November 14-2014
The Islamic Republic sometimes has trouble keeping its propaganda lines straight. Remember that mockup of a US aircraft carrier that Iran was seen building earlier this year? US Navy officers said it was probably to be used in target practice by the Iranian Navy. Iran said that was all wrong; it was being built for use in a movie. Well, last week the head of the Pasdar navy said it is being used as a target for practice attacks.
Back in March, US satellites photographed a model of the US carrier Nimitz being built partly of wood in the Gachine dockyard at Bandar Abbas. It was just two-thirds the size of the actual Nimitz. It was clear, however, that the mockup was intended to be the Nimitz since workmen had painted a large “68” on the ship. That is the number of the Nimitz.
The New York Times quoted US Navy officers joking about the construction and speculating that the regime might plan to use it for target practice and then film it to show the Iranian public.
In Iran, state broadcasting said that was entirely wrong and the mockup was being built for use in a previously announced film being made about the July 3, 1988, downing of a civilian Iranian airliner by missiles fired from the USS Vincennes, a cruiser operating in the Persian Gulf.
The Nimitz, however, was nowhere around for that tragedy. At the time, it was assigned to its home base in Puget Sound in the state of Washington on the opposite side of the world from the Persian Gulf. That begged the question of whether the filmmakers had decided to embellish the story or whether the mockup actually had some other purpose.
Now, it seems the story about the movie has been forgotten. Last week, Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, the chief of the Pasdar maritime arm, gave another explanation for the dummy carrier.
“The destruction of US naval forces is among the objectives [pursued by] the Pasdar navy,” he said. “We are simulating this [mission] on a replica aircraft carrier because destroying and sinking US warships has been and will remain on our program.”
The mockup is essentially a barge with no engine so that it has to be towed.
Back in March, the US Navy appeared to be eager to get word out about the mockup and to treat it lightly in order to spike any propaganda ploy the Islamic Republic might have. However, they granted that the mockup might only be intended for internal propaganda purposes to impress the Iranian public.
The only US official who seemed to take the mockup seriously was Rep. Eliot Engel, Democrat of New York, who said, “We don’t really know what it means, but I sure don’t trust the Iranians. It’s some kind of ruse and whatever they are up to, it’s no good.”
The real Nimitz was commissioned in 1975. It is 1,092 feet (333 meters) long and displaces 100,000 tons. It carries almost 5,700 men and women and 90 aircraft and can reach speeds of 36 miles an hour (58 kph).