Iran: US Navy Footage is Fabricated

[Anti-Bunny]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080109/wl_mideast_afp/usiranmilitarynavyvideo_080109104202 (w/ link to video)
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards accused the United States of fabricating footage claiming to show Iranian speedboats harassing US warships in the Strait of Hormuz, state television reported.

"The footage released by the US Navy are file pictures and the audio has been fabricated," state-run English language channel Press-TV quoted a source in the naval section of the Revolutionary Guards as saying.

The state-run Al-Alam Arabic language international channel also ran a similar denial quoting a source from the Revolutionary Guards, Iran's elite military force.

The Pentagon released a video and audio tape Tuesday that it said confirmed US charges that Iranian speedboats swarmed around US warships in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday and radioed a threat to blow them up.

The video, which the Pentagon said was taken from the bridge of the destroyer USS Hopper, showed fast boats approaching the warships at high speeds and racing around the Hopper, the USS Port Royal and the USS Ingraham.

A man's voice is heard in an audio recording speaking in English amid a sailor's urgent warnings to stay clear of the ship.

"I am coming to you... You will explode in a few minutes," the voice is heard to say.

Iranian officials had already dismissed the US version of the incident as anti-Iran propaganda ahead of President George W. Bush's visit to the Middle East, saying what happened was an everyday occurrence.

The Revolutionary Guards have said that the Iranian forces merely identified the US vessels before both sides went on their way without any disturbance.That damn American Propaganda!

This is getting pretty ridiculous. Credit is due to the Navy for keeping their cool, though.

[Brian Rucker]

Did anyone else actually hear the recording of the Iranians? He sounded like some college kid pulling a prank in a faux-spooky voice. "We Are Coming To You." One halfway expected him to pull a raspy Darth Vader wheeze after that. And the Navy guys were cool. Like bored campus cops in response. I don't think we should make too much out of this. Seems more like someone's idea of a lark rather than a fullblown threat to our ships.

That said, they could have been probing just to see how we'd react if they were going to try something down the road. But Gulf of Tonkin, no, Bathtub of Tonka more like.

[Skipper]

The Navy may have sounded cool but trust me they take the cost of ship and men of a fleet vessel very seriously. They have to be prepared for anything when an unknown ship acts offensively, especially so after the USS Cole incident.

I read they were a hair from unloading on the small boats and I believe that.

[TheWombat]

From what I recall, and this is by now, um, like two decades since I hung around and worked with Navy types on a daily basis, crap like that happens fairly often. Maybe not so dramatic, and maybe not recorded in living color all the time, but the key thing is what people do about it. At the local level ship captains are primarily concerned with their vessel and crew, but they also know very well the potential significance of any actions they take on the big stage. So, you usually get what you see here--professional concern and readiness balanced with a firm decision not to do anything irrevocable unless absolutely necessary.

What is perhaps significant is the play this is being given by the US. I suspect, strongly, that there are quite a few incidents of various types that could be elevated to this sort of pseudo "Gulf of Tonkin" sort of provocation, in any given year. I mean, you drive ships around in tense areas and stuff happens. Same stuff used to happen on the ground in Germany in the Cold War with the various military liaison missions observing over in East Germany and wherever, and along the inter-German border. And still happens in Korea, I'm guessing, though maybe less now than a few years ago.

I'm sure the Iranians have few qualms about risking a few speedboats and Revolutionary Guards. If the USN fires on 'em they get an incident, yay! If the USN doesn't fire on them, they still get to annoy us. Worst that could happen is they lose a few "martyrs" and a couple of cheap boats. It is only if we allow this stuff to be a cause celebre that anything really bad comes out of it. Even if we sink their silly boats the incident would blow over, unless we made something big of it.

We're the big kid, and we sometimes have to take this crap in stride, in the big view of things.

[Tankero]

I'm sure the Iranians have few qualms about risking a few speedboats and Revolutionary Guards. If the USN fires on 'em they get an incident, yay! If the USN doesn't fire on them, they still get to annoy us. Worst that could happen is they lose a few "martyrs" and a couple of cheap boats. It is only if we allow this stuff to be a cause celebre that anything really bad comes out of it. Even if we sink their silly boats the incident would blow over, unless we made something big of it.


