Quelle surprise! Pentagon flip-flopping on Iran Naval Confrontation story....

[marmar]

from ThinkProgress:


Pentagon Backtracks On Naval Confrontation With Iran, Says Threat May Not Have Come From Iranians



Earlier this week, the Pentagon said that three of its Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz had been harassed and provoked by Iranian speedboats. The Navy said it had felt so threatened that it was about to open fire on the boats. A four-minute video of the episode provided to the public by the Pentagon contained one particularly harrowing moment:

“I am coming to you,” a heavily accented voice says in English. “You will explode after a few minutes.”

Navy officials said the voice was recorded from the internationally recognized bridge-to-bridge radio channel.

Some bloggers were immediately skeptical, noting the voice sounded more Arab than Persian. Iran released its own video, arguing the footage did not show any Iranian boats approaching the U.S. vessels, nor any provocation. Today, the Navy acknowledged that the verbal threat made in the tape may not have been Iranian:

“We’re saying that we cannot make a direct connection to the boats there,” said the spokesperson. “It could have come from the shore, from another ship passing by. However, it happened in the middle of all the very unusual activity, so as we assess the information and situation, we still put it in the total aggregate of what happened Sunday morning. I guess we’re not saying that it absolutely came from the boats, but we’re not saying it absolutely didn’t.”

Without definitive evidence that it was Iran who was making the provocative verbal threats, Bush nevertheless seized on the episode — just hours before he was set to depart for the Middle East — to underscore “his assertion that the Iranians are capable of acting recklessly.” “We viewed it as a provocative act,” Bush said. Yesterday, he warned Iran, “There will be serious consequences if they attack our ships, pure and simple.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/10/iran-gunboats/

[xultar]

1. tee hee hee... The navy was out there provoking and got OWNED.

[GrahmMan]

5. How were we provoking

????????????????????

I cant wait to hear this one...

[xultar]

9. From my point of view...we've been beating the drum of war against Iran for almost 8 years...

and now we are hanging of their sovereign waters with navy ships...that is provoking to me.

That is like some guy who has been telling me he's gonna kick my ass...then he parks his ugly ass on the street outside my house.


Then when the least little shit happens they tout it as fuckin evidence...which is sayin basically "Can we attack now?"

[GrahmMan]

18. WTF

"and now we are hanging of their sovereign waters with navy ships...that is provoking to me."

We werent "Hanging" we were transiting like we always do, working our interests at Iraq and SA.

The SOH is an international Strait, thousands of ships, both military and civilian pass though there every month.

And if you want to talk provoking, Iran has been talking about shutting down "their" strait for years, in CLEAR violation of international law and a DIRECT THREAT to US interests and the well being of the other nations in the gulf.

And before the flame comes, please do a little reasearch into the day-to-day activities of the U.S. Navy. The last thing we want is a damn Naval War with Iran, geez.

[xultar]

23. Ahh.. Feep much?

[GrahmMan]

24. What is "Feep" n/t

[malaise]

28. Go figure

Let's have some Chinese war ships in the Gulf of Mexico and see your comments. The US must get the fuck out the the people's backyard.

[xultar]

29. Ummm don't bother. They'll never get it.

[blogslut]

2. He sure did

Plus, he made sure to repeat the exact same sentiment yesterday, when he got to the Middle East. He also added that swell line: "Iran is a threat to world peace."

I don't like this trip of his one bit.

[pennylane100]

3. That is no surprise to me.

And even if they did play a game of chicken with our navy, does the fact that we are threatening to blow up their country come into play.

[GrahmMan]

7. Not when executing innocent passage though an international

Strait.

[pennylane100]

13. Unfortunately, we cannot be guaranteed protection under international law

after all the crimes we have committed that are also against international law. Torture, holding people in secret prisons, shipping innocent people off to be tortured in other countries, invading countries without cause, and the list goes on.

[GrahmMan]

14. The law of the sea is one of the oldest and most sacred precepts of international law

It is not broken lightly, that is why our navy is so big, someone has to be big enough to keep the sea lanes open.

[GrahmMan]

4. This is what I was saying

“We’re saying that we cannot make a direct connection to the boats there,” said the spokesperson. “It could have come from the shore, from another ship passing by. However, it happened in the middle of all the very unusual activity, so as we assess the information and situation, we still put it in the total aggregate of what happened Sunday morning. I guess we’re not saying that it absolutely came from the boats, but we’re not saying it absolutely didn’t.”

Probably a passing merchant or the Quataris fucking with us.

It does not justify the other instances of provocative driving by the Iranians.

[Robbien]

6. Such a sorry state that the Pentagon cannot distinguish between

Arabic and Persian when doctoring tapes. Just think of how many hands this must have passed through without even raising an eyebrow before being released to the media.

And the media of course didn't notice.

It took one of us, just ordinary Americans out in the blogosphere.

[GrahmMan]

8. Sigh

Because there are NO Arabs in Iran.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Arabs

[xultar]

12. They released all the linguists that were gay. That left some holes.

[killbotfactory]

10. Surprise!

:eyes:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. Our Pentagon?? With their long record of truthfulness?? Oh, wait...

[goodgd_yall]

15. Ha, once they realize people are smart enough

to detect a Farsi accent, they have to backpedal.

[GrahmMan]

16. Or it went down like they said

I mentioned it a full day before this came out.

Because that sort of thing is very commmon in the Gulf and everywhere.

[marmar]

17. Perhaps, but few here are eager to drink Pentagon Koolaid.....

.... This crew has already lied us into one war.

[GrahmMan]

19. The Intel Community and others BSed us into a war

The event went down as stated (more or less) the transmission occurred, I have confirmed this independently.

[marmar]

21. Complete and total bullshit.....

Do you honestly believe that it's the Intel community's fault, that the intel wasn't manipulated by BushCo? It's either total naivete or total dishonesty on your part, and sorry, but if that's what you're trying to peddle here, NOBODY on DU will buy it. ......

:wtf:

[GrahmMan]

25. Elements of the Administration were the others i refered to n/t

[Hell Hath No Fury]

22. The intel community largely got it right...

it was the OSP and a bunch of Cheney goons who were the ones who put together a crazy quilt of questionable intel snippets to create the outcome they wanted. They chose to ignore the predominant thinking of the larger intel community that doubted Saddam was a threat or did he have WMD. This is very well documented.

[fascisthunter]

27. Damn Right They Did.... OSP Cherrypicked Intell.

that's not all in the intelligence community, not even half.

[goodgd_yall]

20. Why so quick to believe our government's account?

I'm not saying the Navy was deceptive, just that the incident was manipulated in order to incite saber-rattling.

[GrahmMan]

26. Oh I agree with that

I am saying that the incident happened as fragged, it was very much blown up though.

[AntiFascist]

30. Bwahahaha...I'll bet anything they were right-wing Arabs n/t