Iranian naval "threat" was a hoax

So what do we now know about this alleged "incident" in which we nearly went to war with Iran? Well, the short story is that it's a bunch of bull.

- The "threat" (supposedly) from the Iranian ship was dubbed over the video.
- The "threat" could have been made by anyone, and it's unlikely it was made by anyone in the speedboats due to the lack of background noise.
- The "threat" was not even a threat, and the U.S. ships involved never considered themselves threatened.
- The speedboats could not have harmed the U.S. ships, and the only one of these "aggressive" speedboats that came within visual range of the ships was clearly unarmed.
- U.S. naval vessels never came "very close to firing" on the speedboats. No warning shots were even fired.
- The quotes attributed to the naval commander by the media were, in fact, fabricated and denied by the commander.

Aside from this, our role in the strait of Hormuz is to guarantee the flow of oil. Iran has never threatened the flow of oil.
If our Destroyers can be taken out by bozos with machine guns on the kind of boat used to water-ski, then we've wasted a whole lot of money on our Navy. They might as well be throwing rocks.

story from IPS

POLITICS-US: Official Version of Naval Incident Starts to Unravel
Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (IPS) - Despite the official and media portrayal of the incident in the Strait of Hormuz early Monday morning as a serious threat to U.S. ships from Iranian speedboats that nearly resulted in a "battle at sea", new information over the past three days suggests that the incident did not involve such a threat and that no U.S. commander was on the verge of firing at the Iranian boats.

The new information that appears to contradict the original version of the incident includes the revelation that U.S. officials spliced the audio recording of an alleged Iranian threat onto to a videotape of the incident. That suggests that the threatening message may not have come in immediately after the initial warning to Iranian boats from a U.S. warship, as appears to do on the video.

Also unraveling the story is testimony from a former U.S. naval officer that non-official chatter is common on the channel used to communicate with the Iranian boats and testimony from the commander of the U.S. 5th fleet that the commanding officers of the U.S. warships involved in the incident never felt the need to warn the Iranians of a possible use of force against them.

Further undermining the U.S. version of the incident is a video released by Iran Thursday showing an Iranian naval officer on a small boat hailing one of three ships.

The Iranian commander is heard to say, "Coalition warship 73, this is Iranian navy patrol boat." He then requests the "side numbers" of the U.S. warships. A voice with a U.S. accent replies, "This is coalition warship 73. I am operating in international waters."

The dramatic version of the incident reported by U.S. news media throughout Tuesday and Wednesday suggested that Iranian speedboats, apparently belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard navy, had made moves to attack three U.S. warships entering the Strait and that the U.S. commander had been on the verge of firing at them when they broke off.

Typical of the network coverage was a story by ABC's Jonathan Karl quoting a Pentagon official as saying the Iranian boats "were a heartbeat from being blown up".

Bush administration officials seized on the incident to advance the portrayal of Iran as a threat and to strike a more threatening stance toward Iran. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley declared Wednesday that the incident "almost involved an exchange of fire between our forces and Iranian forces". President George W. Bush declared during his Mideast trip Wednesday that there would be "serious consequences" if Iran attacked U.S. ships and repeated his assertion that Iran is "a threat to world peace".

Central to the depiction of the incident as involving a threat to U.S. warships is a mysterious pair of messages that the sailor who heard them onboard immediately interpreted as saying, "I am coming at you...", and "You will explode after a few minutes." But the voice in the audio clearly said "I am coming to you," and the second message was much less clear.

Furthermore, as the New York Times noted Thursday, the recording carries no ambient noise, such as the sounds of a motor, the sea or wind, which should have been audible if the broadcast had been made from one of the five small Iranian boats.

A veteran U.S. naval officer who had served as a surface warfare officer aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Gulf sent a message to the New York Times on-line column "The Lede" Wednesday pointing out that in the Persian Gulf, the "bridge-to-bridge" radio channel used to communicate between ships "is like a bad CB radio" with many people using it for "hurling racial slurs" and "threats". The former officer wrote that his "first thought" was that the message "might not have even come from one of the Iranian craft".