So the Iranians would value embarrasing the U.S. more than they'd value the lives of their best-trained armed forces?

[Kalle]

So the Iranians would value embarrasing the U.S. more than they'd value the lives of their best-trained armed forces?

The Revolutionary Guard isn't the Iranian equivalent of special forces. They have better equipment and organisation than Iran's regular military units but they're still ordinary troopers.

[Anti-Bunny]

What Skipper said. They're obviously probing the ships for a reaction.

I'm no navy expert, butting politics aside for a moment and speaking strictly tactics, what's the best way to get well inside someone's defenses and achieve complete surprise, using speedboats? They just have to keep these tactics up until the navy makes a mistake or lets its guard down. Just keep on probing with speedboats until the Navy gets lax enough to expect it. I kind of doubt that is what is happening here, but if we see a lot of this it would could be establishing a pattern.

So the Iranians would value embarrasing the U.S. more than they'd value the lives of their best-trained armed forces?You do know who runs the IRGC right? The most hard-line and extremest elements of the Iranian government? If they were to embarrass us bad enough, it would certainly lead to some concessions in other areas... Which might be worth a few 'martyrs'.

[Brendan]

I keel you! I keel you!

[Jason McCullough]

A friend at work who's ex-Navy says this happens every time the US enters the straits, because Iran claims the waters as theirs or something. Says it's no big deal.

[ravenight]

Do they always take shoulder-cameras with them on these ops?

[Kevin Grey]

What Skipper said. They're obviously probing the ships for a reaction.

I'm no navy expert, butting politics aside for a moment and speaking strictly tactics, what's the best way to get well inside someone's defenses and achieve complete surprise, using speedboats? They just have to keep these tactics up until the navy makes a mistake or lets its guard down. Just keep on probing with speedboats until the Navy gets lax enough to expect it. I kind of doubt that is what is happening here, but if we see a lot of this it would could be establishing a pattern.


This stuff became a really big deal after the Cole. I don't think anyone drops their guard anymore when small craft get close. But it's a tough situation no matter what. No one wants a repeat of the Cole, but woe to the Captain that decides to fire on a small vessel only to find out that it was a misunderstanding.

[Alan Dunkin]

You'll find there's usually someone filming something on one or more naval vessels whenever anything exciting or interesting is happening.

Frankly these kind of incidents do occur a lot, but since they never get to the shooting stage, they're frequently not reported very much in the media, except for a mention or two online, with some pics distributed by the AP or someplace that makes a note for a day. Just take the actions of the Navy over the last few months (and years) off of Somali, where they sink (and I do mean sink) and intimidate pirates regularly.

It's being played up mostly to put Iran back on the public map after the whole "Iranian nuclear weapons--oops!" debacle. And of course just today Bush was calling Iran all sorts of bad names publicly, just to re-emphasize the point.

My best thought about sneaking up to the ships would be at night, in low-observables (like rubber boats). Of course the ships were transiting the straights at a moderate pace, meaning you'd need speed just to catch up with them, which I'm not sure a rubber boat with an outboard can do...

Those speedboats, on the other hand...

It is a big deal after the Cole, because it was just done from a rubber boat, at anchorage, right alongside the hull. If you don't know it's there (or don't suspect it), all sorts of bad things can happen.

--- Alan

[TheWombat]

What Alan said. From what I gather, sailing around on Navy ships is a lot of boredom interspersed with moments of interesting (or terrifying) stuff, at least most of the time. I imagine the cameras come out for anything that breaks the monotony.

[Raife]

It's being played up mostly to put Iran back on the public map after the whole "Iranian nuclear weapons--oops!" debacle.

I think it's being played up mostly because of the bomb warning.

[JeffL]

I'm sure a lot of people here have read about the cat and mouse games we used to play with the USSR with our subs during the cold war. Fun to read about, scary stuff.

