Sensationalist Media Did Pentagon's Bidding in Fake Naval 'Provocation' with Iran

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. Posted January 14, 2008.

The United States has lodged a formal diplomatic protest against Iran for its "provocation" in the Strait of Hormuz on January 6. But new information reveals that the alleged Iranian threat to American naval vessels may have been blown out of proportion. Democracy Now! spoke with investigative historian Gareth Porter.

Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez: The United States has lodged a formal diplomatic protest against Iran for its "provocation" in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday morning. But new information reveals that the alleged Iranian threat to American naval vessels in the Strait might have been blown out of proportion.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon released video of Iranian patrol boats approaching American warships and an audio recording of a direct threat in English. The accented voice says, "I am coming to you," and then adds, "You will explode after a few minutes."

Iranian voice: I am coming to you.

US naval officer: Inbound small craft, you're approaching a coalition warship operating in international waters. Your identity is not know. Your intentions are unclear. You're 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.

Iranian voice: You will explode after a few minutes.

US naval officer: "You will explode after a few minutes."

Gonzalez: That was an audio recording released by the Pentagon along with the video of the encounter between American warships and Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz.

But a Navy spokesperson told ABC News Thursday that the threat might not have come from the Iranian patrol boats, but from the shore or another ship passing by. The spokesperson added, "I guess we're not saying that it absolutely came from the boats, but we're not saying it absolutely didn't."

Iran has denied all allegations of a confrontation and released its own video of the encounter. This is an excerpt of the Iranian video broadcast on Thursday showing what seems to be a routine exchange between an Iranian Navy patrol boat and the American ship.

Iranian naval patrolman: Coalition warship 73, this is Iranian Navy patrol boat. Request side number [inaudible] operating in the area this time. Over.

US naval officer: This is coalition warship 73. I'm operating in international waters.

Amy Goodman: Gareth Porter is a historian and national security policy analyst. His latest article for IPS News analyzes how the official US version of the naval incident has begun to unravel. He joins us now from Washington, D.C. Can you talk about everything that happened from Sunday, what President Bush said, what the Pentagon was alleging, and now what we understand?

Gareth Porter:: Well, this alleged crisis or confrontation on the high seas is really much less than what met the eyes of the American public as it was reported by news media. And the story really began from leaks from the Pentagon. I mean, there were Pentagon officials apparently calling reporters and telling them that something had happened in the Strait of Hormuz, which represented a threat to American ships and that there was a near battle on the high seas. The way it was described to reporters, it was made to appear to be a major threat to the ships and a major threat of war. And that's the way it was covered by CNN, by CBS and other networks, as well as by print media.

Then I think the next major thing that happened was a briefing by the commander of the 5th fleet in Bahrain, the Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, which is very interesting. If you look carefully at the transcript, which was not reported accurately by the media, or not reported at all practically, the commander -- or rather, Vice Admiral Cosgriff actually makes it clear that the ships were never in danger, that they never believed they were in danger, and that they were never close to firing on the Iranian boats. And this is the heart of what actually happened, which was never reported by the US media.

So I think that the major thing to really keep in mind about this is that it was blown up into a semi-crisis by the Pentagon and that the media followed along very supinely. And I must say this is perhaps the worst -- the most egregious case of sensationalist journalism in the service of the interests of the Pentagon, the Bush administration, that I have seen so far.

Gonzalez: And there have been some reports about the apparent splicing of audio onto the actual video that appear to be from two different sources. Could you talk about that?

Porter:: Well, that's right. I mean, we don't yet know exactly what the sequence of events was in this incident. We don't know exactly when the voices that we hear making what appear to be a threat to the American ships, where--when that occurred in the sequence of events in this incident. And it seems very possible that indeed the Pentagon did splice into the recording, the audio recording of the incident, the two bits of messages from a mysterious voice in a way that made it appear to occur in response to the initial communication from the US ship to the Iranian boats. And it seems very possible that, in fact, those voices came at some other point during this twenty-minute incident.

See more stories tagged with: iran, propaganda, united states, hormuz, gareth porter

Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program, Democracy Now!

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