Pentagon officials admitted to the Times that they could not rule out that the broadcast might have come from another source

The five Iran boats involved were hardly in a position to harm the three U.S. warships. Although Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman described the Iranian boats as "highly maneuverable patrol craft" that were "visibly armed," he failed to note that these are tiny boats carrying only a two- or three-man crew and that they are normally armed only with machine guns that could do only surface damage to a U.S. ship.

The only boat that was close enough to be visible to the U.S. ships was unarmed, as an enlarged photo of the boat from the navy video clearly shows.

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.

The edited Navy video shows a crewman issuing an initial warning to approaching boats, but the footage of the boats maneuvering provides no visual evidence of Iranian boats "making a run on U.S. ships" as claimed by CBS news Wednesday in its report based on the new video.

Vice Adm. Cosgriff also failed to claim any run toward the U.S. ships following the initial warning. Cosgriff suggested that the Iranian boat's manoeuvres were "unduly provocative" only because of the "aggregate of their manoeuvres, the radio call and the dropping of objects in the water".

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."

Despite Cosgriff's account, which contradicted earlier Pentagon portrayals of the incident as a confrontation, not a single news outlet modified its earlier characterisation of the incident. After the Cosgriff briefing, Associated Press carried a story that said, " U.S. forces were taking steps toward firing on the Iranians to defend themselves, said the U.S. naval commander in the region. But the boats -- believed to be from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's navy -- turned and moved away, officials said."

That was quite different from what Cosgriff actually said.

In its story covering the Cosgriff briefing, Reuters cited "other Pentagon officials, speaking on condition of anonymity" as saying that "a U.S. captain was in the process of ordering sailors to open fire when the Iranian boats moved away" -- a story that Cosgriff had specifically denied.

*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in June 2005.

(END/2008)

Israel may attack Iran on its own

Showing the rank hypocrisy that presents itself as Israeli foreign policy, the only country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons and that refuses to either sign the NPT or submit to IAEA inspections is considering unilateral airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. Ironically, Iran has submitted to limited inspections (unlike Israel).

Israel presents itself as the Eternal Victim state, the poor beseiged nation that only wants peace. To it's neighbours, however, it a brutal bully that acts as a proxy for a foreign power. Israel has the strongest military in the region, armed with the most modern weapons and financed by the U.S. The "peace" Israel wants is the peace of the hegemon, the peace that comes from getting your way by coercion. It is a peace that allows Israel's proxies in Lebanon impunity, and allows Israel itself to act with unbridled arrogance against enemies of its own creation. The poor, peaceful Victim has no problem cutting off water and electricity to the Occupied Territories, making thousands suffer for the actions of a few over which the many have no control over. The Victim goes into the Occupied Territories and steals land from poor victims at the point of a gun, the brings in their military to protect the thieves who "settle" the land - as if it wasn't previously "settled". The Victim demands that everyone else disarm, kiss their ring, and bend over - and then we can "live in peace". There is a word for someone who demands that you hand over everything at the point of a gun, and that word is not "peacemaker".

The question now is whether or not Bush will use Israel to do what Bush himself can no longer justify to this domestic audience: bomb Iran into submission. There will be a 'mistake', some regrettable miscommunication that "nobody" could have anticipated, and it will be handled clumsily and unconvincingly. This "mistake" will be the pretext for the "unavoidable" attack by Israel on Iran, and Bush will defend Israel against all consequences. He may very well follow his trademarked routine of taking "responsibilty" for the incident, but without taking the blame.

story from The Guardian

Israel considering strike on Iran despite US intelligence report

Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
Friday December 7, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Senior Israeli officials warned today they were still considering the option of a military strike against Iran, despite a fresh US intelligence report that concluded Tehran was no longer developing nuclear weapons.
Although Israel argues that it wants to see strong diplomatic pressure put on Iran, it is reluctant to rule out the threat of a unilateral military attack. Matan Vilnai, Israel's deputy defence minister, told Army Radio today: "No option needs to be off the table."