[Alan Dunkin]

It is indeed scary stuff:

Ed Offley, a reporter on military affairs, has closely followed developments in information concerning the sinking of the Scorpion. His most recent article on the subject is "Buried at Sea" published in the Winter 2008 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Military History. This article summarizes the facts in the case as presented in his 2007 book Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion. In the book Offley, gathering decades of his own research, hypothesizes that the Scorpion was sunk by the Soviets, possibly in retaliation for the loss of the K-129 Golf-II ballistic missile submarine earlier that year. The book paints a picture of increasing Soviet anger at US Navy provocations (specifically close-in monitoring of Soviet naval operations by almost every US nuclear submarine). At approximately the same time, the Soviet intelligence community scored a huge boon in receiving the mechanical cryptologic devices from the USS Pueblo. These machines, combined with daily crypto keys from the John Anthony Walker spy ring, likely allowed the Soviets to monitor in real time U.S. Navy ship dispositions and communications. It is Mr. Offley's contention that the Scorpion was tracked by several Soviet Navy assets from the Mediterranean to its final operational area south of the Azores, where it was then sunk by a Soviet torpedo. Among the oral testimony relied upon by Mr. Offley are recountings of SOSUS recording documenting torpedo sounds, evasion sounds, an explosion, and eventually the sounds of implosions as the Scorpion plunged past crush depth.

Of course, in the 80s, the Navy engaged and was attacked by the Iranians often, and of course there was the Vincennes and Stark (which involved Iraq) incidents; all of which in the general area (Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf).

--- Alan

[Tom McNamara]

It is a big deal after the Cole, because it was just done from a rubber boat, at anchorage, right alongside the hull. If you don't know it's there (or don't suspect it), all sorts of bad things can happen.

On the other hand, the Cole incident was terrorism. These are supposed to be Iranian troops. Since they were in speed boats, it stands to reason that they weren't far away from one of their ports. You could argue that they went out there because US forces were getting a little too close for comfort, but Iran didn't want to freak them out by sending in a battleship or frigate.

Then again, they might have docks and outposts set up all along the strait.

[Dirt]

I think this is the Bush Administration trying to spook the American people in wanting war.

[Aeon221]

I think this is the Bush Administration trying to spook the American people in wanting war.

I blame your mom.

[bago]

So we've gone from nukes, to the knowledge of nukes, to speedboats. I predicy hostile paper airplanes are next.

[Tom McNamara]

So we've gone from nukes, to the knowledge of nukes, to speedboats. I predicy hostile paper airplanes are next.

We've also gone from knowledge of nukes to the possibility of obtaining knowledge of nukes (and the possibility of obtaining technology that could possibly be used to build nuclear weapons). A clear and present danger to the free world!

[Alan Dunkin]

http://www.navy.mil/management/photodb/webphoto/web_080106-N-0000X-005.jpg

This high-speed attack craft of the Islamic Republic of Iran Revolutionary Guard Navy (IRGCN) frequently doubles as a bass fishing boat during the offseason. At least they're being safe and wearing life jackets.

The ships they confronted (note there were more than one Iranian boat) was the Port Royal (CG 73), Hopper (DDG 70) and Ingraham (FFG 61).

--- Alan

[Skipper]

While that thing is a bit small it should be noted that Iran does a few things here. First they bring those in multiple numbers. Something that small might have a machine gun or a shoulder fired launcher, but probably would have to rely on the group strength to do serious damage.

But they have bigger ships, some at least big enough that they are equipped with anti-ship missiles, notably the Chinese C-802. Nothing to fuck around with.

I think it's mostly positioning on both sides. I'm sure we're pushing the boundaries on how close we get to their coastline or ships going to their ports, and in return they are pushing the boundary on us being there as well.

They do not have a significant Navy though. I can't see them going all out attacking one of our ships unless they could play it off as a defensive attack or wash their hands of it if it was an operation by a terrorist group. If they did it would be suicide for what Navy they do have and endanger their port operations greatly.

This is a good read on why they can be dangerous (the first part of the article anyway):
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/09/opinion/edstern.php

[magnet]

Did anyone else actually hear the recording of the Iranians?

Apparently, it either came from the shore or from a speedboat carrying a soundproofed recording studio (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/world/middleeast/10iran.html?ex=1357621200&en=18ce6902e67918d4&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss).

Probably the former.

[Bill]

Or it was simply prerecorded.

[bago]

Somewhere someone is laughing their ass off.

[Tom McNamara]

The plot thickens (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/degrees-of-confidence-on-us-iran-naval-incident/?hp?refer=cnn.com):

Unnamed Pentagon officials said on Wednesday that the threatening voice heard in the audio clip, which was released on Monday night with a disclaimer that it was recorded separately from the video images and merged with them later, is not directly traceable to the Iranian military.

