From: amir@zeus.franklin.edu (Amir Taghavi)
Subject: Admiral's  Wishful Thinking  on USS Vincennes
Organization: Franklin University (Columbus, OH)
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 05:24:59 GMT

ADMIRAL WILLIAM CROWE SAYS USS VINCENNES WAS IN ...

WASHINGTON (JULY 21) UPI - The former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of 
Staff, Adm. William J. Crowe, Jr. reiterated Tuesday that the American Navy
cruiser USS Vincennes was in Iran's territorial waters when it shot down an
Iranian airliner four years ago, but he said it had every right to be there. 
   Crowe denied broadcast and print reports claiming that at the time of the
shootdown on July 3, 1988, the United States was conducting a covert operation
to lure Iranian ships into naval ambush and that the Vincennes blundered into
one such operation. 
   "I did not approve or order any deception scenario," said Crowe, who was
joint chiefs chairman at the time when U.S. Navy vessels, including the
Vincennes, were escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers in order to protect them from
attack by the Iranians, who were then at war with Iraq. 
   "We established control of the (Persian) Gulf without resorting to such
measures," he said, "Our first priority was not to lure them out, but to
convince the Iranian units, both large and small to remain in port." 
   Crowe made the remarks in testimony before a hearing of the House Armed
Services Committee called by its chairman, Rep. Les Aspin, D-Wis. 
   Aspin requested the testimony to inquire into charges, broadcast by ABC TV's
"Nightline" program July 1 and subsequently published in a parallel Newsweek
magazine article, that the United States had waged covert war on Iran, illegally
violated its territorial waters and then covered up these actions. 
   Crowe, who was interviewed for the broadcast, admitted then that the
Vincennes was in Iran's territorial waters when it shot down the Iranian Airbus,
killing all 290 people aboard. 
   "The Newsweek article insists that the Vincennes entry into Iranian 
territorial waters was 'clearly in violation of international law,"' he told
Tuesday's House panel. 
   "I take vigorous issue with that view," Crowe said, "A warship acting in
self-defense has the right under international law to enter the aggressor waters
to defend itself. That was the United States' legal view for as long as I was in
the Navy. Moreover, the rules of engagement...clearly permitted entering Iran's
waters if (the) ship was under imminent threat or engaged." 
   At the time of the shootdown, he said, both the Vincennes and the nearby
frigate USS Montgomery had reason to believe they were in danger from smaller
Iranian vessels engaging them. "There was clear evidence that Vincennes was hit
by gunfire," he said. 
   Crowe said the presence of the Vincennes in Iranian territorial waters, which
is now being cited as evidence of a U.S. coverup, was not even viewed as a
relevant question at the time of the shootdown. 
   "What has become a central point of the so-called coverup didn't seem
terribly important at the time or throughout the past four years to either the
media or Congress," he said. 
   An official classified report to Congress on the incident, Crowe said,
"included the investigating team's navigational calculations, which...placed
Vincennes inside Iran's territorial waters at the time of firing." 
   That information, he said, was not included in the unclassified version later
released to the press. It was omitted in order not to reveal U.S. naval rules of
engagement as well as because of concern with possible Iranian retaliation. 
   The ship's location, however, was correctly reported in a subsequent 
investigative report prepared by the International Civil Aviation  Organization.
While that report did not specifically state that the Vincennes was in Iranian
waters, it included a chart showing that it was there. That report went to 39
ICAO states, including Iran. 
   "The ICAO report has literally been in the public domain since December 1988,
over three years ago," Crowe said. 
   "Perhaps at the time of the ICAO release," he said, "we should have
declassified the ship's position and issued a press release pointing out
Vincennes' location within Iranian territorial waters at the time of the firing.

With the prescience of 20-20 hindsight, I wish we had done that." 
   The former JCS chairman dismissed the alleged covert operation as mistaken
interpretation of events that had been reported quite openly. He noted that the
Newsweek article quoted "senior administration officials" as saying that the
United States captured "several other minelayers" from Iran after seizing one
called the Iran Ajr in September 1987. One of these other minlayers was said to
be the Arya Rakhsh, whose capture was reportedly kept secret. 
   "Actually," said Crowe, "the Iran Ajr's pre-revolutionary name was Arya
Rakhsh. They were one and the same ship. This fact was actually briefed to the
press before Iran Ajr was scuttled. The crew was repatriated to Iran. There were
no other minelayers captured during the entire convoy operation."