Pentagon Held Up 4 Media Pool Stories for 2 Days

The Pentagon disclosed Wednesday that it has withheld from publication four dispatches it considered “sensitive” that were sent by a media pool covering the escort operation in the Persian Gulf.

The dispatches, which were received from the pool Monday afternoon, were released Wednesday morning.

Robert B. Sims, the assistant defense secretary for public affairs, defended his decision to withhold a dispatch written by two newspaper reporters, a story written by a news magazine reporter and two stories filed by a wire service reporter.

“That’s my responsibility,” Sims said. “I have to make the judgment. If it’s a question of adding to the risk versus waiting an hour or two, I’ll wait.”

Another Pentagon official, who asked not to be named, said that the four dispatches, written by reporters on board the convoy ships and transmitted to the Pentagon by the Navy, were held back for two days “because they contained information disclosing operational details of the upcoming escort mission that were judged sensitive.”

The first escort of Kuwaiti oil tankers got under way in the Persian Gulf at about 10:30 p.m. PDT Tuesday, and by 7 a.m. PDT Wednesday, the ships had successfully passed through the narrow Strait of Hormuz along the Iranian coastline.

The reports that were withheld noted that the two Kuwaiti tankers would hoist the Stars and Stripes on their sterns Tuesday, and one of the stories noted that operation was expected to begin Wednesday. The stories also said that three Navy ships would escort the two tankers, that the cruiser Fox would lead the convoy and that the convoy would sail at a speed of between 14 and 16 knots.

That information was apparently enough for the Pentagon to withhold the reports in their entirety, even though defense sources in Washington had disclosed most of that information Monday.

“We haven’t censored a word,” Sims said. “I resent the characterization of anything we’re doing as censorship.”

He said it was decided to hold back the reports until their publication would not alert the Iranians in time to activate missile batteries that guard the Strait of Hormuz. The Pentagon, he said, rejected the option of simply removing risky information and making the rest of the report available.

“Then we would have been censoring, and I don’t want to take on the responsibility of deciding what to take out or leave in,” Sims said.

In announcing Tuesday that the Pentagon had dispatched a small group of reporters and photographers to the Persian Gulf to cover the escort operation aboard two Navy ships, Sims had hinted that he might withhold some stories. At the time, however, reporters were unaware of the fact that he had already received two dispatches that he was withholding.