The Huckster and Hell

Official Version of Naval Incident Starts to Unravel

Despite the official and media portrayal of the incident in the Strait of Hormuz early Monday morning as a serious threat to US ships from Iranian speedboats that nearly resulted in a "battle at sea," new information over the past three days suggests that the incident did not involve such a threat and that no US commander was on the verge of firing at the Iranian boats.
Bush administration officials seized on the incident to advance the portrayal of Iran as a threat and to strike a more threatening stance toward Iran. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley declared Wednesday that the incident "almost involved an exchange of fire between our forces and Iranian forces." President George W. Bush declared during his Mideast trip Wednesday that there would be "serious consequences" if Iran attacked US ships and repeated his assertion that Iran is "a threat to world peace."

And one of the Prez hopefuls (aka Huckster) threatened to show Iran to the gates of Hell. Does he have a key?

The five Iran boats involved were hardly in a position to harm the three US warships. Although Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman described the Iranian boats as "highly maneuverable patrol craft" that were "visibly armed," he failed to note that these are tiny boats carrying only a two- or three-man crew and that they are normally armed only with machine guns that could do only surface damage to a US ship. The only boat that was close enough to be visible to the US ships was unarmed, as an enlarged photo of the boat from the navy video clearly shows.