication threatening explosions.
But Navy officers, who have frequent, businesslike radio interactions with individual vessels in the Iranian Navy, were concerned about the incident.
Iran controls the eastern side of the Strait of Hormuz, and Iranian Navy officers make contact with ships that pass through, asking them to identify themselves and state their course and speed. US naval officers respond by giving the name of their ship, the speed, and their course through international waters.
Sunday's incident, where it occurred and the hostile nature of the Iranian boats' maneuvers, are what "made this one so unusual," Roughead said.
"Professional navies do not operate that way," he said, during an interview with Globe reporters and editors. "That to me is an issue that does not help the security and stability in that part of the world. It is a very constrained passage, a very critical passage for so many countries. That sort of behavior is extraordinarily unhelpful."
The move follows a period of relative calm in the heated rhetoric between the United States and Iran. US military officials in Iraq recently have noted that the number of Iranian-made weapons entering the country has declined. Meanwhile, the latest National Intelligence Estimate determined Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
As Bush makes his first visit to the region, analysts said, the incident may have been intended as Iran's warning that it will not be isolated or ignored. The confrontation may have also been a signal for Arabic states in the Gulf, "who have to make their continuing decisions about aligning more closely with the United States, or accommodating the Iranians," said Paul Pillar, a former CIA analyst now at Georgetown University. "Whatever ideas the US may have to push Iran around, Iran has options to push back."
Others said they believe the Iranians may have been probing the United States' willingness to engage their military. "I think it was an effort to test the US reaction," said Kenneth Katzman, a specialist on the Persian Gulf at the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress. Katzman has written a book on Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
"I think in the wake of the release of the US intelligence estimate, they were probing to see how the US rules of engagement might have changed, whether US contemplation of military action is more or less likely," he said.
The strategic waterway has been a flashpoint before.
In what came to be known as the 1987 Tanker War, Kuwaiti oil tankers sailed under US flags after the Iranian Navy mined the strait and fired on ships at the height of the Iran-Iraq war. The next year, US forces destroyed two Iranian offshore military installations after 10 American sailors were injured by a mine that Iran was believed to have planted.
After another US warship was damaged by a mine, Americans sank two Iranian warships and several armed speedboats. The one-day battle severely damaged the Iranian Navy.
Several security experts insisted yesterday the Iranian vessels are no serious threat to the American warships. They also doubt that the Iranians would want to shut down the straits, which are critical to their own economic well-being.
John Pike, who runs the think tank GlobalSecurity.org (http://globalsecurity.org/), noted that the Iranian gunboats that menaced the US warships lack heavy firepower and do not pose a significant threat, unless they are used in suicide attacks.
By contrast, Pike said, the US ships are armed with sophisticated, large-caliber guns that would "just shred" the Iranian craft. The Iranians, he added, "can do whatever they please to unarmed oil tankers, but why would they want to? Their financial situation is more precarious than everyone else's."
Nevertheless, Admiral Roughead said he worried such behavior could have escalated unintentionally into a military confrontation before either side could call for a halt. "I do not have a direct link with my counterpart in the Iranian Navy," he said. "I don't have a way to communicate directly with the Iranian Navy or Guard."
Article here: http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2008/01/08/iranian_boats_press_us_ships/