The Drums of War
"This drone was in international waters, clearly. We have it all documented. It's documented scientifically, not just words."
"[Someone] loose and stupid [in Iran shot down the drone'; this country will not stand for it, that I can tell you."
"[It made] a big, big difference [that a U.S. pilot was not threatened. The use of force is] always on the table until we get this solved."
"I don't want to kill 150 Iranians ... I don't want to kill 150 of anything or anybody unless it's absolutely necessary [by launching a retaliatory strike]."
"We very much appreciate [that Iran's Revolutionary Guard decided not to shoot down a U.S. spy plane carrying over 30 people]."
U.S. President Donald Trump
"[The drone] was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile system while operating in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz."American national security officials and White House congressional leaders debated an urgent military response last Thursday over a retaliatory strike related to the shooting down of a U.S. surveillance asset when Iran launched a missile from the Iranian coastline along the Gulf of Oman. A robust military response was favoured by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security adviser John Bolton; not so much, it appears by high-echelon military officials concerned over a spiralling escalation, trapping U.S. forces in the region.
"This was an unprovoked attack on a U.S. surveillance asset at international airspace."
U.S. Central Command
"At 00:14 U.S. drone took off from UAE in stealth mode and violated Iranian airspace."
"We've retrieved sections of the U.S. military drone in OUR territorial waters where it was shot down."
Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
That the drone strike took place a short while after previous Iranian disturbances which they deny but which left two damaged oil tankers that were traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, the oil world's vital waterway -- following hard on the heels of an earlier incident, and the declaration by the Islamic Republic that it planned to breach the key limits on its uranium enrichment of the 2015 pact which the U.S. withdrew from a year ago, spelled a constellation of disagreeable prospects. None of which ignored the necessity to keep Iran from possessing nuclear weapons.
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A Khordad-3 air defense system.
The
IRGC said it used a "3rd of Khordad" surface-to-air missile system,
images of which have been circulating now on social media as a symbol of
Iranian prowess
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Iran released its own GPS coordinates, placing the drone 8 miles off its coast and within the 12 nautical miles from shore claimed as Iranian territorial waters. The high altitude RQ-4 Global Hawk made by Northrop Grumman was no toy, about the size of a 737, costing a cool $100 million, and developed to evade the surface-to-air missile that brought it down, serving as a wake-up call to U.S. Defense officials.
The event gave Iran cause to accuse the United States of committing "a very dangerous and provocative act", in a dry reversal of what the U.S. most certainly could have described Iran's actions. According to a Pentagon official the drone was no closer to the coast of Iran than 21 miles, placing it firmly in international airspace. Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, helpfully explained that Tehran "does not seek war", but "is determined to vigorously defend its land, sea and air", and so it did...
Labels: Attacks, Drone, Gulf of Oman, Iran, Shipping, Strait of Hormuz, United States
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, June 27, 2019
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