That undercuts one of the most menacing elements from the Pentagon’s assertion that Iranian forces threatened the Navy ships: The voice on the radio saying, “I am coming to you. … You will explode after … minutes.”

Here’s an excerpt from an article in this morning’s New York Times on the Pentagon’s assessment of the audio:

The audio includes a heavily accented voice warning in English that the Navy warships would explode. However, the recording carries no ambient noise — the sounds of a motor, the sea or wind — that would be expected if the broadcast had been made from one of the five small boats that sped around the three-ship American convoy.

Pentagon officials said they could not rule out that the broadcast might have come from shore, or from another ship nearby, although it might have come from one of the five fast boats with a high-quality radio system.

[Lum]

"And today on Pirate Radio Bandar Abbas: scaring the crap out of the US Navy! It'll be a blast. And tomorrow, we'll stone a prostitute to death on air. Don't miss out!"

[Skipper]

"And today on Pirate Radio Bandar Abbas: scaring the crap out of the US Navy! It'll be a blast. And tomorrow, we'll stone a prostitute to death on air. Don't miss out!"

Sweeeet! What station is that? :)

[drewl]

"Charlie don't surf..."

The only logical thing to do is challenge them to a water skiing competition.....winner take all..

[Kevin Grey]

I'm surprised it took that long for them to report that it wasn't directly traceable. It was broadcast on an open VHF channel used for navigation. Those things don't exactly have caller ID on them. Hell, you usually spend more time trying to establish if you're talking to the right person than passing real information.

[malphigian]

So it was the "Filipino Monkey" after all!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/13/wiran113.xml

In accented English a voice is heard to say "I am coming to you ... You will explode in a few minutes." Pentagon officials had previously stated that the voice came from one of the boats, but they are now distancing themselves from that claim, saying instead that they do not know the source of the transmission.

The Navy Times said that the voice in the audio did not match that of an Iranian officer shown speaking to Navy cruiser USS Port Royal over the radio in a video released by the Iranian authorities.

This has led several Navy experts to raise the possibility that a heckler, known locally as the "Filipino Monkey" - or a copycat - could have made the threats.

"Filipino Monkey" is believed to be more than one person. Its modus operandi is to listen in to ship-to-ship radio traffic before jumping in with insults and threats.

[...]

A civilian mariner told the paper that the "Filipino Monkey" phenomenon is worldwide, but more common in areas of heavy shipping such as the Strait of Hormuz.

So Rucker's "kid pulling a prank" assessment doesn't look like it was far off from the truth.

[Tim Partlett]

When I was a kid we used to pull a similar trick with the CB radio. We'd give bullshit reports to passing trucks, and try and convince taxi drivers to go out to the middle of nowhere for a non-existent fare. The quality of the transmission and reception was so poor you could get away with a lot. If this was a kid's prank, it would be one of the best ones ever pulled.

[magnet]

It's all fun and games until somebody starts a world war.

[Lum]

http://pc-museum.com/046-amsai8080/wargames-05.jpg

[Anti-Bunny]

So it was the "Filipino Monkey" after all!
This story just took a turn for the hilarious.

[Anti-Bunny]

NYT explains a possible reason for why the Navy freaked out about this. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/washington/12navy.html?ex=1357794000&en=a4dbb42d5ad2a700&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)
WASHINGTON — There is a reason American military officers express grim concern over the tactics used by Iranian sailors last weekend: a classified, $250 million war game in which small, agile speedboats swarmed a naval convoy to inflict devastating damage on more powerful warships.

In the days since the encounter with five Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz, American officers have acknowledged that they have been studying anew the lessons from a startling simulation conducted in August 2002.In that war game, the Blue Team navy, representing the United States, lost 16 major warships — an aircraft carrier, cruisers and amphibious vessels — when they were sunk to the bottom of the Persian Gulf in an attack that included swarming tactics by enemy speedboats.

“The sheer numbers involved overloaded their ability, both mentally and electronically, to handle the attack,” said Lt. Gen. Paul K. Van Riper, a retired Marine Corps officer who served in the war game as commander of a Red Team force representing an unnamed Persian Gulf military. “The whole thing was over in 5, maybe 10 minutes.”

