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Today's Must Read
It's been nearly a year since the Bush Administration mounted a public relations campaign accusing Iran of arming insurgents in Iraq. If that was a campaign to generate enough public support to go on the offensive against Iran, it failed. But relations between the two haven't exactly warmed since -- nor, it's safe to say, has the administration's trigger finger gotten any less itchy.
Which makes this worrying:
We're coming at you, the Iranian radio transmission warned. Your ships will explode in a couple of minutes.The United States and Iran reached the verge of a military confrontation early Sunday after five Iranian patrol boats sped toward the USS Port Royal and two accompanying ships as they crossed the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf. The Iranian vessels, manned by the Revolutionary Guard Corps, broke into two groups and "maneuvered aggressively" on both sides of the U.S. ships, coming as close as 500 yards, recounted Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.
After the radio transmission, two of the Iranian boats dropped "white box-like objects" into the water, Cosgriff said. The U.S. ships responded with evasive maneuvers, radioed warnings to the Iranians and sounded ships' whistles, while ordering increased readiness of their own vessels. After their messages were not heeded, the U.S. ships prepared to fire in self-defense, but the Iranians abruptly turned and sped north toward their territorial waters.
As the U.S. officials tell it, this was either an aborted attack (the little white boxes were mines) or a sort of mock attack (the boxes were just little boxes) meant to test how U.S. vessels react.
Meanwhile, the Iranians say that there were no aggressive maneuvers, no boxes, no threatening radio transmissions.
Perhaps most intriguing about the episode is that Pentagon officials say that the five speedboats belong to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Last year, the administration focused on the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force as the ones responsible for arming Iraqi insurgents -- and made quite an effort to argue that the Quds Force was necessarily acting with the authorization of the Iranian government. In October, the Bush administration imposed sanctions on the Revolutionary Guard and the Quds Force. So maybe this is just another chapter in that back and forth. Or maybe it's something more.
Comments (44)
danger wrote on January 8, 2008 9:56 AM:We've really been this close to a full blown war with Iran this entire time. All it's going to take is one idiotic incident, another Gulf of Tonkin if you will. This sort of thing has been the administration's wet dream so they can further justify military action.
Are we going to get to 2009 without an incident? Is it realistic to expect so?
biff diggerence wrote on January 8, 2008 10:04 AM:The entire incident was fabricated in the OVP, force fed to DoD, and vomited out for naive public consumption.
GMFORD wrote on January 8, 2008 10:14 AM:Two words for the Bush administration:
STOP IT!
Gary wrote on January 8, 2008 10:19 AM:Gulf of Tonkin anyone?
pol wrote on January 8, 2008 10:23 AM:I live near Washington. On all-news radio WTOP, there's a "national security correspondence" who's been saying this was definitely a provocation by the Iranians and that, by not firing, we probably avoided going to war.
This "correspondent," JJ Greene, has had a segment called, "The Hunt for Osama bin Laden" on the same station, if that tells you anything. He's affiliated with Federal News Radio. His reports always seem fake and drummed up - something surreal about them. He began talking about this latest incident before I heard a thing about it on the national news. I believe he is a propagandist.
http://www.wtopnews.com/emedia/103609.mp3
Au contraire wrote on January 8, 2008 10:23 AM:Danger: Gulf of Tonkin wasn't an incident, it was a phony made up event. The administration can make up anything it wants and the stenographic media will print it as fact, the Congress will turn line up to support the President, and our planes will bomb.
FMArouet wrote on January 8, 2008 10:33 AM:Note other reporting that the same ships lost a man overboard last Friday in the Arabian Sea and were searching for him.
Also note that two F-18 Hornets mysteriously crashed on Monday evening in the Persian Gulf.
Together with this incident on Saturday involving Iranian speedboats, it appears that the tempo of U.S. Navy activity in the region may recently have been stepped up.
As for the question of "international" versus "territorial" waters, note that in one area the Strait is only 21 miles wide, and Oman and Iran consider the territorial marker to be the median line in that area. The normal shipping channel is entirely within waters controlled by Oman, but other channels in the Strait are deep enough for ship transit. Were the U.S. ships actually on the Iranian side of the median line? If so, they have the right of free passage through the Strait, but they also would have to expect scrutiny by Iran if they were indeed transiting Iranian territorial waters.
