Spinning the Straits of Hormuz

Following up on this post, Cernig at Newshoggers has done an outstanding job of keeping a taught line on what is now appearing to be a massive spin-job.

When ships of the USN, led by USS Port Royal, were transiting the Straits of Hormuz an alleged encounter with Iranian Revolutionary Guard fastboats resulted in the Pentagon releasing an edited tape which the Pentagon suggested was a provocative act.

Things have changed, however, as the Pentagon's version of the tape, conveniently released just as Bush was leaving for the Middle-East, is now the short cut and has clearly been altered.

Cernig has provided the full version of the tape broken down into a five part playlist. There are some distinct differences between the long version and the Pentagon edit. In all five parts there are no suspicious white boxes in the water and there are no threatening voice radio calls. In fact, the first section of the tape jibes completely with the Iranian version of events.

There is a mystery however, and Cernig spells it out.

Iran fastboat on warship encounter.

This little episode has taken on a life of its own, thanks in no small part to the Bush administration's willingness to find any reason at all to launch an attack on Iran.


Cernig has one of the most complete running versions of events including the Iranian denial of the incident which supposedly took place on 7 Jan 2008 in the Persian Gulf.

The US Navy is now backing away from some of its claims and is suggesting that the threat received in English on marine VHF channel 16 could have come from almost anywhere.

The US Navy is faced with another problem. The story that was released to the media does not jive with standard operating procedure for protection of ships at sea. The story the Pentagon promoted is now falling completely apart with the admission by the USN that the story issued to the press was much more dramatic and suggested a far greater threat than the ships on scene actually felt at the time.

The U.S. warships were not concerned about the possibility that the Iranian boats were armed with heavier weapons capable of doing serious damage. Asked by a reporter whether any of the vessels had anti-ship missiles or torpedoes, Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, Commander of the 5th Fleet, answered that none of them had either of those two weapons.

"I didn't get the sense from the reports I was receiving that there was a sense of being afraid of these five boats," said Cosgriff.

[...]

He described the objects dropped by the Iranian boat as being "white, box-like objects that floated". That description indicates that the objects were clearly not mines, which would have been dark and would have sunk immediately. Cosgriff indicated that the ships merely "passed by them safely" without bothering to investigate whether they were explosives of some kind.

The apparent absence of concern on the part of the U.S. ships' commanding officers about the floating objects suggests that they recognised that the Iranians were engaging in a symbolic gesture having to do with laying mines.

Cosgriff's answers to reporters' questions indicated that the story promoted earlier by Pentagon officials that one of the U.S . ships came very close to firing at the Iranian boats seriously distorted what actually happened. When Cosgriff was asked whether the crew ever gave warning to the Iranian boats that they "could come under fire", he said the commanding officers "did not believe they needed to fire warning shots".

As for the report circulated by at least one Pentagon official to the media that one of the commanders was "close to firing", Cosgriff explained that "close to" meant that the commander was "working through a series of procedures". He added, "[I]n his mind, he might have been closing in on that point."

But the engagement never got that far. At all.

I can understand the captains of ships getting nervous at the idea of small fast boats buzzing around, particularly in the Persian Gulf, but there have been a few thing bothering me from the first release of this story.

There was obviously no communications prior to what we're seeing on the video. Typical of VHF channel 16 in the Persian Gulf, everyone who can get their hands on a cheap marine radio is using it for a multitude of purposes, so it's a pretty messy frequency.

Yet, the USN knew those boats were Iranian. That means they had encountered them at some point in the past or they had a description of boats used by the IRG navy. They possessed intelligence which, totally absent of markings, identified those boats as Iranian.

There have been a few comments in various places which suggest the boats could have been packed with explosives intent on a suicide attack, a la USS Cole.

Watch the video again and observe closely the people in the boats. They are not intent on a suicide attack. The captain of a warship would see the same thing I saw: the occupants of the boats, operating in broad daylight, are wearing lifejackets. That's a good boating safety practice but hardly something a suicide attacker is likely to do.

