It's about the Iranian "speed boats:" US Navy now says the objectsdropped into the water were no th

The small, boxlike objects dropped in the water by Iranian boats as

they approached U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf on Sunday posed no

threat to the American vessels, U.S. officials said yesterday, even as

the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff charged that the incident

reflects Iran's new tactics of asymmetric warfare.

After passing the white objects, commanders on the USS Port Royal and

its accompanying destroyer and frigate decided there was so little

danger from the objects that they did not bother to radio other ships

to warn them, the officials said.

"The concern was that there was a boat in front of them putting these

objects in the path of our ships. When they passed, the ships saw that

they were floating and light, that they were not heavy or something

that would have caused damage," such as a mine, said Cmdr. Lydia

Robertson, a spokeswoman for the Navy's Fifth Fleet in the Gulf.

But the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen,

said the incident reflects Iran's shift to small craft that can

aggressively menace larger naval vessels. "It's clearly strategically

where the Iranian military has gone," Mullen said. The United States

has "been concerned for years about the threat of mining those

straits."

Although Mullen described last weekend's incident, in which five small

Iranian speedboats approached three U.S. warships in the Strait of

Hormuz, as the most "provocative and dramatic" encounter he could

recall in the area, the Navy announced a few hours later that two

other incidents occurred last month in which its ships had close calls

with Iranian speedboats. On Dec. 19, the USS Whidbey Island fired

warning shots when a single Iranian boat came within 500 yards of it

in the strait. On Dec. 22, the USS Carr emitted warning blasts as

three Iranian vessels sped close by in the same area, a Navy official

said.

Despite five days of questions about the pattern of encounters in the

Gulf, this is the first time the Pentagon has mentioned the December

events. At a briefing Monday, Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff said U.S. and

Revolutionary Guard naval units come across each other "regularly."

"For the most part, those interactions are correct. We are familiar

with their presence; they're familiar with ours. So, I think in the

time I've been here, I've seen things that are a concern, and then

there's periods of time -- long periods of time -- where there's not

as much going on," Cosgriff told reporters.

Since the incident on Sunday, the United States has emphasized its

concern about a new level of Iranian military sophistication. "The

incident ought to remind us all just how real is the threat posed by

Iran and just how ready we are to meet that threat if it comes to it,"

Mullen told reporters yesterday.

The Pentagon released the full 36-minute video of the encounter

yesterday. Additional close-ups on the footage show the Iranian

speedboats zipping around the U.S. warships provocatively. None of the

boats appears to have more than a four-man crew, each wearing an

orange lifesaving vest. None of the boats appears to have any mounted

weapons.

The USS Port Royal, an Aegis cruiser, has a crew of about 360 and

carries missile launchers, torpedoes and artillery. The USS Hopper, a

guided-missile destroyer, has a crew of about 350 and is armed with

anti-ship cruise missiles, torpedoes and artillery. The USS Ingraham,

a frigate, has a crew of about 215 and carries torpedoes, artillery

and two helicopters. The video shows a U.S. helicopter flying over the

Iranian boats.

The Navy is sensitive about small boats because of the 2000 al-Qaeda

attack on the USS Cole as it refueled in Yemen, which resulted in the

deaths of 17 sailors.

Questions remain about the verbal threat picked up on a common

maritime radio channel. Pentagon officials acknowledged that they will

probably not be able to determine the origin of the voice that

threatened to "explode" an unspecified target, although a forensic

examination has begun to try to determine the accent of the speaker

and other details.

Middle East experts, Farsi speakers and Iranians in the United States

insist that the voice could not have come from Iran. The accent

"sounded Pakistani, South Asian or an American trying to sound

Iranian, but it definitely didn't sound Iranian," said Karim

Sadjadpour, an Iranian-born American at the Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace.

Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell said the controversy

over the radio threat missed the point. "If the radio transmission

came from elsewhere, it is yet another reason why it is imperative for

the Revolutionary Guards to behave in a responsible manner," he said

in an interview. "We want to prevent future interactions on the seas

from escalating into confrontations based on any misunderstanding."

Also yesterday, Mullen voiced "grave concern" about the al-Qaeda and

Taliban sanctuary in the tribal areas of Pakistan, which he called a

base for planning, training and financing worldwide operations. He

said that there is a need for "continued pressure" on the region and

that U.S. military operations in the tribal areas make "a lot of

sense," although Pakistan would have to approve them.

On Afghanistan, Mullen said sending U.S. troops to fight insurgents

there would have "a big impact," but he said Defense Secretary Robert

M. Gates has not made a final decision on a proposal to dispatch about

3,000 Marines to train Afghan troops and fight insurgents in southern

Afghanistan this spring. The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army

Gen. Dan McNeill, was in Washington yesterday to discuss Afghanistan

with Gates.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011103730.html