Steve
Well-known member
it appears that the Navy brass is taking Iran serious..
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USN Sending Four More Minesweepers to the Gulf
- Thread starter Steve
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it appears that the Navy brass is taking Iran serious..
[/quote]
Steve
Well-known member
http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical-diary/us-increase-minesweeping-presence-persian-gulf-0The U.S. Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, stating that four minesweepers would be moved to Bahrain, joining eight others, including four U.K. Royal Navy minesweepers. The current detachment of four minesweeping helicopters will be increased to eight
In January it was announced that the USS Ponce (LPD 15) would undergo a conversion to an afloat staging base for MCMs -- essentially a mothership that can facilitate and coordinate at-sea and aerial operations. The USS Ponce is expected to arrive in region this summer, and it should represent an important expansion of capability and capacity above the simple doubling of the U.S. MCM presence discussed in the CNO's testimony.
This expansion is fairly rapid and notably the first substantive change in the MCM presence in the Persian Gulf since the mid-2000s.
The sudden doubling of that presence after years of tension and rhetoric is inherently noteworthy.
A rapid and proficient military response to Iranian attacks in the strait -- whether naval mines, anti-ship missiles or small-boat swarm tactics -- can attempt to mitigate but not manage market reaction. Given the global economic crisis -- including the ongoing European economic crisis and the fragile beginnings of an American recovery -- the threat of even a temporary disruption has taken on new credibility in recent years.
That is the heart of the issue for Iran. The United States is now more than doubling its MCM presence in the Persian Gulf, thereby creating new uncertainty for the efficacy of the Iranian deterrent and making Iran's challenge of maintaining a credible deterrent more difficult. But more important, other countries -- including India and China, which are more sensitive to the economic nature of Iran's deterrent -- face the prospect of being hurt considerably more than the United States, both in terms of wider economic vulnerability and the physical flows of oil.
Perhaps most notable, earlier this year Tokyo stated that should there be an attempt to close the strait, the Japan Self-Defense Forces would consider deploying its own MCM assets
Any increase in Washington's confidence and willingness to engage in an attack against Iran actually increases American leverage over Tehran and those who have so far resisted more aggressive non-military action against Iran.
Sandhusker
Well-known member
I think it's time that we simply take an afternoon and sink every damn boat that Iran has, down to the row boats. Then we look to Tehran and say, "Now what have you got to say?"
A
Anonymous
Guest
Sandhusker said:I think it's time that we simply take an afternoon and sink every damn boat that Iran has, down to the row boats. Then we look to Tehran and say, "Now what have you got to say?"
Now you're starting to sound like you're looking for a job as an advisor on GW's war propaganda team :???: :wink: :lol:
As the war in Iraq enters its sixth year, Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky have published a "definitive, footnoted, hilarious but depressing compilation of experts who were in error" about the war from the beginning. You can read more about the book -- "Mission Accomplished! Or How We Won The War In Iraq" -- here.
Below, an excerpt from the chapter titled "Their Finest Hour: America Readies Itself To Free The Iraqi People."
CAKEWALK!
"I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk."
- Kenneth Adelman, member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, 2/13/02
"Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse after the first whiff of gunpowder."
- Richard Perle, Chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, 7/11/02
"Desert Storm II would be in a walk in the park... The case for 'regime change' boils down to the huge benefits and modest costs of liberating Iraq."
- Kenneth Adelman, member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, 8/29/02
"Having defeated and then occupied Iraq, democratizing the country should not be too tall an order for the world's sole superpower."
- William Kristol, Weekly Standard editor, and Lawrence F. Kaplan, New Republic senior editor, 2/24/03
HOW MANY TROOPS WILL BE NEEDED?
"I would be surprised if we need anything like the 200,000 figure that is sometimes discussed in the press. A much smaller force, principally special operations forces, but backed up by some regular units, should be sufficient."
- Richard Perle, Chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, 7/11/02
"I don't believe that anything like a long-term commitment of 150,000 Americans would be necessary."
- Richard Perle, speaking at a conference on "Post-Saddam Iraq" sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, 10/3/02
"I would say that what's been mobilized to this point -- something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required."
