Iraq Claims Stark Violated War Zone, Pentagon Says

The Iraqi government claims that the U.S. Navy ship Stark was at least 10 miles inside a Persian Gulf “exclusion zone” when it was attacked by an Iraqi warplane whose pilot thought that the guided-missile frigate was an Iranian vessel, a Pentagon report disclosed Wednesday.

U.S. officials sharply disagree with Iraq’s contention, insisting in the report that tracking data from the Stark, an AWACS radar plane and two other U.S. ships confirm that the frigate was 10 to 15 nautical miles outside the zone when it was hit by two Exocet missiles.

Commonly called the “war zone,” the exclusion zone is an area of the central gulf that the Iranians have declared off-limits to all foreign ships--and thus an area where Iraq says it considers any ships to be hostile to Iraq.

In releasing the most detailed official account to date of the May 17 attack that killed 37 American sailors, the Pentagon said the dispute over the Stark’s location was the “essential difference” to emerge from a joint investigation.

“The (Iraqi) pilot felt assured that the target was within the Iranian-declared exclusion zone and that it was therefore Iranian or supporting the Iranian war effort,” the report said. “We are convinced Stark was 10 to 15 nautical miles outside the . . . zone. Iraq is convinced Stark was 20 to 25 miles further east, inside the zone.”

At the State Department, spokesman Charles Redman said the United States does not recognize “their so-called exclusion zones.” He added: “There is an international right to freedom of navigation in those waters.”

The four-page “narrative description” released by the Pentagon is part of a more extensive classified report prepared by Rear Adm. David Rogers, who headed a team of U.S. military and diplomatic officials dispatched to Baghdad to conduct a joint inquiry with Iraqi officials.

The inquiry was intended to establish “specific detailed procedures . . . to preclude a recurrence of this tragic event.” U.S. and Iraqi officials have agreed on those procedures, but the Pentagon said they are not being made public because they “are very sensitive.”

The Rogers team did not assess the performance of the Stark’s crew or the ship’s defense equipment, which is being examined in a separate Navy investigation. But its report cast new light on the sequence of events preceding the attack.

The team did not interview the Iraqi pilot but said his superiors reported that he was experienced, understood English and was monitoring the international radio channels over which the Stark’s commander said two warnings were broadcast.

According to the report, the pilot claimed that he did not hear the broadcasts and did not know until the next day that the vessel he attacked was a U.S. Navy ship.

The report said the pilot relied solely on his plane’s radar and, in darkness, apparently never saw the Stark. He fired two Exocet missiles 70 seconds apart, which struck the ship 25 seconds apart, it said. The first did not detonate, but the second exploded in a crew compartment.

The report gave this chronological account:

--More than an hour before the attack, a U.S. AWACS (airborne warning and control system) surveillance plane notified the Stark that a single aircraft, “evaluated as unidentified, assumed friendly, assumed Iraqi,” was flying in its general direction.

--At a distance of 70 nautical miles, the Stark began tracking the plane with its radar, as did a nearby destroyer, the Coontz. At 10:06 p.m. local time, when the plane was 27 nautical miles from the ship, the Stark realized that the plane had turned on its radar. The ship’s crew “evaluated” the radar signal as the type used by a plane when it is in the “search mode,” not “fire-control” radar used to launch a missile.

--At 10:09 p.m., when the plane was about 12 nautical miles away, the Stark issued its first radio warning, followed by the second 37 seconds later. Also at 10:09 p.m., the Stark “reported having detected a fire-control lock-on from the (plane’s) radio signal. Within this same period, USS Stark’s port lookout reported a visual contact evaluated as an inbound missile.

--”General quarters was sounded between 10:09 p.m. and 10:10 p.m. At 10:10 p.m., USS Stark initiated MK-92 fire-control (radar) lock on the aircraft. About five seconds later, USS Stark was hit on the port side. . . .”

The MK-92 system controls the ship’s guns and missiles, but the ship did not fire on the plane or missile. The report did not say specifically whether the ship’s Phalanx gun, designed to shoot down incoming missiles, was turned on. But it said that the Stark was patrolling with “all air and surface sensors operating and all weapons systems operational.”