Admiral: Iran's war games brought buildup
By Jim Krane - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Feb 20, 2007 12:39:25 EST
MANAMA, Bahrain - The Navy buildup in the Gulf region was prompted by
increasing provocation from Iran, which has carried out war games and
tested missiles perilously close to crucial shipping lanes for oil
tankers, the top Navy commander in the Middle East said.
Over the past year, Iran brought its war maneuvers "right around the
jugular" into busy shipping lanes in the Straits of Hormuz, the narrow
mouth of the Gulf through which around two-fifths of the world's oil
supplies pass, Vice Adm. Patrick Walsh said in an interview.
During maneuvers, Iranian sailors loaded mines onto small mine-laying
boats and test-fired a Shahab-3 ballistic missile into international
waters, he said.
"The Shahab-3 most recently went into waters very close to the traffic
separation scheme in the straits themselves. This gives us concern because
innocent passage of vessels now is threatened," Walsh said Monday.
Iran tested the Shahab during maneuvers in November, which it said were in
response to U.S. maneuvers in the Gulf it called "adventurist." Iran also
showed off an array of new torpedoes and other weapons in war games in the
Gulf in April.
The carrier John C. Stennis - backed by a strike group with more than
6,500 sailors and Marines and with additional minesweeping ships - arrived
in the region Monday. It joined the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower after
President Bush ordered the buildup as a show of strength to Iran while the
U.S. launched a new plan to try to calm the crisis in Iraq.
The additional U.S. firepower has already ratcheted up tensions with Iran.
But Walsh said the increase aims to reassure Arab Gulf allies and prevent
misunderstandings that could escalate into outright conflict.
"That's certainly what we're trying to avoid, a mistake that then boils
over into a war," said Walsh, who leaves his command of the Navy's 5th
Fleet at the end of the month to accept a promotion to vice chief of naval
operations at the Pentagon, the Navy's No. 2 post.
Walsh said the Navy was responding to "more instability than we've seen in
years" in the 5th Fleet's region - with conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and
Somalia, tensions in Lebanon and the standoff with Iran.
The Navy has grown increasingly alarmed at what Walsh called Iran's
"provocations." Once cordial Navy ship-to-ship relations with Iran in the
Gulf have disintegrated over the past 18 months as Iranian vessels made
"probing" incursions into Iraqi waters, he said.
Iran's rhetoric "has been more strident, vocal and in your face," he said.
"They threaten to use oil as a weapon. They threaten to close the Straits
of Hormuz," 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. We can only conclude that it is an act done in provocation, and
to intimidate and to strike fear into those in the region."
Since the Stennis was ordered to the region, Iranian leaders have
increasingly warned that the U.S. intends to attack Iran. They have warned
that Iran would respond to any attack by closing off the oil shipping or
attacking U.S. interests in the region.
The Straits of Hormuz are 34 miles across, but the shipping lanes in them
are only about six miles wide.
Walsh said it was doubtful that Iran could physically block the entire
six-mile lanes with mines - but hitting only a few vessels with missiles
and mines would "terrorize" shipping and have the same effect.
"It's more the threat of mines than the threat of closing the straits.
That would have dramatic effects on markets around the world," he said.
Walsh said his biggest worry was that Iran would underestimate U.S.
resolve to protect its interests in the world's richest oil region. He
said the tone of Iranian leaders could make their commanders on the ground
more reckless.
"It's a mix and a formulation where you can have misunderstanding," he
said.
Asked whether the Navy would launch an attack on Iran if Iranian
involvement were confirmed in a deadly incident in Iraq, Walsh said he was
unable to discuss the Navy's rules of engagement. But he added, "There are
events on land that can spill over onto the sea."
At the same time, Walsh said he understood that U.S.-allied Gulf nations
were alarmed by increasing U.S.-Iranian hostility and fear military
conflict could bring attacks on their soil.
Walsh said he was aware that a University of Maryland/Zogby International
poll of Arab public opinion this month showed residents of the United Arab
Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other allies believe Iran is far less of a
threat than the U.S. and Israel.
"I'm trying to talk to those in the region, to give them assurances that
the reason we're here is to stand by them rather than to run from
intimidation or provocation or bullying," he said.
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/02/apgulf070220/
Oh yes, Iran wants to hurt its own oil-exportation lifeline...uh huh...the
pre-war propaganda continues to heat up.
Dr. Bipolar
.
|
