September 06, 2019
President Trump called off a retaliatory bombing raid on Iran after Iran shot down a US drone in June, but it turns out he didn’t stop a cyber attack launched that very same night.
US officials told reporters the attack knocked out a crucial database used by the Pasdaran to target oil tankers and shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf.
The retaliatory strike by the US Cyber Command June 20 was approved by President Trump, although that same day he called off a military airstrike against Iran because killing Iranians would not be “proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”
The operation was first reported by The New York Times. It has not been publicly acknowledged by the US government.
The officials who talked with reporters said the Pentagon proposed the cyber attack after Iran’s alleged attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman earlier in June.
The cyber strike was designed to be debilitating — Iran is still trying to restore data, the officials said — but proportionate and not so provocative as to result in escalation, they said.
The explanations were anything but clear. It was not explained how Iran needed sophisticated computer programs to pick out tanker targets off its shores. The cyber operation did not target missile and rocket launch systems, the officials said.
The New York Times quoted officials as saying Iran has not escalated its own cyber operations against the United States in the month since the US cyber attack.
Norman Roule, a former senior intelligence official, told The New York Times, “You need to ensure your adversary understands one message: The United States has enormous capabilities which they can never hope to match, and it would be best for all concerned if they simply stopped their offending actions.”
