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Posted on 01/11/2008 5:55:17 AM PST by RDTF
The Pentagon said yesterday that the radio threat to bomb U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf last weekend may not have come from the five Iranian Revolutionary Guard speedboats that approached them -- and may not even have been intended against U.S. targets.
The communication Sunday was made on radio channel 16, a common marine frequency used by ships and others in the region. "It could have been a threat aimed at some other nation or a myriad of other things," said Rear Adm. Frank Thorp IV, a spokesman for the Navy.
In the radio message recorded by the Navy, a heavily accented voice said, "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes." But Farsi speakers and Iranians told The Washington Post that the accent did not sound Iranian.
In part because of the threatening language, the United States has elevated the encounter into an international incident. Twice this week, President Bush criticized Iran's behavior as provocative and warned of "serious consequences" if it happens again. He is due to head today to the Gulf area, where containing Iran is expected to be a major theme of his talks in five oil-rich sheikdoms.
Pentagon officials insist that they never claimed Iran made the threat. "No one in the military has said that the transmission emanated from those boats. But when they hear it simultaneously to the behavior of those boats, it only adds to the tension," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell. "If this verbal threat emanated from something or someone unrelated to the five boats, it would not lessen the threat from those boats."
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(Excerpt) Read more at cleveland.com ...
It was the Filipino Monkey Man. Anyone who’s been over there has heard him.
It doesn’t matter...the Iranians were playing a dangerous game flirting with US warships.
“Iranian Boats May Not Have Made Radio Threat, “
So What?!?
They’re actions were threatening enough!
sorry, wrong their there
And those turncoat Pentagon guys are just NOT to be trusted.
What about dumping objects in the water near the ships? If that wasn’t threatening, nothing is.
The media is so stupid. They fall for this crap every time and the Iranians know it. So the Iranians stage an incident complete with enough doubt to get the media to try and discredit the US...again. Duh! How stupid can they be?
It never dawns on reporters that just PERHAPS the Iranians WANTED the threat to not sound like an Iranian nor be able to directly link it to the boats threatening the warships....just in case we FIRED on them and sunk them!
Good Lord; have all reporters lost their brains?
Simple solution: Publicly declare an emergency 500 yard vessel exclusion zone around US Navy ships in the Straits and Gulf. Splatter the first violator to send the message we aren’t kidding.
'es hokay. Just one of those things they call a brain f**t.
I prefer to think of it as not enough coffee
How long before we apologize?
sounds like a new movie plot - hollyweird would love it. A new War Games scenario. End of the world was started by a cab driver hoax.
Remember when the US warship shot down an Iranian 747? Didn’t the Iranians use an F14 transponder code on the commercial flight to bait the US seamen? I wouldn’t put anything past the Iranians.
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