What may seem like a small story of interest merely to geeks and journalists shows that corporations do, in fact, tell their editors what they can say.
Last Sunday’s alleged confrontation between five Iranian boats and a U.S. Navy vessel, the Hopper, in the Strait of Hormuz was not the dangerous confrontation American officials claimed it was, as evidenced by the somewhat confusing footage the Pentagon released Tuesday. In fact, according to a source in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the video itself was “fabricated.”
The carrier group sent to the Persian Gulf to intimidate and irritate Iran apparently struck a nerve. The U.S. Navy says that five suspected Iranian ships came within “close proximity” of one of a group of three American vessels. The ships turned around and no shots were fired, according to a Navy official and news reports.