Word: gulf
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Worse yet, the U.S. military again looks like a gawky Goliath, beset by poor planning, faulty conception and just plain bad luck. Last week the Bridgeton, a Kuwaiti tanker now flying the Stars and Stripes, prepared to limp out of the Persian Gulf with a 30-ft. by 10-ft. hole in its hull caused by a mine that caught its American protectors unprepared. Jumbo military transports belatedly began ferrying minesweeping helicopters from Norfolk, Va. A Navy helicopter trying to land on the command ship of the task force crashed, with four Americans presumed dead. And the whole region...
...Bridgeton took on oil at week's end and another reflagged tanker, the Gas Prince, began its return trip with a full load, it was all too clear that the gulf is no place for ill-conceived operations. Had the mine been struck by a U.S. warship instead of the Bridgeton, the result might well have been yet another tragedy, with no easy way to retaliate. Indeed, from its inception, the whole reflagging operation has seemed drawn from Alice's curiouser and curiouser looking-glass world...
...Iraq has been responsible for most of the attacks on Persian Gulf shipping, and it was misguided Iraqi missiles that blindsided the U.S.S. Stark in May. But in response, the Reagan Administration lashed out at Iran and pushed its plan to put American flags on tankers belonging to Iraq's ally Kuwait...
...Naval officers in the gulf had predicted that one of the biggest threats to their ships would come from mines. But no minesweeping ships or helicopters were included in the operation. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger conceded that the Pentagon was not prepared for the possibility that the sea-lane skirting the Iranian coast might be mined. "We did not look for mines in that area," he said, "because there have never been...
...week, it was unable to negotiate the right to use bases in those two countries. The choppers had to be transported to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, 3,000 miles from Kuwait. It will take a ship a week to carry them from there to the Persian Gulf...