Vice Admiral Cosgriff was clearly not taking the position that this encounter, which is not unique in the Persian Gulf, was any form of threat or military provocation. The Pentagon turned it into that.

And the Bush administration tried to capitalize on it. Now they can deal with the blowback.

Additional observation: In any modern navy, when a ship or unit is under threat of attack the ship goes to Action Stations or in USN parlance, General Quarters. There is a specific dress required by all personnel: helmets, anti-flash hoods and gloves, and body fully covered.

In the video provided by the USN, the ship in which the communications is being recorded is not at General Quarters.

The Canadian Navy's return to the Persian Gulf

This would be a normal rotation. However, there is a problem.

The Canadian navy is preparing to return to duty in the Persian Gulf.

The federal cabinet will soon be asked to approve the deployment of a single combat ship to the region in order to support the war on terror.

The chief of maritime staff wouldn't identify the warship because the formal order hasn't been given, but Vice-Admiral Drew Robertson says he expects the vessel to sail within a few weeks.

“The effort in the region is going to be ongoing for some time,” said Admiral Robertson, who commanded Canada's biggest naval deployment to the region in 2001.

The navy took a breather since last spring from what's been almost continuous operations in the region.

HMCS Ottawa returned in March after a six-month deployment where the frigate was part of a U.S. carrier strike group.

Admiral Robertson indicated that the ship being readied will come from the navy's principal East Coast base in Halifax and has already been exercising with American warships.

Stop right there, Admiral.

Canada was the first country to respond to the call by the United States after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon 11/09/2001. After the US itself, Canada immediately dispatched ships to the Persian Gulf. It was a genuine military response to a bona fide requirement. We've been there ever since with the exception of an operational pause which was needed to provide refit and maintenance time for ships and a chance for over-tasked ships' companies to update training and just plain catch their breath.

I had no problem with such deployments provided they were fulfilling the role of hunting down the elements of the body which committed the attacks prior to, on and subsequent to the event which has come to be known as 9/11.

When HMCS Ottawa, however, was attached to US Expeditionary Strike Group 5, questions were raised. While our frigates are well suited to that kind of force integration, that's not the point. Ottawa's deployment may have looked normal enough, but it was attached to a group which was deployed deliberately to provoke Iran.

This next deployment is being sold as normal operations in the Global War on Terror, and the Admiral is speaking as though not much has changed to alter the presence of Canadian naval forces in the Gulf.

But there has been a considerable change.

Attachment to a US Expeditionary Strike Group carries with it the implicit requirement to carry out duties assigned by that task group commander. If the US operation order includes strikes on Iraq or actions which may involve a US strike on Iran, Canadian integration into such a force means a Canadian sovereign entity is also involved in those actions. The degree of participation is irrelevant.

Canada's involvement is related to Afghanistan and the interdiction of persons who perpetrated certain acts. Iraq is not the central front in the War On Terror. The United States started the war in Iraq. The terrorists Canada offered to assist in rooting out were not a part of that action until after the Bush administration created the conditions which led to the situation today.

Canada is expected to be called next year to lead the multinational naval task force in the region, which it has done in the past.

That is a different mission and a different organization. The two deployments are different in nature.

Again, I would be interested to see the operation order for the USN Strike Group. The distinction between Operation Iraqi Freedom, of which Canada is not a part, and Operation Enduring Freedom, (Afghanistan), is difficult to make if the group to which this next Canadian frigate is being attached is there to perform in both areas.

Given the intransigence and incompetence of the Bush administration over Iraq and the Bush admin saber-rattling over Iran, attaching a Canadian frigate to a US Carrier Strike Group at this stage of the game is not only a stupid idea, it could conceivably involve Canada in an attack on Iran.

Vice-Admiral Robertson needs to come clean on exactly what the duties of any Canadian ship attached to a USN CVSG in the Gulf will be, how they are expected to clear themselves of any operation which the Canadian government has not declared itself a part of, and where the line is drawn when the carrier is launching strike missions.