From DefenseNews

 

Posted 02/20/07 11:06

Iran Stages War Games as U.S. Carrier Arrives in Gulf

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, TEHRAN, Iran

 

Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards on Feb. 20 staged a war game simulating an enemy airstrike as a second nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier arrived in regional waters in an apparent warning to Tehran.

The Revolutionary Guards’ land forces fought back the hypothetical airstrike from enemy helicopters, planes and missiles with 620 anti-aircraft cannon and shoulder missiles, state television said.

"Today, we are fighting back at all kinds of planes at low and average altitudes," said Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the commander of the Guards’ land forces.

"The maneuver is exceptional in terms of the number and types of the weapons used. We have used anti-helicopter weapons with a range of more than 10 kilometers," he said.

It was the second of the three-day "Power Manoeuvre" exercises involving 3,000 units of the elite force in 16 of Iran’s 30 provinces, the second war games staged by the Guards this month.

Although Washington has always said it wants to solve the standoff over Iran’s controversial nuclear program through diplomacy, it has never ruled out the option of military action against Iran to halt the atomic drive.

The exercises came as aircraft carrier John C. Stennis and its accompanying strike group joined the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Sea of Oman on Feb. 20, in a move widely interpreted as a warning to Tehran.

The Stennis "entered the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations ... to conduct maritime security operations in regional waters, as well as to provide support for ground forces operating in Afghanistan and Iraq," the 5th Fleet said from its base in Manama, Bahrain.

"We are ready, we are sustainable, we are flexible and we provide significant capabilities that contribute to regional peace and security," said the strike group’s commander, Rear Adm. Kevin Quinn.

The strike group, to which 6,500 sailors and Marines have been assigned, also includes the guided-missile cruiser Antietam, guided-missile destroyers O’Kane and Preble, and fast combat support ship Bridge.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran over the Iranian nuclear program are spiraling, with Iran set to ignore the latest U.N. deadline for it to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment activities.

"We are not planning for a war with Iran," U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said earlier this month when asked about the deployment of the second aircraft carrier group to the region’s waters.

"The purpose of that [deployment] is simply to underscore to our friends, as well as to our potential adversaries in the region, that the U.S. has considered the Persian Gulf and that whole area and stability in that area to be a vital American national interest," he said.

The U.S. accuses Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon, a charge denied by Tehran, which insists its atomic program is solely aimed at generating energy.

Washington has also alleged that elements in Iran have smuggled sophisticated bombs into Iraq have killed at least 170 U.S. and allied soldiers since June 2004. Tehran has rejected the allegations as "without foundation."

The Revolutionary Guards’ war games opened Feb. 19 with a flurry of missile test-firing which commanders said was aimed at strengthening the defensive capabilities of the force.

The IRNA agency said a total of 750 missiles and cannon munitions would be fired during the exercises, being staged less than two weeks after similar maneuvers by the Guards’ air force and naval units.

From Navy Times

 

Admiral: Iran’s war games brought buildup

By Jim Krane - The Associated Press

Posted : Tuesday Feb 20, 2007 20:03:38 EST

 

MANAMA, Bahrain — The Navy buildup in the Gulf region was prompted by increasing provocation from Iran, which has carried out war games and tested missiles perilously close to crucial shipping lanes for oil tankers, the top Navy commander in the Middle East said.

 

Over the past year, Iran brought its war maneuvers “right around the jugular” into busy shipping lanes in the Straits of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Gulf through which around two-fifths of the world’s oil supplies pass, Vice Adm. Patrick Walsh said in an interview.

 

During maneuvers, Iranian sailors loaded mines onto small mine-laying boats and test-fired a Shahab-3 ballistic missile into international waters, he said.

 

“The Shahab-3 most recently went into waters very close to the traffic separation scheme in the straits themselves. This gives us concern because innocent passage of vessels now is threatened,” Walsh said Monday.

 

Iran tested the Shahab during maneuvers in November, which it said were in response to U.S. maneuvers in the Gulf it called “adventurist.” Iran also showed off an array of new torpedoes and other weapons in war games in the Gulf in April.

 

The carrier John C. Stennis — backed by a strike group with more than 6,500 sailors and Marines and with additional minesweeping ships — arrived in the region Monday. It joined the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower after President Bush ordered the buildup as a show of strength to Iran while the U.S. launched a new plan to try to calm the crisis in Iraq.

 

The additional U.S. firepower has already ratcheted up tensions with Iran. But Walsh said the increase aims to reassure Arab Gulf allies and prevent misunderstandings that could escalate into outright conflict.

 

“That’s certainly what we’re trying to avoid, a mistake that then boils over into a war,” said Walsh, who leaves his command of the Navy’s 5th Fleet at the end of the month to accept a promotion to vice chief of naval operations at the Pentagon, the Navy’s No. 2 post.

 

Walsh said the Navy was responding to “more instability than we’ve seen in years” in the 5th Fleet’s region — with conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, tensions in Lebanon and the standoff with Iran.

 

The Navy has grown increasingly alarmed at what Walsh called Iran’s “provocations.” Once cordial Navy ship-to-ship relations with Iran in the Gulf have disintegrated over the past 18 months as Iranian vessels made “probing” incursions into Iraqi waters, he said.

 

Iran’s rhetoric “has been more strident, vocal and in your face,” he said.

 

“They threaten to use oil as a weapon. They threaten to close the Straits of Hormuz,” Walsh said. “And so it is the combination of the rhetoric, the tone and the aggressive exercises in very constrained waters that gives us concern. We can only conclude that it is an act done in provocation, and to intimidate and to strike fear into those in the region.”

 

Since the Stennis was ordered to the region, Iranian leaders have increasingly warned that the U.S. intends to attack Iran. They have warned that Iran would respond to any attack by closing off the oil shipping or attacking U.S. interests in the region.

 

The Straits of Hormuz are 34 miles across, but the shipping lanes in them are only about six miles wide.

 

Walsh said it was doubtful that Iran could physically block the entire six-mile lanes with mines — but hitting only a few vessels with missiles and mines would “terrorize” shipping and have the same effect.

 

“It’s more the threat of mines than the threat of closing the straits. That would have dramatic effects on markets around the world,” he said.

 

Walsh said his biggest worry was that Iran would underestimate U.S. resolve to protect its interests in the world’s richest oil region. He said the tone of Iranian leaders could make their commanders on the ground more reckless.

 

“It’s a mix and a formulation where you can have misunderstanding,” he said.

 

Asked whether the Navy would launch an attack on Iran if Iranian involvement were confirmed in a deadly incident in Iraq, Walsh said he was unable to discuss the Navy’s rules of engagement. But he added, “There are events on land that can spill over onto the sea.”

 

At the same time, Walsh said he understood that U.S.-allied Gulf nations were alarmed by increasing U.S.-Iranian hostility and fear military conflict could bring attacks on their soil.

 

Walsh said he was aware that a University of Maryland/Zogby International poll of Arab public opinion this month showed residents of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other allies believe Iran is far less of a threat than the U.S. and Israel.

 

“I’m trying to talk to those in the region, to give them assurances that the reason we’re here is to stand by them rather than to run from intimidation or provocation or bullying,” he said.