TEHRAN — Iran accused the United States on Wednesday of fabricating video and audio released by the Pentagon showing Iranian boats confronting U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf.
The video from Sunday's incident shows small Iranian boats swarming around U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz. In the recording, a man speaking in heavily accented English threatened, "I am coming to you. ... You will explode after ... minutes."
"The footage released by the U.S. Navy was compiled using file pictures and the audio has been fabricated," an official in Iran's Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying by the state-run English-language channel Press TV.
State TV did not give the name of the Revolutionary Guard official and did not offer more details about how the official knew the footage was "fabricated."
U.S. Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said the "allegation is absurd, factually incorrect and reflects the lack of seriousness with which they take this serious incident."
National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley warned Iran against more confrontations.
"This is a provocative act — not a smart thing to do, and they are going to have to take responsibility for the consequences, if they do it again," Hadley told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Bush flew from Washington to Israel.
He added that his comments should not be seen as a threat.
Whitman said it was "fortunate that we did not have to escalate to the use of force, but as always, we are prepared to if our vessels are threatened in international waters."
In the four-minute, 20-second video released Tuesday, the Iranian boats appeared to ignore repeated warnings from the U.S. ships, including horn blasts and radio transmissions. The video was shot from the bridge of the destroyer USS Hopper.
After spotting the approaching Iranian boats, a Navy crew member on the Hopper says over the radio: "This is coalition warship. I am engaged in transit passage in accordance with international law. Intend no harm."
The audio and video recordings were made separately but were pulled together by the Navy. Often uneven and shaky, the video condenses what Navy officials have said was a confrontation of about 20 minutes.
The Iranian fleet of high-speed boats charged the U.S. warships and threatened to blow up the Navy convoy as it passed near but outside Iranian waters, according to Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, the top Navy commander in the Gulf. The Iranian fleet "maneuvered aggressively" and fled as the American ship commanders were preparing to open fire, he said. No shots were fired.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards has said that its high-speed boats never threatened the U.S. vessels during the encounter, insisting it only asked them to identify themselves, then let them continue into the Gulf.
Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar called Western news reports that the boats threatened to blow up the U.S. warships "mischief."
"(Iranian) navy units ... asked them to identify themselves. They responded accordingly and continued their path," the official IRNA news agency quoted Najjar as saying.
He said the encounter was normal.
"The identification of vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian navy units is a natural occurrence," IRNA quoted Najjar as saying. "Islamic Republic of Iran navy units always put questions to passing vessels and warships at the Strait of Hormuz and they need to identify themselves. This is in accordance with the normal procedures."
Cosgriff, the commander of U.S. 5th Fleet, which patrols the Gulf and is based in nearby Bahrain, said the American vessels, which were clearly marked, had been identified by Iranian authorities earlier in the day.
The confrontation was an unusual flare-up of U.S.-Iranian tensions in the Persian Gulf as Bush prepared for his eight-day Mideast trip, designed in part to counter Iran's influence in the region. Bush, who arrived in Israel on Wednesday, is expected to discuss the U.S. stance toward Iran with Arab allies that are also worried about Tehran's desire for greater regional power.
Many Arab countries fear the Iranian-American rivalry could erupt into a military confrontation that would put them in the crossfire and hurt vital oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
I can't believe the company I'm in here but the first thought that came to my mind when I saw the video on television last night was that it was fake.
I agree. The "heavily accented" voices sound like a guy doing a really bad French accent. That struck me immediately when I saw the video.
What surprised me was how bad the accent was, I agree, that sounded like a really poor actor, plus the video was rotten. I would think that the helicopter would have gotten multiple videos of the whole event and many of the sailors would have also. Not just one grainy video. Sure the thing happened fast, but I would have guess with that many sailors you would have had 4-5 video's to pick from, at least.
I was suspicious from the first. The really scary thing here is that if the video is faked then what is the motive. Have they just stepped up the propaganda campaign against 'our man in a dinner jacket' or is this an excuse to 'retaliate' at some time in the future?
I know..If is is a fake, why ??
So they can go to War with Iran. They have faked and lied and scammed their way into virtually every war in history.
Reminder - THEY PLANNED ON TAKING OVER THE M.E. BEFORE 9/11!!!
Commenters are delusional. You really think the Pentagon would do a fake video and release it to the public? And you believe the Iranians? Come on.
You really think the Pentagon would do a fake video and release it to the public?
Uh, yes?
Delusional? Possibly. Realistic? Yes.
I am still not sure the Pentagon would intentionally create a fake video. But, I believe the Pentagon would release a video without checking its authenticity if it bolstered the war effort.
