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As flagship of the Fifth Fleet, the Eisenhower welcomed the arrival of a second Nimitz class nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the USS John C. Stennis, and its accompanying destroyers on Tuesday.
Captain Dan Cloyd, the Eisenhower's commanding officer, compared the situation with the international tension of the Cold War.
"There was a time when we had two aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean," he told The Daily Telegraph. "The world changes and we adapt."
<snip>
Iran's belligerent posture has increased the challenges facing the Eisenhower since it deployed to the Middle East last October.
Vice Admiral Patrick Walsh, the commander of the Fifth Fleet, issued a stark warning that Iran risks triggering an "accidental war" during aggressive military maneuvres.During the Great Prophet 2 missile test in November, the Islamic Republic fired a Shabab missile into the six mile corridor of shipping lanes in the Straits of Hormuz. In such a constricted corridor, the results could have been disastrous.
With Teheran's real strategic intentions unclear, the US takes the threats it has made very seriously.
"They threaten to use oil as a weapon. They threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz," Adml Walsh said.
"And so it is the combination of the rhetoric, the tone, and the aggressive exercises in very constrained waters that gives us concern."
US commanders ascribe the increase in instability to increasingly aggressive actions by Teheran. For that reason the deployment of the carriers in the region is designed to intensify the pressure on Iran to step back from the brink.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=F5LPPORPDWBFXQFIQMFCFGGAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/02/24/wiran24.xml
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