CIA Fears Iran Will Retaliate in Gulf Venture

CIA officials say some kind of Iranian retaliation is a near certainty if the United States goes ahead with plans to escort Kuwaiti oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, congressional sources said Wednesday, disagreeing with a Pentagon assessment of the risk given to Congress only a day earlier.

Although a Pentagon report to Congress on Tuesday called the threat from “unconventional methods of attack” by Iran “low to moderate,” the CIA officials called that threat “high,” according to one source who heard the assessment at a closed briefing of the House Armed Services Committee.

The CIA officials said such “unconventional” attacks could come in the form of terrorist acts against U.S. personnel in the region or stepped-up assaults on non-American shipping in the gulf or mining in areas where Navy ships will conduct their escorts, committee sources said.

The officials, responding to reports that three ships have been damaged by mines in the gulf channel leading into Kuwait in the last three weeks, acknowledge that this new development may mark the beginning of Iran’s response to the U.S. policy in the gulf. The first of these vessels was a Soviet tanker leased to Kuwait as part of the Arab state’s overall plan to seek superpower protection for its shipping.

Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) said Wednesday in a speech on the House floor that the recent mining incidents form a suspicious pattern reinforcing the CIA’s judgment that the Iranian threat is “quite high.” He charged that the Pentagon report gives inadequate weight to the danger of mines and other “no-fingerprint attacks” on American ships.

Officials at the Pentagon, however, insisted that there is no conflict between their risk assessments and those of the CIA. “There is no difference between the DOD (Department of Defense) and the CIA on military threat assessment in the Persian Gulf,” according to an official Defense Department statement.

Mines Near Oil Port

One Pentagon official acknowledged that the Defense Intelligence Agency was aware of reports involving mines near Kuwait’s main oil port at Al Ahmadi but said, “DIA said it has no information to confirm that.”

Another defense official conceded that such mines could have been planted by the Iranians but added that “it is entirely possible that some mines have come loose from their tethers somewhere else in the north Arabian sea and gotten into that area.”

The Administration intends to provide military protection for 11 Kuwaiti tankers flying the U.S. flag in an effort to underline America’s commitment to keep open international sea lanes used to carry oil from the petroleum-rich region. In addition, there are plans to increase the U.S. naval strength in the gulf, including possibly sending a battleship and its escorts there.

The plan to protect Kuwaiti shipping has been severely criticized by those opposed to the expanded military involvement in the gulf, particularly since 37 U.S. sailors were killed in an Iraqi missile attack on the Navy frigate Stark on May 17.

The Pentagon, seeking to play down fears of increased risk to U.S. servicemen in the region, where Iran and Iraq have been at war for 6 1/2 years, released a long-awaited report Tuesday detailing its military plans for the escort operation.

The report conceded that “there is no risk-free way to safeguard our longstanding vital interests in the Persian Gulf.” But it maintained that “the presence of armed U.S. Navy warships will continue to be a powerful deterrent to Iranian attack,” indicating that the forces would be more than capable of responding to a direct assault by Iran, such as an attack by Silkworm missiles aimed at the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the gulf.

The CIA officials testifying Wednesday agreed that “the likelihood of (Iran’s) hitting us” in a way that could be directly attributed, such as an attack by the Silkworms, is “infinitesimal,” a committee source said. However, CIA officials stressed that the real threat is not a frontal attack but rather an “unconventional” Iranian response.

The CIA assessment is that the “Iranians have got to respond” in some manner to avoid seeming to back down in the face of U.S. pressure, one source said.

Similarly, one Pentagon official said he would not be surprised by a move by Iran against the United States “to save face” on the domestic front and avoid criticism by anti-American political elements in Tehran.

“When you’re talking about Iranians, you have to look at their track record,” a defense official said.

Nevertheless, Pentagon spokesman Robert B. Sims said Tuesday that Iran lacks the capability to conduct systematic mine-laying activities in the gulf and that the United States has no plans to move minesweepers into the region. The lack of sophisticated equipment to lay mines, however, would not prevent the Iranians from dropping such weapons from small boats into the paths of approaching ships.

“The Iranians aren’t looking for something sophisticated--they want something that works,” a congressional source said.

The Soviet tanker damaged recently in the gulf, the Marshal Chuikov, was struck while leaving Kuwaiti territorial waters, according to Tass reports. The ship was about 35 miles from shore in the early morning of May 17--coincidentally the same day the Stark was hit by two missiles fired from an Iraqi plane. The mine blast ripped a 420-square-foot hole in the starboard side, flooding three of the tanker’s compartments up to the waterline.

“Seamen on duty” said they saw “a speedboat without identification marks” come close to the ship and watched it for some time shortly after the explosion, the Tass report said. Iranian Revolutionary Guards have used such speedboats to attack ships in the gulf in the past, including an attack on a Soviet freighter farther south in the gulf May 7.

The second mine attack occurred May 27. The Primrose, a Japanese tanker registered in Liberia, struck a mine while about 20 miles offshore, sailing from Kuwait. It suffered relatively little damage from the explosion, according to shipping industry executives.

The third incident occurred June 9, 22 miles off the Kuwaiti coast. According to shipping officials, the Greek supertanker Ethnic was struck shortly after taking on a load of Kuwaiti oil. Initial reports attributed the explosion to a missile, but officials in Dubai, where the ship was inspected June 13, attributed the damage to a mine.