Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson is awaiting the findings of a U.S. 5th Fleet investigation into the boarding and seizure of two Navy riverine command boats in January, but he told senators this week ahead of the investigation’s conclusion that Iran’s actions violated international law.
The results of the investigation are currently with leadership at U.S. 5th Fleet and ultimately will be reviewed by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, a Navy official told USNI News on Wednesday.
The service elected Richardson to be the final arbiter of the investigation because the majority of the issues that led to the 10 sailors being held by the Iranians had to do with manning, training and equipping issues rather than operational problems, the official said.
Press reports have said one of the RCBs had suffered mechanical issues and that the crews had worked late into the night before the incident cannibalizing parts from a third boat. The crews had never made the transit from Kuwait to Bahrain before and suffered problems with their navigation gear while underway.
What remains unclear, and will likely be revealed in the final report, is the rules of engagement the crews were operating under when they were approached by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy boats. Several experts have said that the IRGCN violated international law by boarding and seizing the ships and that there are typically protocols for the crew to follow if they’re approached by those seeking to board. It is still unknown if those rules were clearly established and communicated to the crews.
During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday, Richardson said that “there is always the inherent right to self defense in our rules of engagement. The specific ROE and what exactly unfolded as that happened will be part of the detailed investigation when that’s complete.”
Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. John Richardson testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 15, 2016. US Navy Photo
“Clearly international law would prohibit boarding U.S. sovereign territory, which those riverine craft were,” he added.
Committee chairman Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) expressed concern at both the administration’s response at the time of the incident and at recent news reports that Iran gained thousands of pages of information from Navy laptops, GPS systems and maps during the 18-hour detention.
“By failing to affirm and defend basic principles of international law, the Administration has placed our Navy and Coast Guard vessels, and the men and women who sail them, at greater risk in the future,” McCain said in his opening statement.
McCain later added that Iran forced the sailors to apologize on video photographed them on their knees with their hands behind their heads, broadcast images of a sailor crying while being detained, and then awarded the Iranian sailors involved in the incident.
“Wouldn’t you agree this was a humiliation for the most powerful nation on earth?” McCain asked.
Richardson told him that “according to international law there was no authority to board those vessels – those were sovereign U.S. vessels, they had the right to be where they were and they should not have been seized.” McCain, however, seemed unsatisfied that the Navy so far had only expressed protest and not taken any other action towards Iran.
Pentagon chief: Iran went against law in sailors’ detention
TheHill: Iran’s detention and treatment of 10 U.S. sailors earlier this year was inconsistent with international law, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Thursday.“As I made clear then, Iran’s actions were outrageous, unprofessional and inconsistent with international law, and nothing we’ve learned about the circumstances of this incident since then changes that fact,” Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee.Thursday’s remarks appear to be his strongest public statements against Iran’s behavior in January.
Carter previously said Iran’s actions angered him, but avoided labeling the incident a violation of international law.
“I was very, very angry at it,” Carter told reporters in January. “And I’m not going to give you the international law answer, but I can tell you, Americans wouldn’t have done that.”
On Jan. 12, Iran detained the sailors for 16 hours after their two riverine boats strayed into Iranian waters.
Since the incident, Iran has been releasing propaganda, such as videos showing sailors kneeling with their hands behind their head, apologizing and crying. This week, Iran also claimed that it collected 13,000 pages worth of information from laptops and other devices during the detention.
Carter’s labeling of the incident as inconsistent with international law comes after the Navy has repeatedly called it that.
Sen. John McCain who has been critical of the administration’s handling of the incident, said he appreciated Carter’s comments.
But McCain also pressed Carter on whether he’s planning any specific action to respond to the incident.
“You’ve made it quite clear that you’re outraged and all that, but what specifically do you recommend to do in response to that?” asked McCain, chairman of the committee.
During the incident, Carter said, the Pentagon was prepared to protect the sailors. But he did not offer a recommendation for how to respond to Iran’s behavior since then.
“At the time of the incident, we prepared to protect our people,” he said. “Turns out they were released in time. We later had the opportunity to see them being filmed and the way they were, and it made it very clear that that’s not the kind of behavior we would want to engage in.”