- Gen. Eric Shinseki, testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 2/25/03
"The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces, I think, is far from the mark."
- Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 2/27/03
"I am reasonably certain that they will greet us as liberators, and that will help us keep [troop] requirements down. ... We can say with reasonable confidence that the notion of hundreds of thousands of American troops is way off the mark...wildly off the mark."
- Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, testifying before the House Budget Committee, 2/27/03
"It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army. Hard to image."
- Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, testifying before the House Budget Committee, 2/27/03
"If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever, when we are, in fact, working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave."
- President George W. Bush, 6/28/05
"The debate over troop levels will rage for years; it is...beside the point."
- Rich Lowry, conservative syndicated columnist, 4/19/06
WHAT ABOUT CASUALTIES?
"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."
- President George W. Bush, response attributed to him by the Reverend Pat Robertson, when Robertson warned the president to prepare the nation for "heavy casualties" in the event of an Iraq war, 3/2003
"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"
- Barbara Bush, former First Lady (and the current president's mother), on Good Morning America, 3/18/03
"I think the level of casualties is secondary... [A]ll the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war... What we hate is not casualties but losing."
- Michael Ledeen, American Enterprise Institute, 3/25/03
HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?
"Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can finance, largely finance the reconstruction of their own country. And I have no doubt that they will."
- Richard Perle, Chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, 7/11/02
"The likely economic effects [of the war in Iraq] would be relatively small... Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits."
- Lawrence Lindsey, White House Economic Advisor, 9/16/02
"It is unimaginable that the United States would have to contribute hundreds of billions of dollars and highly unlikely that we would have to contribute even tens of billions of dollars."
- Kenneth M. Pollack, former Director for Persian Gulf Affairs, U.S. National Security Council, 9/02
"The costs of any intervention would be very small."
- Glenn Hubbard, White House Economic Advisor, 10/4/02
"When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi government and the international community."
- Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 3/27/03
"There is a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people. We are talking about a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon."
- Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, testifying before the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, 3/27/03
"The United States is committed to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will not require sustained aid."
- Mitchell Daniels, Director, White House Office of Management and Budget, 4/21/03
"Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for ther own reconstruction."
- Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary, 2/18/03
HOW LONG WILL IT LAST?
"Now, it isn't gong to be over in 24 hours, but it isn't going to be months either."
- Richard Perle, Chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, 7/11/02
"The idea that it's going to be a long, long, long battle of some kind I think is belied by the fact of what happened in 1990. Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that."
- Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 11/15/02
"I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to take that wager?"
- Bill O'Reilly, 1/29/03
"It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could be six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."
- Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 2/7/03
"It won't take weeks... Our military machine will crush Iraq in a matter of days and there's no question that it will."
- Bill O'Reilly, 2/10/03
"There is zero question that this military campaign...will be reasonably short. ... Like World War II for about five days."
- General Barry R. McCaffrey, national security and terrorism analyst for NBC News, 2/18/03
"The Iraq fight itself is probably going to go very, very fast. The shooting should be over within just a very few days from when it starts."
- David Frum, former Bush White House speechwriter, 2/24/03
"Our military superiority is so great -- it's far greater than it was in the Gulf War, and the Gulf War was over in 100 hours after we bombed for 43 days... Now they can bomb for a couple of days and then just roll into Baghdad... The odds are there's going to be a war and it's going to be not for very long."
- Former President Bill Clinton, 3/6/03
"I think it will go relatively quickly...weeks rather than months."
- Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/16/03
Steve
Well-known member
Sandhusker said:I think it's time that we simply take an afternoon and sink every damn boat that Iran has, down to the row boats. Then we look to Tehran and say, "Now what have you got to say?"
in any action with Iran,.. getting any boat or plane that can be used to attack US assets is critical...
the recent buildup of sweeps follows a large movement of carriers..
and talk of acquiring patrol boats refitted for close in operations..
The U.S. Central Command plans to bolster military capabilities against Iran by fielding new laser target-trackers for machine guns, enhanced sensors for underwater vehicles, improved protection against drone attacks and upgrades of U-2 spy planes.