Avigdor Lieberman, the hard-right deputy prime minister, said Israel should be ready to act if sanctions did not work. "If they don't, we will sit and decide whatever we have to decide," he told the Jerusalem Post in an interview today.
Several of Israel's Iran experts say the American rethink on the threat posed by Iran had ruled out a US military strike and probably an Israeli strike too, at least for now. However, Israel's political hawks continue to keep the threat of action alive.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the popular rightwing opposition leader, was asked whether Israel should launch its own military operation. "We always prefer international action, led by the United States, but we have to ensure that we can protect our country with all means," he told the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz today.
The repercussions of the new US intelligence assessment are consuming Israeli politicians, analysts and the press. Although Israeli leaders had been briefed in advance, the national intelligence estimate (NIE) which was declassified and published on Monday, brought surprise and frustration in Israel's defence establishment.
In a marked shift from earlier assessments, the NIE said Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in autumn 2003 and had not restarted it. America's intelligence agencies said they now did not know whether Iran intended to build nuclear weapons.
Israeli officials quickly offered a direct challenge. Ehud Barak, the defence minister, said although Iran's nuclear programme was halted in 2003 "as far as we know it has probably since revived it".
It is, however, far from clear whether Israel has its own unique intelligence on Iran strong enough to contradict the American findings. Ha'aretz noted in an analysis today: "It wasn't in the intelligence arena that Israel suffered a blow this week, but rather in the public opinion arena."
Some have suggested that with Israel feeling isolated by its hardline stance on Iran, it might be more inclined to launch a unilateral military strike and a comparison is frequently drawn to Israel's 1981 bombing of Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor. David Albright, a former UN nuclear inspector, said this week if Israel felt its "red line" had been crossed it might strike. "They may force a military confrontation," he told the Associated Press agency.
However, it is widely assumed Israel would need at least American approval if not cooperation for any bombing mission. In particular, Israel's air force would need the US flight codes that would allow its planes to cross safely into Iran. When Israel requested those codes in 1991, to attack Saddam Hussein's Iraq during the first Gulf War, the United States refused and there was no Israeli strike.
Yet Israel, the only nuclear power in the region, is not shy of acting alone and has been heartened by the lack of international censure over its bombing raid in northern Syria in September, which may or may not have targeted a Syrian nuclear installation.
Israel's Iran experts argue that the US intelligence assessment did not wholly exonerate Tehran - they point to evidence of a continued enriched uranium programme which has only limited civilian use - but they admit that for now an Israeli military operation is unlikely.

EU not going along with Bush on Iran

Aside from Germany and France, the EU isn't going along with Bush's rush to war with Iran. Arab states are reluctant as well, after seeing what a brilliant success Iraq was and how it impacted stability in the region. Britain has stated conditions for its participation, but the obvious question on the minds of European and Arab states regards the plan for what happens after Iran is bombed into bits. None of the American politicians, commanders, or neocons are talking about that little issue. Bush is so busy drumming up a new war, bullying countries into a "united front" against Iran, and trying to persuade the domestic audience that destroying Iran will allow us to "win" in Iraq that he hasn't really outlined that next step.

It is certainly within our ability, especially with aid from a few allies, to wage an air war against Iran. That is not the question, however. After we have bombed the industrial, political, and military infrastructure, killing civilians in the process, do we really believe that Iranians will appreciate the "favour"? If the plan is to impose a puppet government, then an occupation is necessary. If the plan is to cross our fingers and hope that an Israeli-friendly government spontaneously emerges from the rubble, then Bush is sadly deluded. The latter, however, given Bush's record, is probably the case.

A puppet government is fraught with problems, not the least being that this is exactly what the Iranians overthrew in the late '70s. The subsequent occupation would hardly be welcomed, and I think we all can see from the Iraq experience what the reconstruction would be like. We would create yet another failed state in the Middle East, put more domestic pressure on our Arab allies, and give Muslims worldwide yet another reason to hate the West. And this is the good scenario, because Israel may very well be struck itself. In any case, an occupation would leave us seriously overstretched and completely unable to respond to new threats, even with allied help. Britain is at the limit already, Germany is tied up in an increasingly-unpopular Afghan effort, and the French skills at occupation are what got us into Vietnam. We've already seen the force levels that the rest of the EU scrapes up, even under Bush's heavy pressure.

