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Pentagon has video, audio of Strait of Hormuz incident
The Pentagon has video and audio tape of an incident in the Strait of Hormuz Sunday in which armed Iranian speedboats swarmed three US warships and radioed a threat to blow them up, officials said Tuesday.

"There was video of the incident and it is in the process of being reviewed, There is some audio on the videotape also," said Colonel Gary Keck, a Pentagon spokesman.

Keck said he did not know whether the video would be released.

A Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he understood that the audio portion of the tape includes the threat radioed by one of the Iranian vessels to blow up the US ships.
Unless it was misunderstood Arabic, that's what it sounded like to me!
He said the video consists mainly of long shots of Iranian vessels in the water, but also captures the sounds of ship horns and communications in the bridge of the US ships.
"Get the flyswatter!"
"The pellet gun would be more fun!"
"OK, but only after they've had to run back and forth through our wake a few times and give their kidneys something to cry about."
The Pentagon charged Monday that five armed Iranian speedboats approached the USS Port Royal, the USS Hopper and the USS Ingraham at high speeds in international waters as they transited the Strait of Hormuz Sunday morning at 0400 GMT.
Where were the USS Prager, USS Medved, and USS Hewitt? :-)
A US defense official, who asked not to be identified, quoted the Iranian radio transmission as saying: "I'm coming at you and you will blow up in a couple of minutes."
Who are we going to blow up in a couple of minutes?
Pentagon officials said the Iranians also dropped white floating boxes into the path of the Ingraham, a guided missile frigate which passed by them without incident.
Just happened to have them, eh? Do they have something to do with your "identification" process?
The US warships issued warnings and engaged in evasive maneuvers but no shots were fired during the encounter, which lasted less than 30 minutes, according to US defense officials.
Ended when one of those guys in the speedboats came down on a nut.
Iranian officials played down the incident.
Rules of Taquiyya #1: Downplay the incident.
"What happened between the Guards and foreign vessels was an ordinary identification," Ali Reza Tangsiri, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' naval forces in the region, told the Mehr news agency.
Rules of Taquiyya #2: Blame it on whatever kind of misunderstanding you feel most likely to weasel you out from under the consequences of your actions. Nonetheless, please explain the "I'm coming at you and you will blow up in a couple of minutes" part.
He added that the Guards' naval forces had a right to monitor and identify "any vessel entering Persian Gulf waters" to the northwest.
And in a few more seconds there would have been a reciprocal "cultural misunderstanding" regarding the West's views of legitimate self defense had those speedboats not recognized that those were US government warships and not fishing boats.
Iranian state television quoted an unnamed Guards source in the region as saying that "no threatening message was transmitted" in Sunday's incident.
Well, look at the bright side, at least they know how they are supposed to behave.
Posted by: gorb 2008-01-09
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=218170