My guess is that this kind of cat-and-mouse game goes on all the time when U.S. Navy ships pass through the Straits of Hormuz. It strains credulity, however, to claim that the Iranian boats were radioing specific threats to blow up the U.S. ships.
Who was provoking whom?
For more detail on the question of territoriality in the Straits of Hormuz, see:
http://books.google.com/books?id=7ETnbmUmxoUC&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=strait+of+hormuz+territorial+waters&source=web&ots=iQR-4Gqj7n&sig=Ips-fiZrL261IiMu5M1EYCh5Uhs#PPP1,M1
osage wrote on January 8, 2008 10:50 AM:TRUSTING the intelligence and or the facts that come out of the Bush/Cheney Pentagon and or White House has proven to be foolhardy. With the outright lies, distortions, partial-truths and spins of Bush and Cheney and their minions, I wouldn't believe anything they say unless they are tesifying in public and sworn in under oath before a federal judge. They have proven they have a predilection for lying to the people, congress, congressional committees and Grand Juries. Why would anyone believe anything they say now?
MNPundit wrote on January 8, 2008 11:06 AM:Someone is lying.
Maybe everyone is lying.
Kat wrote on January 8, 2008 11:16 AM:And WHY is our navy there in the first place? Hmmmm, protecting America? Well, not exactly. They are protecting the oil tankers. Not American interests but the greedy, price gouging, getting wealthier every day who posted 300 percent increase in profits last year on the backs of the American People, oil companies.
I say bring our Navy home and let the oil companies build their own ships to protect their inventory. They can certainly afford it and I don't want my tax dollars paying for it!!!
bill clintoon wrote on January 8, 2008 11:20 AM:Iran would never do anything like this.
Bullsmith wrote on January 8, 2008 11:23 AM:They haven't closed the internet shops,
they haven't stoned women, they haven't continued to expand their military. Its all lies. Same about Kim Jong Il and Chavez....these are nice people who only want to get along.
Sadly, I don't believe a word DOD or the admin says about Iran. When they talk about national security, they don't ever simply tell the truth. Ever.
Eric Ferguson wrote on January 8, 2008 11:26 AM:I wish more reporters had stuck the phrase "The Defense Department claims..." in front of the "facts" they reported. They don't know for sure DOD is lying any more than we do, but they know whether or not there's been independent confirmation of what DOD told them. It's as if they still haven't built up the necessary skepticism.
QuakerLady wrote on January 8, 2008 11:27 AM:What with their pants being on fire all of the time, it's a wonder anybody in this administration is clothed at all.
RobbyLove wrote on January 8, 2008 11:53 AM:Stop with the Gulf of Tonkin references already. Everyone who spouts this shows an amazing ignorance of history. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution was based on not one but two reported incidents.
In fact, there was an incident where Vietnamese torpedo boats approached American destroyers and the Americans fired first (probably). It was the second "attack" that was a complete fabrication, which lead to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution did not start the war in Vietnam as many seem to believe, it just gave the President the authority to defend east asian countries against communist aggression.
The Iraq war of 2003 is more like the Gulf of Tonkin because we used fabricated evidence to get a Congressional resolution to wage war.
But in this case, the Iranians have a history of doing these baiting tactics (British hostages anyone?) so you can't honestly say this current incident was fabricated can you?
I don't give anyone in the administration the benefit of the doubt, believe me. However, I do feel that making ignorant and inaccurant historical analogies just dilutes the argument.
mcj4476 wrote on January 8, 2008 11:54 AM:A question for the more knowledgeable:
Do ships have the equivalent of a "black box" that would have recorded those transmissions?
Redbeard wrote on January 8, 2008 12:01 PM:Walter Cronkite has the tapes of LBJ & McNamara prepping their theatre when they want to use the Gulf of Tonkin as a reason for greater U.S. military action.
It is fair to use the phrase "Gulf of Tonkin" to imply that a President is trying to beat the war drums. Yeah, the Vietnam War was going on before Tonkin, but after Tonkin, we put our G.I.s on the ground there.
LiberalTarian wrote on January 8, 2008 12:04 PM:There's an election on the horizon ... These people are cynical dogs.
ORANGE ALERT!!!
VoP wants their bloody wars. All of them, invade everyone! When we've killed all your kids we'll stop.
