White House calls Iranian-US Navy incident hardly routine

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
The White House said Tuesday that an incident between US and Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz was hardly routine, as Teheran is claiming. "It was not normal behavior," White House press secretary Dana Perino said. "It was out of the ordinary. It was reckless." The top US Navy commander in the area said an Iranian fleet of high-speed boats charged at and threatened to blow up a three-ship US Navy convoy passing near but outside Iranian waters on Monday, as they headed into the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian fleet "maneuvered aggressively" and then vanished as the American ship commanders were preparing to open fire, said Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff. No shots were fired. In Teheran, Iran's Foreign Ministry suggested the Iranian boats had not recognized the US vessels. Spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini played down the incident. "That is something normal that takes place every now and then for each party," he told the state news agency IRNA. "It's hard for us to tell what they were thinking or what they doing or whether or not they plan any such actions in the future," Perino said. "What I can tell you is our position is that they should not do it again."