U.S. Navy Jets Practice Escort Duty Near Gulf

Navy warplanes flew missions just south of the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend in a rehearsal of their role in the U.S. escort of Kuwaiti oil tankers through the Persian Gulf, a duty expected to begin later this month, Pentagon officials said Monday.

The flights took place a day after U.S. officials discovered that Iran had loaded an HY-2 Silkworm anti-ship missile on a launcher at Kuhestak, near the entrance to the strait.

But a senior Pentagon official said the installation was dismantled by Saturday, when the Navy flights took place. “As of Saturday morning, the launcher had vanished, the missile had vanished,” he said.

“There were no fireworks,” another official said.

Unrelated to Missiles

The officials stressed that the aircraft flights, launched from the carrier Constellation, had been ordered by the Joint Chiefs of Staff about a week ago and were unrelated to the discovery of the missile loading.

The launching of the planes “had nothing to do with the Silkworms,” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said. “It was not meant to be provocative in any way. It did not infringe on Iran airspace and was in no way related to the Silkworms.”

Pentagon officials had been concerned that the Iranians may have been preparing a test firing of the Chinese-made weapon but said the missile battery is not yet considered operational.

Officials said Monday that the United States still expects to begin escorting Kuwaiti tankers, reregistered to fly the American flag, through the Persian Gulf by mid-month, though a specific date has not been set.

Eleven reflagged oil tankers are to be given U.S. protection against attack in the “tanker war” waged by Iran and Iraq since 1984 as part of their bigger conflict, which has been going on since 1979. The ships of more than 30 nations have been struck in the tanker conflict. The Administration has said that the escort plan is designed to underscore U.S. determination to keep open international sea lanes in the gulf.

The Pentagon officials, speaking on the condition that they not be identified, said the Navy warplanes conducted their exercise over the weekend with five U.S. ships heading into the gulf to relieve vessels that had been on duty there as part of the Middle East force.

Stark Heads for Home

About a day earlier, the guided-missile frigate Stark, which was struck in an attack by an Iraqi jet May 17, had passed through the strait on its way back from Bahrain to its home port of Mayport, Fla. Iraq has said the attack, which killed 37 sailors, was a mistake.

On Saturday, as a cruiser, a destroyer, and three frigates edged up through the strait into the tense Persian Gulf, the Constellation--about 250 miles away in the Gulf of Oman--launched two F-14 fighters, two A-6 bombers and an E-2C command and control airplane in a dry run of the escort duty, officials said.

The ships’ arrival in the gulf brought to eight the number of U.S. warships on duty there, along with the LaSalle, the flagship of the Middle East fleet.

The aircraft were equipped with live ammunition, one source said, adding, “Only the (Kuwaiti) tanker was missing.”

While the readiness condition of the ships in the region was not increased to a higher alert status than normal for the operation, the crews of the vessels passing through the strait--and within reach of the Silkworms, had they been operational--were called to general quarters, the standard procedure for any five- to six-hour trip.