But, as I have said before, with Bush's decision-making process, the best possible outcome is the only likely outcome. It'll work out great, you'll see. They will welcome us with flowers and chocolates and eagerly give us their oil. And it won't cost hardly anything. Best of all, it will be the next president's problem.

At the very least, Turkey, Russia, and the Gulf States should be loudly inquiring what the Plan is, even if the EU is not.

Kouchner fails in bid to secure new sanctions against Tehran

Compiled by Daily Star staff
Tuesday, October 16, 2007

European Union nations failed to agree Monday on new sanctions against Iran to get Tehran to halt the part of its nuclear program that European and other nations fear could be used to make atomic weapons. An effort by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to get the 27-nation EU to push ahead with more sanctions - outside of the United Nations - failed to get widespread support, diplomats said.

But after an EU foreign ministers meeting, Kouchner said France might take additional punitive measures against Tehran on its own if the UN Security Council failed to take new measures before the end of the year.

"We could at that moment develop more individual, national sanctions," Kouchner said at a news conference.

It remains unclear if Russia or China will back additional economic or political sanctions at the UN.

Last month, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - Britain, China, France, the United States and Russia - and Germany agreed with the support of the EU to hold off on a new sanctions resolution until November to allow for talks with Iran to continue.

The EU foreign ministers said in a statement that the EU "will consider what additional measures it might take" after that time.

Highlighting the division over how to get Iran to stop its uranium enrichment program, Javier Solana, the EU foreign and security affairs chief, told reporters: "It remains my mandate [from the UN] to continue working on the possibility of further sanctions. We are not thinking of sanctions right now."

The EU foreign ministers warned Iran that more sanctions would be considered if it failed to cooperate. New economic and political sanctions could include investment bans or scrapping export credit guarantees. The approach is being championed by Kouchner, who called on his EU counterparts last week to study new sanctions.

The EU, the US and others are concerned Iran's nuclear program may be geared toward creating fissile material for nuclear warheads. But Iran says its program is strictly for producing fuel for nuclear power plants.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said European trade with Iran had already fallen by about 37 percent in the year to May, signaling that the EU was serious about punishing Iran.

"The EU is playing its part in signaling very clearly to the Iranian regime that they need to abide by the successive UN Security Council resolutions," Miliband told reporters.

Bush threatens Iran again

Since Iraq is not turning out to be the legacy-defining moment Bush had hoped it would be, he is now turning to Iran, where we will doubtlessly be "treated as liberators". I guess it's okay for a country on the other side of the planet to invade and occupy Iraq in a disastrous effort that destabilises the region, but if a country next door tries to shape the course of their neighbour then that's just "meddling".

Bush has set U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East back fifty years. We have pushed our allies, both in the Middle East and elsewhere, away from us with Bush's arrogance. By the time this is "over" Bush will have put our nation into a crushing debt with little or nothing to show for it. It wasn't bad enough to get the Sunnis against us, now we have we stir another hornet's nest that will get the Shia of the world against us. Surely our rivals on the world stage will turn these disasters against us; we would certainly do the same to other nations in the same situation.

With our new strategy of arming the "good" terrorists, we are doing what Bush has accused Iran of doing: providing training and weapons for extremists in Iraq. If we are going to hide behind the "we're the good guys" argument, then we have to behave like the good guys. Instead we have brought Iraq into a humanitarian crisis on top of a civil war and all that we care about is Al-Qaeda.

Bush warns Iran over insurgents

US President George W Bush has warned Iran to stop supporting the militants fighting against the US in Iraq.
In a speech to US war veterans in Reno, Nevada, Mr Bush renewed his accusations that Tehran has provided training and weapons for extremists in Iraq.
Earlier, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned that US authority in the region was rapidly collapsing, and Iran would help fill the void.
"Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region," Mr Ahmadinejad said.

"Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of neighbours and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi nation."
'Murderous activities'
In his speech to the American Legion, Mr Bush hit back, accusing Iran's Revolutionary Guards of funding and arming insurgents in Iraq.

Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere President Bush

And he said Iran's leaders could not avoid some responsibility for attacks on coalition troops and Iraqi civilians.

"I have authorised our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities," he said.

The BBC's Justin Webb, in Washington, says this looks like a conscious effort by the White House to elevate the tension between Washington and Tehran to a new level.

Such an effort might be designed to avoid the need for armed conflict or might equally be an effort to bring that conflict about, our correspondent says.

The Iranian authorities have consistently denied accusations that they are helping militants in Iraq.

Shortly after Mr Bush made his address, Iranian officials reported that seven Iranians working for the country's electricity ministry had been arrested in Baghdad by US forces.

'Nuclear threat'

In a wide-ranging speech, Mr Bush also tackled the issue of Iran's nuclear ambition - which Tehran insists is solely to provide power, but the US believes may be used to develop weapons.

"Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust," he said.

"Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere.

"We will confront this danger before it is too late."

It was Mr Bush's second major speech on foreign policy in a week.

Correspondents say he is seeking to rally support for the so-called surge strategy of sending more troops to Iraq.

India says it wants no part of Bush's "warmongering"

The nations who jumped aboard the Bush Administration's plans have all either suffered or gained nothing. Britain is now bogged down in bad situations on two fronts after being conned by Bush into "peacekeeping" operations that became combat roles. Israel suffered its worst military setback when it followed the direction of the U.S. and invaded southern Lebanon. The Eastern European nations who sent their small forces to Iraq have not seen any progress on their bids to join NATO. Countries such as South Korea that merely keep their troops within their base and stay out of harm's way have gained nothing but a "pat on the back", but have not lost soldiers, either. Pakistan's Musharraf will likely lose power and our influence will evaporate with his departure.
So, in the Bush Administration's new campaign against Iran, other nations are not lining up to support another military solution. India has just announced that it wants no part of this new campaign, and it has taken a firm position on nuclear negotiations. They have received a much better deal by refusing many of the harsher demands of the Bush Administration, such as signing the NPT, and have stayed away from any 'brilliant' plans put forth by the State Department. Since India never had ambitions to be a source of nuclear terrorism, the U.S. has gained precisely nothing in its negotiations while India gets the technology to upgrade its nuclear power industry.
For decades, the U.S. led firm sanctions against India's nuclear industry after India developed the atomic bomb. For decades, we told our allies that they could not engage in the highly profitable task of bringing India's nuclear reactors up to modern standards, and the rest of the world meekly went along with that. Then one day the Bush Administration changed it's tune and decided that it's okay if American companies made a ton of money developing India's reactors, provided India signed the NPT and submitted to inspections. Our allies, who had followed our line obediently, were left out in the cold, and India politely declined to cave in to our demands. India knows that our allies will be happy to provide the technology if the U.S. hangs too tough, now that the door has been opened.
Rather than being browbeaten by Bush, India instead stood its ground as a sovereign nation and got what it wanted. Bush, by restraining the traditional arrogance of his Administration, has managed to hold on to India as a marginal ally. At best, the U.S. broke even on the deal, but by Bush's foreign policy record, this counts as a stunning success.

Agencies
Posted online: Friday, August 17, 2007 at 1804 hours IST
Updated: Friday, August 17, 2007 at 1849 hours IST

George Bush New Delhi, August 17: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has made it clear to President George W Bush during negotiations on the Indo-US nuclear deal that India could not agree to a "bilateral" NPT or Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

He also said that it was not in India's interest for Iran to become a nuclear weapons power, although it had the right to have nuclear energy as an NPT member.

"I told President Bush, I can't be a cheer leader or be part of a warmongering group. The nuclear dispute with Iran should be resolved through peaceful processes," he told India Today.

The Prime Minister's comments came in an interview conducted over two months back while he was returning from the G-8 Summit of Industrialsied countries in Germany. Singh had met Bush and other world leaders during his trip in June.