[Mike O'Malley]

It's worth noting that Van Riper quit after Millennium Challenge '02, allegedly due to frustration. They never sank my ship, so ha ha ha on them.

Edit for more content: Van Riper was doing so well with Red Team that they reset the game after a couple days and limited his options so that Blue could win. He still kicked our butts.

[Enidigm]

DODONNA: The battle station is heavily shielded and carries a
firepower greater than half the star fleet. It's defenses are designed
around a direct large-scale assault. A small one-man fighter should be
able to penetrate the outer defense.

GOLD LEADER: Pardon me for asking, sir, but what good are snub
fighters going to be against that?

DODONNA: Well, the Empire doesn't consider a small one-man fighter to
be any threat, or they'd have a tighter defense.

[Jag]

NYT explains a possible reason for why the Navy freaked out about this. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/washington/12navy.html?ex=1357794000&en=a4dbb42d5ad2a700&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)

So basically they got zerg rushed.

[Tankero]

Clearly they have to rethink their build-order. As always, Blizzard knows best.

[Lum]

Nah, the Navy just needs good point blank AOE spells. Er, weapons.

[Unicorn McGriddle]

Or some kind of crowd control.

[Tom McNamara]

But wait! There's more (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA15Ak02.html):

Tension spiked markedly last week when Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) speedboats were involved in an "incident" with three US Navy vessels, which claimed they were international waters.

Yet there is no "international water" in the Strait of Hormuz, straddled between the territorial waters of Iran and Oman. The US government claimed, through a Pentagon spokesperson, Bryan Whitman, that the three US ships "transiting through the Strait of Hormuz" were provocatively harassed by the speedboats. This was followed by the Pentagon's release of a videotape of the encounter, where in response to Iran's request for ship identification, we hear a dispatch from one of the US ships stating the ship's number and adding that "we are in international waters and we intend no harm".

Thus there is the issue of the exact whereabouts of the US ships at the time of the standoff with the Iranian boats manned by the IRGC patrolling the area. According to Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgiff, the US ships were "five kilometers outside Iranian territorial waters". Yet, this is disputed by another dispatch from the US ships that states, "I am engaged in transit passage in accordance with international law."

[Linoleum]

But wait! There's more (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA15Ak02.html):

I heard quite the rant from a Navy officer (who is neither conservative, nor an Iran hawk) about that article. It was rather technical, but the jist was the author has no idea what he was talking about and completely ignored the existence of international naval conventions that have the force of law under Admiralty law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiralty_law).

Which, of course, made me immediately think of Arrested Development.

[Brian Rucker]

So Rucker's "kid pulling a prank" assessment doesn't look like it was far off from the truth.

It, it..wasn't me! Just a lucky guess!

[Rimbo]

The key to this whole puzzle is a comment Iran made shortly after the incident.

First, note that the Pentagon leaked a report to the NYT about some wargaming against similar light craft that occurred in 2002, where the light craft devastated US naval vessels.

Second, note that the Strait of Hormuz, where this occurred, is a bottleneck in shipping of oil from the Gulf region; roughly 40% of all Gulf oil goes through it. Iran having serious offensive capabilities in this area is a threat to every oil-producing nation in the Gulf's bottom line at a time when oil is reaping $100/barrel, regardless of their attitudes towards the USA.

In Iran's reprimand of the US, they let on that this sort of thing was routine. They said this just as Bush was leaving for a Middle East tour.

You know Bush will be handing that comment to every country he visits and pointing it out to them.

Suddenly other countries in the Middle East aren't thinking in terms of the USA vs. Iran ("Go Iran!") or Iran vs. Israel ("Go Iran!"), but in terms of how Iran can devastate their oil money ("Fuck Iran!").

This is very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very bad for Iran.

Iran is in serious backpedalling damage-control mode right now, but it may not matter at this point.

[Tim Partlett]

Nobody in the Middle East likes Iran anyway. I don't see how this is very bad for Iran, as they are all aware of its potential threat to their wealth.

[Lum]

Yeah, this isn't unusual at all. And the countries Bush visited are more concerned about Israel/Palestine, then Iraq, then Iran.