But where else would the video come from? Some bored guys in the Navy put this together on one of their laptops?
sure they would..
They have done it before
they lied about the vietnamese as well so that they could easily escalate the war, when they claimed our ships were attacked int he gulf of tolkien (sp)
then there was the fake fat ossama, never suggested as a fake by the us, but everyone else on the planet could easily see it was fake.
and chenney is upset over the NIE
bush is traveling to isreal to discuss iran..
what betetr way to rebring it in our minds.
he must have said iran and dangerous together 6 times int he same sentence.. so they have the whole NLP, saleman thing going on, much like they do with saddam, al quada and 9/11 to tie them together.
ANd as for the iranians being evila nd the outrage over belivign them.
they have never invaded another country.
They had their democracy dismanttled by us and a dictatorship impposed on them because they wanted to nationalise their oil. (aka get more proffits for their own resources) and we refused them the right to control thier own destiney, to own their own resources and we installed the shah of iran that was just as evil as saddam. Not saying us bad iran good, just saying you really have to look at history and understand they have every reason to dislike us..
but they didnt, they liked us a lot and were desperate for deipomacy and noramlising relations and offered us the "grand bargin" but that just wasnt in the adgenda of "my way orr the hiway" decider..
the neos blew a golden opportunity to look like the saviors of the world instead of it's living demons, but they fell for the first sin.. greed.
Yea, we're all a bunch of delusional nuts, cause obviously they NEVER faked this kind of thing before...
Or, you could look up "Report reveals Vietnam War hoaxes, faked attacks"
THE PENTAGON HAS ALREADY ADMITTED TO "STITCHING" THE SUPPOSED IRANIAN VOICE INTO THE VIDEO!!!!!!!! That is a fake. They admitted it! Sure, they said that they could not know where the voice came from over the wide frequency, but I agree with those above: it was an American voice with very bad, almost comedic acting.
it was an American voice with very bad, almost comedic acting.
In other words, propaganda that was meant purely for an American audience.
Someone wake me when a candidate responds to this. Now that would be interesting, having a reporter ask Barack Obama or Mitt Romney straight forward, in this issue do you believe the Pentagon and the White House or do you believe the Iranian government?
Now that would certainly be interesting, Adam. I'd love to hear how they respond.
My guess is
The Sounds of Silence
nice gotcha question.... now i see how this will be sold when we have a black flag op
"who do you belvie us or them.. nice"
I guess i have to belvie the fat ossama video was real too
and the yellow cake thing.. doesnt matter they wer proven to be fake.. i have to belvie our gov as that is the good american thing to do..
shoot cheney even still claims saddam had an operational relationship with al quada, I guess i have to belvie that as well.
Nah i wouldnt be silent i would just start raddling off the admins lies until fox turned off the camera.
shoot cheney
good idea;)
Hetep and Respect folks, the first thing that came to my mind was the Vietnam boat incident. Ron Paul implied that Bush wants to spread his war against Muslims, I would not disagree with this right wing person.
As my commander would say, hold on to your ass here we go.
This is a sad state of affairs. The first thing I thought of when I heard about this incident is that is probably fake. Whether the video is a fake or not, we as a nation have been lied to so much that we cannot believe a thing our government says anymore.
This is George Bush's legacy.
we as a nation have been lied to so much that we cannot believe a thing our government says anymore.
This is George Bush's legacy.
That bears repeating. And bolding. I would have also gone for italics, but I didn't want to go overboard.
I'm not sure why everyone expected some amazing hollywood style footage. We can only speculate.
If it were Hollywood style, then I'd REALLY be suspicious.
Of course we can only speculate. And we absolutely should be. We should be asking questions, asking for more information and better proof.
My projection: Innocent or Not, some American soldiers are going to be blamed for hoaxing the voice.
Also, a little thing that the Pentagon is not talking about anymore: THE @!$%#ING WHITE BOXES!!!!!!!! No where in the DOD video doesn't it show the boats dropping boxes into the water as the Pentagon had originally claimed. No one is talking about this.
What might be interesting is to find those mystery box's. I would crack up if all this was happened to be that we caught a group of Iranian fishers pulling up crab pots. Now that really would be embarassing...
Yeah, the Pentagon first said that "boxes," I believe it was "white" were dropped into the water by the U.S. ship. Now they're saying, "cardboard boxes." How convenient? Something flimsy that can easily get lost in the sea. Pun intended.
They didn't say Domino's Pizza on the side did they ? :-)
That's Iran's Navy? And they are (were) supposedly working on a nuclear program?
