Follow-up on the Hormuz 'incident'

FAIR

After Iran released its own video recording of the event--which showed a more routine exchange between the U.S. and Iranian vessels--the Pentagon distanced itself from the claim that the Iranian boats had issued a verbal threat. Three days after its original report citing unnamed officials who implied the threat had been issued from the boats, the L.A. Times (1/11/08) "clarified" that a key part of the official version of events was inaccurate: "Clarifying earlier accounts, officials said Thursday that they did not know whether a radio call in which a voice threatened to 'explode' the U.S. ships came from the small boats or whether it came from another source." Retreating from the account that definitely attributed the transmission to the speedboats, the officials now said only that "the radio threat was received at the same time as the encounter with the Iranian boats."