TONKIN and HORMUZ
New evidence sparks uncertainty over US-Iran naval incident in Hormuz Iranian video shows apparently routine activity by Iranian patrol boats, while Pentagon officials say radio threat may not have been from Iranian forces. By Arthur Bright from the January 12, 2008 edition E-mail Print Letter to the Editor Republish del.icio.us digg An Iranian video of Sunday's naval confrontation between Iran and the United States has intensified the debate over the seriousness of the incident. The Daily Telegraph reports that the Iranian tape, aired Thursday by Iran's state-owned Press TV, was meant to reinforce Tehran's argument that the incident between Iranian Revolutionary Guard patrols and US warships on Sunday was a "normal inspections of vessels," not a hostile act. The video showed an Iranian naval officer on a small boat speaking via radio to a ship which can not be clearly identified. A total of three ships can be seen on the video. The Iranian officer says: "Coalition warship 73 this Iranian navy patrol boat". "This is coalition warship 73. I read you loud and clear," the person replied in what appears to be an American accent. The Iranian officer then appears to ask for the ships to identify themselves, although not all his words can be understood: "Coalition warship 73 this Iranian navy patrol boat, request side number ... operating in the area this time," the Iranian voice says. The tape stands in sharp contrast to US video of the incident released earlier, which Pentagon officials said showed a "careless, reckless and potentially hostile" confrontation on the Iranians' part, The Christian Science Monitor reporter earlier this week. Three US Navy ships � the cruiser USS Port Royal, the destroyer USS Hopper, and the frigate USS Ingraham � were on patrol about 12 miles from Iranian territory in the Strait of Hormuz early Sunday when five small boats associated with Iran's Revolutionary Guards approached them, Pentagon officials said. The fast boats, highly maneuverable patrol craft, were "visibly armed," a Pentagon spokesman said, and began aggressive maneuvers against the three American ships, steaming in formation into the Persian Gulf. The boats got within 200 to 500 yards of the American ships before splitting into two groups. At least one of the fast boats then dropped several white boxes in the water in the pathway of the Ingraham, which successfully dodged them, considering them potential floating mines. Commanders of the US ships also received radio communications thought to be from one of the Iranian boats in which they heard an individual say in English, "I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes." The Monitor notes that the Strait of Hormuz is a critical waterway for oil traffic, since as much as 40 percent of the world's oil exports travel through it. The Los Angeles Times reports that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and other US officials are still concerned by the incident. "I think that what concerned us was, first, the fact that there were five of these boats, and second, that they came as close as they did to our ships and behaved in what appeared to be a pretty aggressive manner," [Mr. Gates] said. "So I think it's all of those things that raise concerns." The Bush administration lodged a formal diplomatic protest Thursday in a note given to Swiss diplomats in Tehran, the Iranian capital. The Bush administration relies on the Swiss to help oversee Washington's interests in Iran in the absence of formal relations between the Islamic Republic and the U.S. But the Pentagon has conceded that the threatening voice in the US video may not have come from the patrol boats, writes The Washington Post. The Post adds that such a concession appears to contradict the implications of earlier Pentagon statements about the video. Pentagon officials insist that they never claimed Iran made the threat. "No one in the military has said that the transmission emanated from those boats. But when they hear it simultaneously to the behavior of those boats, it only adds to the tension," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell. "If this verbal threat emanated from something or someone unrelated to the five boats, it would not lessen the threat from those boats." ... "When you get a bridge-to-bridge call, you have no way of knowing where it came from," Thorp said. "Nobody ever, with any certainty, knew it was from them. But it did escalate it up a notch as it was happening at the same time" that the patrol boats, manned by Revolutionary Guards, engaged in menacing behavior, [Rear Adm. Frank Thorp IV, a spokesman for the Navy,] said. The Post notes that Farsi speakers and Iranians who listened to the verbal threat said the speaker's accent did not sound Iranian. Bloomberg reports that Cmdr. Lydia Robertson, spokeswoman for the Fifth Fleet, also admitted that the radio threat may have come from another ship or from shore, though she added that the Iranian boats were moving threateningly before the radio threat was received. A reader comment posted on The New York Times blog The Lede, and later reposted in the blog itself, suggests that the confrontation may have been sparked by a third party. The reader, who said he has served as an officer aboard a US destroyer in the Strait of Hormuz region, writes that the harassment by Iranian patrols is "totally believeable." He adds the caveat, however, that the radio channel over which the US warships and the Iranian patrols were communicating, UHF frequency channel 16, is like "bad CB radio" in the Persian Gulf. Everybody and their brother is on it; chattering away.... On Ch. 16, esp. in that section of the Gulf, slurs/threats/chatter/etc. [are] commonplace. So my first thought was that the "explode" comment might not have even come from one of the Iranian craft, but some loser monitoring the events at a shore facility. The Navy even seemed to admit as much today when they said the transmission could not be traced directly to the small boats. So I hope everybody exercises great caution here and doesn't jump to conclusions, given the circumstances and potential for escalation. What I do want everybody to know is that those Navy crews are doing their damned best out there, and given the current situation/previous experience with the USS Cole, would certainly be justified in shooting at any small craft that makes aggressive runs at them, especially after being warned. William Arkin, a blogger on homeland security for The Washington Post, writes that Iran's insistence that it did nothing wrong may actually open a door for American diplomacy. How can we forge a positive outcome from this incident? In accepting that the American naval passage was indeed routine, Iran is not only conveying that U.S. and other coalition naval ships have the right to pass through the Straits, but also that any incidents that occur need not escalate to a shooting war. ... If Iran wants to claim its innocence, why not take advantage of its mendacity to start a professional dialogue between two navies and set the path to ensure that such incidents in the future don't escalate to war? Also...