NOOO they are making IED for the iraqis "insurgents" (LOL at the misuse of the term)
doesnt matter the iraqis had all they need for ied as we left most ammo dumps unguarded until late 2006
guess how quickly we got the oil guarded,,
maybe i dont knwo maybe had we guardded the ammo dumps instead of the oil wells, all the terrorists would be able to do is get our soldiers oilly.
Actually jamiewb the Iranians have a small mix of diesel submarines, corvettes, missile boats and destroyers from Russia. Nothing to be heavily concerned about save for the submarines.
This is just another one of Texas Governor Bush & his warmongers attempt to make one last huge push to convince world why they are going to war with Iran. Where is Texas Governor Bush this week? In the middle east having peace (Crusade) talks with Israel and probably staging another fabricated series of videos like this one to go to war with Iran. And think about this, Why didn't the US Warships fire on the boats after the two back-to-back threats were made? "I didn't buy the rotten smell of evidence leading to the Iraq war then and I sure as hell ain't buying their disgusting smell of vomit now.
fake or not, it has to be questioned why such a serious incident like this has nothing in the way of solid proof, at least that i've seen yet. those pictures never show any of those boats anywhere in the same shot as one of our ships and i know from experience (served on two different ships in the navy) that there are cameras all over that would have captured everything. there are cameras on the guns, launchers, all over the place. heck i used to go over to the gun console and use the camera to look out at the horizon from combat all the time.
something smells really fishy here. i still don't understand why iran would attack naval ships with speed boats and drop cardboard boxed in the water. why would you blow the element of surprise on a practice run that is suicide?
no, it seems more likely this was as close to a false flag this administration could get without alerting the world to what they are doing. they know anyone and everyone is watching nowadays.
ok i just watched the video at timesonline. if they can prove this was iran and not some privately funded venture by the cia or our own government then i'll change my tone. until then, this could just be another flase flag mission.
Great point that it could have been the CIA. Of course Iran has already admitted it was them, but the possibility of that happening is not unlikely.
Maybe they can coerce Colin Powell out of retirement so he can do a re-enactment of the incident in front of the UN - with Lincoln Logs and silly foam...
Haha! Too funny...
The saddest part about this whole story is that the press thinks the American public will swallow justa bout anything. I was watching this on TV, the bright blue boats and the poorly done audio threat, thinking "this has to be a joke!"
The news is not the incident itself but the decision to report it the way it is done.
Its near to what happened when the British soldiers were abducted. But the incident is much less significant.
So, one might wonder if it is a test run to see the reaction of the US public, the Iranis and the international community. Just as I believe that the NIE was some sort of test run. No poll can ever predict how hot or how wary the own public and also the enemy is with regards to this crisis. And it is important to know.
I am not dissatisfied if such things happen because it creates movement where there is stalemate. The US presence in the Gulf costs a lot of money and complicates the military logistics quite a bit. They can't stay there for years. So move around, seek a decision (which I am sure will be peaceful), and get it done with.
its near to what happened when the British soldiers were abducted. But the incident is much less significant.
Actually, Bush really stayed back on that one, because it was a real event. It's this bull@!$%# one that he was decided to get all huffy about.
Its a shame how we have lost confidence in our government.they lie to much even if this is real nobody will believe them.thats why we need to elect somebody who will restore confidence.not just changing the face of bush.we need somebody who is not a Washington or from the status quo.
Very well said, Kelly. You have hit the nail on the head as to what is possibly the BIGGEST danger to come out of the Bush presidency. We simply no longer trust or believe our own government.
Unclear whether the Navy hoaxed this, or that they were hoaxed by higher elements in the Pentagon-Intelligence complex (the likelier scenario, I think).
Clumsy hoax nevertheless. Iranians do not pronounce vowels and consonants like that, for one thing. No markings on the sardine boats either.
Intriguing, from mainstream CNN:
It was not clear, however, that the voice was coming from any of the boats, Cdr. Lydia Robertson, the 5th Fleet spokeswoman in Bahrain, told CNN. It could have come from another ship in the area or from shore, she said. "We don't have a direct connection, but it's not necessarily a disconnect," she said.
The Iranians have just come out with their own 4-minute video of the incident, which I must say, looks a hell of a lot more authentic. Thei sardine boats are theirs, but the US-faked audio and threat hype remains.
I think this is a wonderful example of "don't believe everything you see on T.V."
Same situation, two different perspectives, two different spins!
Sweet!
We could all learn something from this.
That's correct everyone. The US is the center of all evil in the world. If every just followed the benevolent lead of countries such as Iran this would be a much better world - for terrorists.
Not sure why the Navy was concerned, the Arabs have NEVER driven a boat loaded with explosives into one of our ships...
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