The Tampa, Florida-based command, which is responsible for U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region, also wants to shift $5.5 million in previously approved funds to buy Gatling guns for Navy coastal patrol craft, according to budget documents.
The Central Command's intentions are spelled out in two "reprogramming" requests ,... "They're just areas I want to make certain we maintain our edge."
the military held war games and the results showed a stark lack of accurate coverage in the "less then four mile range"
Gunboats, Super-Torpedoes, Sea-Bots: U.S. Navy Launches Huge Iran Surge
Sending more aircraft carriers to the waters near Iran, it turns out, was just the start. Yes, the U.S. currently has more seapower aimed at Iran in the Persian Gulf than in the fleets of most countries on Earth, Iran included. But that was just the Navy cracking its knuckles.
In the next few months, the Navy will double its minesweeper craft stationed in Bahrain, near Iran, from four to eight. Those ships will be crucial if Iran takes the drastic step of mining the Strait of Hormuz, one of the global energy supply's most crucial waterways. Four more MH-53 "Sea Stallion" helicopters, another minesweeping tool, are also getting ready for Bahrain, to give the U.S. Fifth Fleet early warning for any strait mining.
Then the Navy will prepare to get closer to Iranian shores. Much closer. It's got five close-action patrol boats in the Gulf right now. Once the Coast Guard returns three that the Navy loaned out, the Navy will have five other patrol craft in the United States. All those boats are getting retrofitted. With Gatling guns. And missiles.
Sure, the guns aboard the two aircraft carriers currently near Iran are the seapower equivalent of high-powered, long-range rifles. "But maybe what you need is like a sawed-off shotgun," capable of doing massive damage from a closer distance, said Adm. Jonathan Greenert,
Add up the aircraft carriers, the Gatling-packing patrol craft, the Orions, the Sea Stallions and the minesweepers, and Greenert still isn't finished with the surge. Then come the new, advanced torpedoes that can compensate for the "turpidity [and] particulate" drags of the Gulf waters. And the drone subs — or, as Greenert put it, "some underwater unmanned neutralization autonomous units" to help hunt mines. And every Navy ship that sails through the strait will come equipped with new, modular "infrared and electro-optical" visibility systems that clarify the foggy Gulf even at night.
And if all that wasn't enough, Greenert disclosed that he and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will soon ask themselves if the Navy needs to rotate more aircraft carriers to the Gulf. That decision, so important that it's Panetta's to make, will come "in the next few months."
"I looked in every domain, undersea, surface and air," Greenert said, "to make sure that we're doing our best for the guys that are over there."
it isn't easy or cheap to deploy these force for extended periods.. expect a date in the late summer... after a brutal air attack on Syrian forces..
just my guess..
loomixguy
Well-known member
Oldtimer said:Sandhusker said:I think it's time that we simply take an afternoon and sink every damn boat that Iran has, down to the row boats. Then we look to Tehran and say, "Now what have you got to say?"
Now you're starting to sound like you're looking for a job as an advisor on GW's war propaganda team :???: :wink: :lol:
As the war in Iraq enters its sixth year, Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky have published a "definitive, footnoted, hilarious but depressing compilation of experts who were in error" about the war from the beginning. You can read more about the book -- "Mission Accomplished! Or How We Won The War In Iraq" -- here.
Below, an excerpt from the chapter titled "Their Finest Hour: America Readies Itself To Free The Iraqi People."
CAKEWALK!
"I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk."
- Kenneth Adelman, member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, 2/13/02
"Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse after the first whiff of gunpowder."
- Richard Perle, Chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, 7/11/02
"Desert Storm II would be in a walk in the park... The case for 'regime change' boils down to the huge benefits and modest costs of liberating Iraq."
- Kenneth Adelman, member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, 8/29/02
"Having defeated and then occupied Iraq, democratizing the country should not be too tall an order for the world's sole superpower."
- William Kristol, Weekly Standard editor, and Lawrence F. Kaplan, New Republic senior editor, 2/24/03
HOW MANY TROOPS WILL BE NEEDED?