And, by gawd, put those alternative energy diagrams and schematics in the shredder. We'll have no oil independence! We're already war criminals dammit, and we might as well go for glory!!!!
Xavier wrote on January 8, 2008 12:07 PM:Thank you Paul. Your posts remind us of the TPM when hardnose reporting and analysis were important. These days it feels like this place has become Huffinton Post.
Dee Illuminati wrote on January 8, 2008 12:09 PM:To: MNPundit
"Maybe everyone is lying."
Good point, or telling the truth from their point of view.
USS Port Royal (CG-73)
USS Hopper (DDG-70)
The Hopper had trained an M240 machine gun — which fires upward of 10 armor-piercing slugs per second — on one of the Iranian boats that had pulled to within 200 yards of the American vessel, well within the gun's range, Pentagon officials said. But before the order to fire was issued, the Iranian boat suddenly steered away from the Hopper.
The problem is of course the chance of a 'sucker punch' initiated by an encroaching small craft as was done before, and causing manuevers of evasion that would put the crews closer to the shores of the straights and other possible land based threats.
In a fair fight.. the Iranians lose..
But the crazy Ivan antics can get out of hand and it is damned if you do or damned if you don't.
These were small boats, the weapon that was to be used was the M60 machine gun.
USS Cole (DDG-67)
Petty Officer John Washak said that right after the blast, a senior chief petty officer ordered him to turn an M-60 machine gun on the Cole's fantail away from a second small boat approaching. "With blood still on my face," he said, he was told: "That's the rules of engagement: no shooting unless we're shot at." He added, "In the military, it's like we're trained to hesitate now. If somebody had seen something wrong and shot, he probably would have been court-martialed."
On November 3, 2002, the CIA fired a AGM-114 Hellfire missile from a Predator UAV at a vehicle carrying Abu Ali al-Harithi, a suspected planner of the bombing plot. Also in the vehicle was Ahmed Hijazi, a U.S. citizen. Both were killed. This operation was carried out on Yemeni soil.
On September 29, 2004, a Yemeni judge sentenced Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Jamal al-Badawi to death for their roles in the bombing. Al-Nashiri, believed to be the operation's mastermind, is currently being held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay detention camp.[21] Al-Badawi, in Yemeni custody, denounced the verdict as "an American one." Four others were sentenced to prison terms of five to 10 years for their involvement, including one Yemeni who had videotaped the attack.
On February 3, 2006, 23 suspected or convicted Al-Qaeda members escaped from jail in Yemen. This number included 13 who were convicted of the USS Cole bombings and the bombing of the French tanker Limburg in 2002. Among those who reportedly escaped was Al-Badawi. Al-Qaeda's Yemeni number two Abu Assem al-Ahdal may also be among those now on the loose.[22]
On October 17, 2007, al-Badawi surrendered to Yemeni authorities as part of an agreement with al-Qaeda militants. Following his surrender, Yemeni authorities released him in return for a pledge not to engage in any violent or al-Qaeda-related activity, despite a $5 million reward for his capture. Two other escapees remained at large.[23]
garyb50 wrote on January 8, 2008 12:10 PM:Are you kidding me?
How many sailors on those 3 ships? And not one video camera, camera or cell phone to get a shot of this? Laughable.
L I Arliar wrote on January 8, 2008 12:11 PM:Recent reports show there was no Vietnamese attack during the so called Gulf of Tonkin attack either. This is all one big fraud. The really big issue is that we do not have an army ready to go to war, they would be planning a nuclear attack. We would be the pariahs of the world. Unlike past events, the world will not turn around and forgive us in 2-5 years. Start thinking about what it is to be total outcasts.
Of course our economic masters will not be outcasts, they have the resources to pick up and go somewhere else.
Leon Kowalski wrote on January 8, 2008 12:15 PM:> Do ships have the equivalent of a "black box" that
> would have recorded those transmissions?
Yep, lots of black boxes that recorded 'em for sure ...
...whether they happened or not,
LK
dick c wrote on January 8, 2008 12:23 PM:With the money we spend on our ships find it hard to believe there aren't cameras recording approaching boats.
MN USA wrote on January 8, 2008 12:30 PM:The Bush administration has zero credibility. I don't believe anything they say.
sickofitall wrote on January 8, 2008 12:38 PM:Had any Orange Alerts lately?