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Flawed Intelligence and the Decision for War in Vietnam Signals Intercepts, Cited at Time, Prove Only August 2nd Battle, Not August 4; Purported Second Attack Prompted Congressional Blank Check for War Johnson-McNamara Tapes Show Readiness to Escalate, Even on Suspect Intel; Top Aides Knew of Mistaken Signals, but Welcomed Justification for Vote National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 132 Edited by John Prados Phone: 202/994-7000 Posted August 4, 2004 Update - December 1, 2005 Tonkin Gulf Intelligence "Skewed" According to Official History and Intercepts Newly Declassified National Security Agency Documents Show Analysts Made "SIGINT fit the claim" of North Vietnamese Attack Order this book from: - The New Press - Amazon.com Contents Main Page Essay: 40th Anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident Gulf of Tonkin Signals Intercepts LBJ Tapes on Gulf of Tonkin CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate on possible North Vietnamese responses to U.S. actions, May 1964 State Department - Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS): "U.S. Reaction To Events in the Gulf of Tonkin, August 1-10" Related Links National Public Radio - Cronkite: Gulf of Tonkin's Phantom Attack U.S. Naval Historical Center Image Library - USS Maddox: Actions in the Gulf of Tonkin, August 1964 Washington, D.C., 4 August 2004 - Forty years ago today, President Johnson and top U.S. officials chose to believe that North Vietnam had just attacked U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, even though the highly classified signals intercepts they cited to each other actually described a naval clash two days earlier (a battle prompted by covert U.S. attacks on North Vietnam), according to the declassified intercepts, Johnson White House tapes, and related documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Compiled by Archive senior fellow and Vietnam expert John Prados, today's 40th anniversary electronic briefing book includes Dr. Prados's detailed analysis of the intercepts - only declassified in 2003 - together with audio files and transcripts of the key Tonkin Gulf conversations between President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. The latter are excerpted from Dr. Prados's book, The White House Tapes (New York: The New Press, 2003). The posting also contains photographs and charts from the Tonkin Gulf incident courtesy of the U.S. Naval Historical Center, a detailed documentary chronology compiled by the State Department's Office of the Historian for the Foreign Relations of the United States series, a CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate on possible North Vietnamese responses to U.S. actions from May 1964 (just declassified in June 2004), and links to previous and upcoming Archive publications on Vietnam. For more information, contact Dr. John Prados or Archive director Thomas Blanton at 202/994-7000. Essay: 40th Anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident by John Prados Gulf of Tonkin Signals Intercepts Source: LBJ Library: LBJF: NSF: CFVN, b. 77, f, "3A(3) Gulf of Tonkin, 8/64." LBJ Tapes on Gulf of Tonkin Source: John Prados, The White House Tapes (New York: The New Press, 2003) CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate on possible North Vietnamese responses to U.S. actions, May 1964 State Department - Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS): "U.S. Reaction To Events in the Gulf of Tonkin, August 1-10" Memorandum for the Record of White House Staff Meeting, Washington, August 5, 1964, 8 a.m. Source: Source: National Defense University, Taylor Papers, T-202-69. Secret; Eyes Only. Drafted by William Y. Smith. Update - December 1, 2005 Tonkin Gulf Intelligence "Skewed" According to Official History and Intercepts Newly Declassified National Security Agency Documents Show Analysts Made "SIGINT fit the claim" of North Vietnamese Attack
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