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— The U.S. Navy video tape and audio recording that the Pentagon released Tuesday of the confrontation between a three-ship Navy convoy and five small Iranian boats in the Persian Gulf is 4 minutes and 20 seconds long.
It begins with a crew member speaking into a ship-to-ship radio after the Iranian boats are spotted.
U.S. crew member: "This is coalition warship. I am engaged in transit passage in accordance with international law." After a pause he resumes: "This is coalition warship. I am engaged in transit passage in accordance with international law. I intend no harm. Over."
Mostly inaudible internal ship communications follow.
At one point a crew member is heard saying the Iranian boats are "approximately two miles from coalition warships."
The video recording was made separately from the recording of the radio communications; they were put together by the Navy.
As the video camera tracks movement of two or three of the Iranian boats at a distance, the U.S. crew member is heard repeating his radio message: "You are approaching coalition warship operating in international waters. Request you establish communications, identify yourself and state your intentions. Over."
What follows is internal, barely audible ship communications tracking the movement of the Iranian boats, at one point saying that one of the boats has an outboard engine, at another point saying the U.S. crews are "conducting level one on bridge to bridge, flashing lights."
Then a U.S. crew member's voice, apparently on an internal or ship-to-ship communication, says, "Five small unidentified small surface ..." and indicates that the craft are inbound.
The U.S. ship repeats its message to the boats by radio transmission: "You are approaching coalition warship operating in international waters. Request you establish communications, identify yourself and state your intentions." In the video tape, these words are nearly drowned out by the repeated blare of a U.S. ship's warning horn.
After the video tape turns black, the audio track resumes with an accented, deep male voice saying clearly in English, "I am coming to you." He emphasizes the word "coming" and stretches out the word "you."
An American voice is then heard: "Inbound small craft: You are approaching a coalition warship operating in international waters. Your identity is not known; your intentions are unclear. You are sailing into danger and may be subject to defensive measures. Request you establish communications now or alter your course immediately to remain clear. Request you alter course immediately to remain clear."
Accented voice in English: "You will explode after (indecipherable) minutes."
American voice, apparently speaking to fellow crew members: "He says, 'You will explode after a few minutes.'"
