Posted on 06/30/2016 8:59:43 AM PDT by Hojczyk
Weak leadership, poor judgment, a lack of "warfighting toughness" and a litany of errors led to the embarrassing capture and detention by Iran of 10 U.S. sailors in the Persian Gulf in January, according to a Navy investigation released Thursday.
Six officers and three enlisted sailors have been disciplined or face disciplinary action.
The trouble began even before the sailors left port in Kuwait aboard two 50-foot boats on a short-notice, 300-mile journey to Bahrain. They were delayed, unprepared, poorly supervised and ill-suited for the mission, the report said.
At least one sailor had been up all night with boat repairs. Their higher headquarters failed to arrange air or surface monitoring of the boats' transit. Such monitoring "would likely have prevented" the sailors' capture by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, according to the report.
The Navy's top officer, Adm. John Richardson, was presenting the investigation's results at a Pentagon news conference.
The lengthy investigation concluded that while the boat crews erred in entering Iranian waters, the Iranians violated international law by impeding the boats' "innocent passage," and violated U.S. sovereign immunity by boarding and seizing the boats.
Other rules were "ignored for convenience," resulting in the boats being "unable to present the appearance of a hard target or to defend themselves against (Iranian) aggression." The Iranians boarded the U.S. boats, confronted the sailors at gunpoint and took them to Farsi Island, where they remained overnight before being released after Washington intervened.
"Decision-makers at every level failed to intervene when the boats could not achieve minimum communications standards ... and when the (boats) violated Saudi and Iranian territorial seas," the report said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Oh Lordy...
Could it be the Iranians demand a different definition of territorial waters and require this Administration and our Navy to subscribe to it? Regardless my CO and I would have laid out a course which intercepted the friendly shore at least by the latitude of the Iranian island. We would have avoided the island, and the refueling ship would have been where we assigned it. Most likely we would have chosen courses which kept us in sight of land the whole way.
Next how could the Navy so lose track of these boats, that they asked the Iranians for help? Why were the crews not initiating contact? During an amphibious exercise my wave of assault boats were swallowed by a fog. When I saw that fog coming I made sure the flag ship could vector us back to our LPD. In this case the departure port, the refueling ship, and the destination port should have all shared the same radio frequency and made regular radio checks.
In my Old Navy if we were going anywhere near harm’s way we would have done so intentionally and been prepared to kick the sh*t out of the Iranians to help them understand they should obey the law. This event directs my memory back to the Cold War involving China as well as the Soviet Union. Navy ships stationed in Yokosuka Japan ”patrolled” through the Taiwan Straits as they transited to Vietnam. Our captain told us that if any Chinese ship tried to intercept us we would fight. The prospect was not that exciting because our heaviest armament were three dual 3in50cal anti-aircraft mounts. But the Pueblo incident was on everyone’s mind and that was going to be our response.
Supposedly this evolution violated every standard of basic seamanship (Should it be personship in the new Navy?) and was definitely inconceivable in my Navy. As far as I am concerned everything we have been told by this Administration and their Navy acolytes is a lie and I will keep my own council.
No way was it a covert ops mission.
Wrong type of boats for one- they aren’t MK-5s. Female sailor for another.
Sniveling moron Lt on board for the next.
These were not Special Boats folks- those would have lit up the area with shots if the Iranians approached regardless of where they were at which point the Iranians would have fled.
The Libs have targeted the Marines too, wait until some dude in make-up and high heels complains that somebody was mean to him. Worse, wait until the same guy becomes Commandant.
They are destroying our entire military from within.
On the other hand, I'm sure their Gender Tolerance Training is up-to-date. That is what is really important.
Horrifying story. Explains weakness at the middle levels or at the top.
That was an excellent story, thanks for sharing. As you point out these are different times and as another poster stated this Admin is to blame for the weakness in which our armed services respond.
I hope in today’s Marine Corps had this occurred the Marines would have created hell on earth damn the international consequences and made the mooslims think twice before engaging a small unit of Marines
Think CIA is possible?
Back before Obama’s time two MK-5s were moving along Iran’s side of the Gulf at night, everyone was bored and quiet. A crewman in the lead boat known for being a bit of a prankster decided to drop a heating tab from their food into a water bottle and he tossed it over the side into the path of the second boat.
When it got to the side where the petty officer was drowsily leaning it popped with a loud bang.
This caused everyone on that boat, followed almost instantly by the first boat, to light up the Iranian night thinking the Iranians had fired on them because only the prankster knew they hadn’t.
This is the proper reaction in that area... Iranians aren’t to be allowed to get close, period. Not even imaginary Iranians.
So there’s no excuse for these guys. They certainly had the weapons on board to keep the Iranians at bay, and dual equipment for navigation and communications, and even though they aren’t SWCC they should have been able to ward off Iranians.
What were they doing when the Iranians found them, swimming?
No, the CIA would use the Navy’s MK-5s too. We know every inch of that area including that island, we’re very good at doing things under Iran’s nose.
This wasn’t professional on any level.
Either things have totally changed for the worse since "our time in the military", or this was a result of bad decisions at or above the warrior level.
The bottom line now is simply that the iranians are not afraid of us and will do whatever they want in the gulf.
Interesting. So it is possible that they were genuinely a bunch of dumbasses who got lost?
First, thanks for your service.
Seems like the PBR Commodore violated basic practices before they even cast off. Check boat condition, all systems.
Sad to say, that’s all basic stuff the USCG teaches in their power squadron classes. WTH really happened. The small info trickle released makes the PBR crews seem ill prepared for real duty anywhere, much less the Gulf. And command seems no better. Makes one wonder if political officers (JAGS) are running ops like the old Soviet navy, IMO.
http://www.cgaux.org/boatinged/
The Obama/Hillary government, ill prepared is a good description. Lives are lost when we have ill prepared leaders, remember Benghazi.
yep.
Worse than that- it means there were a lot of dumbasses and not all of them on the boats.
The idiocy was top to bottom... very slack... lack of discipline... when you’ve got young folks who were just kids on 9/11 you do have an obligation to clue them in on the region and its perils and history so this goes up pretty high... not to mention Kerry’s thanking the Iranians being the cherry on the top.
Could be we’ve culled so many old experienced hands that we’re green at all levels... and the admin is OK with that.
This was a black op technology exchange as part of the Iran nuke deal. No telling what could have been hidden in the bilges of the two vessels. We’ve done this through the Cold War, letting weapons fall into the hands of the Ruskies so our technology lead over them couldn’t etch into the ruse of Soviet threat that fueled our war industries.
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