Bush Warns Iran of ‘Serious Concequences’

American Forces Press Service ^ | Donna Miles

[SandRat]

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9, 2008 – President Bush today warned Iran against attacking U.S. vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.

“There will be serious consequences if they attack our ships, pure and simple,” Bush said during a press conference in Jerusalem. “And my advice to them is, don't do it.”

Bush was referring to an incident in which five high-speed Iranian boats reportedly threatened to attack the USS Port Royal, USS Hopper and USS Ingraham as they were entering the Persian Gulf on Jan. 7.

Defense officials said the Iranian boats maneuvered aggressively, threatened the U.S. ships via radio and dropped objects into the water in the path of one of the ships.

The president said “our ships were moving along very peacefully off the Iranian border in territorial water -- international waters -- and Iranian boats came out and were very provocative. And it was a dangerous gesture on their part.”

Bush said that earlier in the day, Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, made it “abundantly clear that all options are on the table to protect our assets.”

During the press conference Bush also addressed the threat to world peace posed by Iran’s attempts to gain nuclear weapons capability, and he urged the international community to pressure the country to abandon its uranium enrichment efforts.

“I believe that pressure -- economic pressure, financial sanctions – will cause the people inside of Iran to have to make a considered judgment about whether or not it makes sense for them to continue to enrich or face world isolation,” Bush said. “The country is paying an economic price for its intransigence and its unwillingness to tell the truth.”

Bush said Iran continues to pose a threat, even after halting its secret nuclear weapons program.

“A country which once had a secret program can easily restart a secret program,” he said. “A country which can enrich for civilian purposes can easily transfer that knowledge to a military program.”

Bush said the international community must recognize the threat Iran poses, and said the United States will continue working with countries in the region, and around the world, to encourage them to work together to confront that threat.

Bush emphasized that the United States has no qualm with the Iranian people.

“It’s a people with a proud history and a great tradition, but they are being misled by their government,” he said. “The actions of their government are causing there to be isolation and economic stagnation.”

(John Valceanu, of the American Forces Press Service, also contributed to this article.)

Related Sites:
Transcript

Related Articles:
Bush Cites ‘Historic Opportunity’ to Fight Terror, Support Peace

[SandRat]

and Ahd-Mini-Dumb won't listen.

[SandRat]

FR WAR NEWS!
If you would like to be added to / removed from FRWN,
please FReepmail Sandrat.

WARNING: FRWN can be an EXTREMELY HIGH-VOLUME PING LIST!!

[fortmarcypark]

Those Iranian speed boats should have never been allowed back to port. Instead they should have been made into
artificial reefs courtesy of a 50 cal machine gun. I’d much rather see a bunch of floating turbins on the sea surface than a hole in one of our war ships

[NonValueAdded]

Onoz, not the comfy chair.

[Chode]

no...

[TBP]

Adolf Ahmedgenocide isn’t listening, and why should he? After the way we wimped out in the face of his speedboats the other day, he knows we’re a paper tiger.

We should hve blown those boats out of the water.

[Parley Baer]

Bush means what he says. You can take it to the bank.

[Kolokotronis]

“Bush means what he says. You can take it to the bank.”

Like when he tells us that Islam is the religion of peace?

[WesternPacific]

I believe his actual quote was, "If you don't stop I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll, I'll, I'll, get emotional and cry!"

[SandRat]

"If you don't stop I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll,

No! That was Queen Shrillery. Saw it on TV. < / anti-Hillery snide comments

[mulder1]

Bush only cares about his legacy. He will try to bring peace to the Middle East at any cost. The decline and fall of Western Civilization has begun.

[molette67]

i would like to know why tose boats were allowed so close after the first message they sent we should have blowin them away

[Badeye]

Translation; Stop, or we’ll say Stop again!

Ahmadinijad is reportedly at odds with the Mullas due to Iranian domestic policies which have produced skyrocketing inflation, very high unemployment, and zero economic growth.

So he sends out five speedboats to produce a ‘incident’ that will ramp back up fears of our attacking Iran directly, which lessened with the release of the NIE report a few weeks back.

I strongly suspect thats why we didn’t blow them out of the water.

Its faulty logic, foggy bottom thinking at its worst. It only encourages the Iranians, which has been THE PROBLEM since 1979.

[reagan_fanatic]

Our ships should have been plowing through driftwood instead of our CIC getting up there and telling the Iranians ‘don’t do it’.

[TBP]

Darn good question. I guess that they were told by higher-ups to avoid a confrontation.

My view is if they want to be martyrs, let’s help them achieve their dream.

[molette67]

right on