"I would be surprised if we need anything like the 200,000 figure that is sometimes discussed in the press. A much smaller force, principally special operations forces, but backed up by some regular units, should be sufficient."
- Richard Perle, Chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, 7/11/02
"I don't believe that anything like a long-term commitment of 150,000 Americans would be necessary."
- Richard Perle, speaking at a conference on "Post-Saddam Iraq" sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, 10/3/02
"I would say that what's been mobilized to this point -- something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required."
- Gen. Eric Shinseki, testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 2/25/03
"The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces, I think, is far from the mark."
- Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 2/27/03
"I am reasonably certain that they will greet us as liberators, and that will help us keep [troop] requirements down. ... We can say with reasonable confidence that the notion of hundreds of thousands of American troops is way off the mark...wildly off the mark."
- Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, testifying before the House Budget Committee, 2/27/03
"It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army. Hard to image."
- Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, testifying before the House Budget Committee, 2/27/03
"If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever, when we are, in fact, working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave."
- President George W. Bush, 6/28/05
"The debate over troop levels will rage for years; it is...beside the point."
- Rich Lowry, conservative syndicated columnist, 4/19/06
WHAT ABOUT CASUALTIES?
"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."
- President George W. Bush, response attributed to him by the Reverend Pat Robertson, when Robertson warned the president to prepare the nation for "heavy casualties" in the event of an Iraq war, 3/2003
"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"
- Barbara Bush, former First Lady (and the current president's mother), on Good Morning America, 3/18/03
"I think the level of casualties is secondary... [A]ll the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war... What we hate is not casualties but losing."
- Michael Ledeen, American Enterprise Institute, 3/25/03
HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?
"Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can finance, largely finance the reconstruction of their own country. And I have no doubt that they will."
- Richard Perle, Chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, 7/11/02
"The likely economic effects [of the war in Iraq] would be relatively small... Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits."
- Lawrence Lindsey, White House Economic Advisor, 9/16/02
"It is unimaginable that the United States would have to contribute hundreds of billions of dollars and highly unlikely that we would have to contribute even tens of billions of dollars."
- Kenneth M. Pollack, former Director for Persian Gulf Affairs, U.S. National Security Council, 9/02
"The costs of any intervention would be very small."
- Glenn Hubbard, White House Economic Advisor, 10/4/02
"When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi government and the international community."
- Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 3/27/03
"There is a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people. We are talking about a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon."
- Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, testifying before the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, 3/27/03
"The United States is committed to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will not require sustained aid."
- Mitchell Daniels, Director, White House Office of Management and Budget, 4/21/03
"Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for ther own reconstruction."
- Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary, 2/18/03
HOW LONG WILL IT LAST?
"Now, it isn't gong to be over in 24 hours, but it isn't going to be months either."
- Richard Perle, Chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, 7/11/02
"The idea that it's going to be a long, long, long battle of some kind I think is belied by the fact of what happened in 1990. Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that."
- Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 11/15/02
"I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to take that wager?"
- Bill O'Reilly, 1/29/03
"It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could be six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."
- Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 2/7/03
"It won't take weeks... Our military machine will crush Iraq in a matter of days and there's no question that it will."
- Bill O'Reilly, 2/10/03
"There is zero question that this military campaign...will be reasonably short. ... Like World War II for about five days."
- General Barry R. McCaffrey, national security and terrorism analyst for NBC News, 2/18/03
"The Iraq fight itself is probably going to go very, very fast. The shooting should be over within just a very few days from when it starts."
- David Frum, former Bush White House speechwriter, 2/24/03
"Our military superiority is so great -- it's far greater than it was in the Gulf War, and the Gulf War was over in 100 hours after we bombed for 43 days... Now they can bomb for a couple of days and then just roll into Baghdad... The odds are there's going to be a war and it's going to be not for very long."
- Former President Bill Clinton, 3/6/03
"I think it will go relatively quickly...weeks rather than months."
- Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/16/03
Hey, Old Whiskey Breath, didn't your man(?) crush say recently that Iran "is just a little bitty country"? You just get dumber and dumber every day........ :roll: www.drinklessnow.com