Are they even using that Terrorist Threat level anymore?
It seemed to go up and down more than David Vitter with a paycheque and a weekend off....
More Bushit!
Take Me To The Pilot wrote on January 8, 2008 12:41 PM:can't wait for Mitt to take over ... The "Iranian" boats will be paid mercenaries from Dubai, so according to Mitt's big plan to stimulate the economy, we can go on letting this nation bleed financially while he and his mastermind advisors figure out how to make sure the rich wealthy and income lush citizens of this country pay absolutely NO Taxes, while the middle class disappears and in it's place a giant Amway and Wal-Mart worker slave class emerges from the ashes of the trillion dollars we've spent on trying to convince the world that George W. Bush is anything but a brain damaged disfunctional dry drunk loser from a family of pathological murders and borderline psychotic enablers, who allow this to continue as though nothing is amiss and George is just a average guy you'd like to have a beer with.
fool me once.... wrote on January 8, 2008 12:42 PM:5 Iranian outboard runabouts almost attacked a fleet of billion dollar American warships.....yah sure....America sure does love to portray itself as the victim....
Maybe i'll grab my pellet rifle and get in my fishing boat and attack the World's Largest Military too....
fool me once... wrote on January 8, 2008 12:46 PM:That reminds me of the time a bunch of cave dwellers with boxcutters commandeered 4 US airplanes and the hapless US Air Force couldn't get one jet scrambled in the hours after the hijackers were detected...yup, a bunch of amateurs beat the World's Largest Military.....I'd ask for a refund for all my taxes that went into that defective product, the US Military...
Man, people will believe anything they are told.
fastfeat wrote on January 8, 2008 12:48 PM:"white box-like objects"?? Maybe some leftover cocaine bricks from Iran-Contra days to make Shrub feel more at home on his upcoming trip...
lesser ajax wrote on January 8, 2008 12:50 PM:An interesting interpretation:
http://www.vetvoice.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=349
Harrs the lot of 'em wrote on January 8, 2008 12:52 PM:they had "white boxes" or white box cutters?
I don't think this administration thought their false flag bullcrap through ... but then I guess they don't need to cause there aint nobody doing a damn thing about any of it
Lesson: When approaching destroyer and aircraft carrier ships, idle down on your evinrude and make sure your box-cutters are in the closed position for personal safety
KFB wrote on January 8, 2008 1:22 PM:Sounds as real as finding Atta's passport on the sidewalk near the worldtrade center after 9/11 - how dumb do they think we are...
ShorelineCT wrote on January 8, 2008 1:42 PM:Three U.S. Navy Ships Approached by Iranian Boats
Story Number: NNS080107-05
Release Date: 1/7/2008 11:41:00 AM
http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=34207
No mention of any established communication between the parties in this Navy PR, so it makes sense that this report from the comments section on (gasp!) Drudge may just be valid:
Posted by Sancho at 2008-01-07 02:16 PM
Iranian Captain: I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
American Captain: Is there someone else up there we can talk to?
Iranian Captain: No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.
American Captain: If you will not stand down, we shall destroy your attack boats by force!
Iranian Captain: You don't frighten us, American pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person! Ah blow my nose at you, so-called "Prezident Boosh"! You and all your silly Amerikan Saaaaay-lors!!!
(the Iranian Captain proceeds to bang on his helmet with his hands and stick out his tongue at the Americans, making strange noises.)
American Executive Officer: What a strange person.
ShorelineCT wrote on January 8, 2008 1:48 PM:U.S. Navy says video shows Iranian boats' actions 'provocative'
Jan. 8, 2008, 11:20AM
Associated Press
CAIRO, Egypt — The U.S. military has video and audio recordings of Iranian high-speed boats that threatened to blow up a three-ship U.S. convoy in the Persian Gulf and plans to release them, the top U.S. Navy commander in the Mideast said today.
mutt wrote on January 8, 2008 1:55 PM:Useful to remember the US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" were, in fact , escort, comm, & radar pickets for ostensible SVN manned gunboat raiders that were blowing stuff up in N Vietnam....and IF the North HAD launched a couple of torpedoes at them, they certainly would have just cause.
