A little tidbit of news that has been lost in all the media covers of politics and the New Hampshire caucuses is the fact that Iran made aggressive gestures towards the United States over the weekend. Five Iranian speed boats with mounted guns swarmed three US Warships. They were seen tossing boxes into the path of the warships, presumably explosives. They messaged the ships in English that they were coming and would blow them up ‘in a couple of minutes’. The speed boats came within 200 yards of the US Warships on at least two occasions.
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Armed Iranian speedboats swarmed three US warships in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, radioing a threat to blow them up and sending tensions flaring ahead of President George W. Bush’s trip to the Mideast, US officials said Monday.
“I’m coming at you and you will blow up in a couple of minutes,” a Defense Department official quoted the radio transmission as saying.
Crew aboard two of the five speedboats also dumped floating boxes into the path of one of the vessels during the incident Sunday morning, but it passed them without incident, officials said.
The US government accused Iran of engaging in provocative and potentially hostile behavior and vowed “to confront Iranian behavior where it seeks to do harm to either us or our friends and allies in the region.”
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the incident was “quite troubling actually and a matter of real concern.”
“This is a very volatile area and the risk of an incident and of an incident escalating is real. I can’t imagine what was on their minds,” he told reporters in San Diego, California.
But Iran played down the encounter, which came just days before Bush travels to the region to boost the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and assure allies that Washington continues to view Iran as a threat.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini called it “an ordinary occurrence which happens every now and then for both sides.”
Gates said there had been two or three such incidents — “maybe not quite as dramatic as this one” — over the past year.
Pentagon officials said the Iranian speedboats swarmed the US ships in international waters in the strait on Sunday at around 0400 GMT, peeling off into two groups as they approached.
The cruiser USS Port Royal, the destroyer USS Hopper, and the frigate USS Ingraham received a radio call threatening to blow them up and saw two of the speedboats drop floating boxes into the path of the Ingraham, officials said.
“They were called on radio, ship’s whistles were sounded — those sorts of things — to draw attention to the fact that their maneuvers were a cause of concern to the commanding officers,” said Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the US Fifth Fleet.
He said the warnings went unheeded, and that the speedboats came within less than 500 meters (yards) of the US boats on a couple of occasions. Other defense officials put the distance at a couple of hundred meters.
Ship commanders responded by increasing their vessels’ “onboard readiness,” but no shots were fired, the admiral said. “In this case, the commanding officers did not believe they needed to fire warning shots.”
Cosgriff said the incident lasted less than 30 minutes, ending when the speedboats turned and headed back to Iranian waters.
I wonder how enemy boats can come that close to US warships and be able to speed off when the warships prepare to fire on them. That’s how Sailors get killed. I suppose I understand why the ships Captains showed restraint, but that takes me really trying to understand. What if those boats had delivered on their threats. Its not like they can’t or wouldn’t. Remember the USS Cole? Those boats should have been in pieces at the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz. But they’re not. They are getting bolder as they get a pass on their increasingly aggressive behaviors.
Get more details at AubreyJ
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Our timidity encourages these people to try even more aggressive steps. We have the weaponry to take these people out and it is foolish that we do not use it. They could have been made to simply vanish if the radar controlled gun had been pumping out several thousand rounds a minute at them. Why do we put up with this? Why are we so reluctant to put these people in their proper place? We could simplify life immeasurably if we would simply take the appropriate action.
That’s exactly what I wonder, Dr. D. Why do we put up with it. They are obviously thumbing their noses at us and testing boundaries. I think its a dangerous game we are playing with the lives of our military men and women.
It is a sea-going game of chicken, the US Navy used to do it with the USSR, we still do it with the Chinese, we do it in the air with the Russian bombers…But those are rational, professional opponents. (Watch ‘Hunt for Red October’)
The Iranians are playing chicken, they are trying to provoke an incident were they can claim, in the media and at the UN, that the US Navy was the aggressor.
So, our sailors have to be very professional, and wait. Our ships were ready to defend themselves, and would have quickly sunk several of those Iranian speedboats.
The US Navy sails ‘in harm’s way’ to defend freedom.
Video of Iranian Boats Swarming US Warships…
The U.S. Navy releases video of the Iranian boats that swarmed US Warships a couple of days ago.
video thanks to 123Beta
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Feeling the loss; RIP Maj. Andrew Olmsted…
[Pic] MAJ Andrew Olmsted was killed in action January 3, 2008, and I just do not have any words to say how sorry I am to his family and friends. … He did leave us one last post which he gave to hilzoy to post in such a case as this. So at least he …..
It’s to Bush’s credit he called the Iranians on this publicly. (Others would have been too timid without supportive poll data.) It’s also interesting that the Iranian explanation is that 1.) the audio/video were from old files, and 2.) they were merely asking the large and clearly marked US Navy ships to “identify themselves” while in international waters. Either they are liars or morons.