Redshift wrote on January 8, 2008 2:15 PM:I laughed out loud at this claptrap. I have zero doubt Iran buzzed our mighty Fleet with small boats. Im a lot more concerned this pack of lying incompetants in office will get what they are looking for- a volley of damn near unstoppable anti ship missiles. You screw with people long enough, & youll get a knee in the nuts......
pol -- I agree, J.J. Green is either a propagandist or too credulous to be a useful correspondent on the subject. He reports everything any government source says as if it is unquestionably true, as well as every possible threat.
Mary wrote on January 8, 2008 2:47 PM:Radio transmissions from actual Iranian ships, threatening assaults upon actual American ships, in an area that has been on alert forever, and no one has any recording, not even partial.
Go figure the bad luck.
Dee Illuminati wrote on January 8, 2008 3:08 PM:To Harrs the lot of 'em
Lesson: When approaching destroyer and aircraft carrier ships, idle down on your evinrude and make sure your box-cutters are in the closed position for personal safety
I laughed my ass off, and yes your right, the "blub, blub, blub", sound of zodiacs going down was the result of that confrontation. I'll bet that the idea of depositing floating chafe in the water around the USN craft will get you 'blubbed, blub, blubbed' in the future.
That is my suspicion that the white boxes 'not mined explosives' but instead decoys to confuse anti-missle devices with chaffe.
The purpose to confuse automated systems with hot zones to allow other weapons a greater chance of defeat.
Make no mistake about it, screwing with these guys is not a Bush politcal act, it is one boat against another and 'very personal.'
Lyle wrote on January 8, 2008 4:02 PM:I haven't noticed any commentators considering that the Quds force might be trying to provoke a war against their government's wishes. That would neatly explain why the Iranian government would deny the incident -- they certainly don't want to admit that they're not in complete control of all their military.
Jon Leslie wrote on January 8, 2008 4:53 PM:The navy said they would have video proof soon. Post production special effects work takes a while before you have the finished product.
rwgate wrote on January 8, 2008 7:27 PM:Of course "somebody" should have checked to make sure their film was complete and ready for broadcast, before they announced the attack. But the competence level appears to be a lot lower these days in the Bush Administration.
Question:
How many Farsi speakers were on board the Port Royal? I think we only have about seven in all of the CIA. So this Iranian made his threats in English?
Bush is trying to fabricate anything he can to get his war. By the way, notice how the destroyed CIA torture tapes took the the NIE right out of the papers?
slowthought wrote on January 8, 2008 9:11 PM:"Dee Illuminati wrote on January 8, 2008 12:09 PM:
To: MNPundit
...
The Hopper had trained an M240 machine gun — which fires upward of 10 armor-piercing slugs per second — on one of the Iranian boats that had pulled to within 200 yards of the American vessel, well within the gun's range, Pentagon officials said."
Please think about how your choice of details and words reflects your own attraction/fear of violence - or perhaps of Iranians. What do these details add? But how different would it have sounded if you had just said "a .30 cal machine gun" - which is all it really is.
Or perhaps it isn't your attitude toward violence, but rather belief that such technical details give more weight or authority to your opinions and perceptions. As if understanding weapons makes one an expert about war - If "War is too important to be left to the generals" or something like that - then it certainly is too important to be left to the gunsmiths.
I am only an occasional browser, but I think I have at times agreed with opinions of yours in the past. Unfortunately, your choice of words and details in this case leaves me with great distrust - I'm not sure whether I should distrust your purposes or your awareness, but one or the other is awry.
Annole wrote on January 9, 2008 11:41 AM:After reading about this "incident" it reminded me of the Heritage Foundations war game called "If Iran Provokes an Energy Crisis: Modeling the Problem in a War Game" dated 7/25/07.
Quote: "Day 6 An oil tanker is sunk by a mine in the shipping channel in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is believed to be responsible but does not claim responsibility. U.S. intelligence believes that the mine was laid by Iranian Revolutionary Guards in civilian clothes operating from a fishing vessel or an Iranian Kilo-class submarine. Saudi Arabia announces that it will divert as much oil as possible to Red Sea ports through secure pipelines".
Any scenario that includes the words "U.S. intelligence believes" and Iran give me the heebie jeebies.
My mistrust of this administration makes me wonder if this is just the opening salvo in a campaign of misinformation leading to the above scenario.