Word: kuwaiti
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Kuwaiti oil tankers once known as the exotic-sounding Al Rekkah and Casbah will soon be traversing the Persian Gulf bearing such familiar American names as Sea Isle City and Ocean City. But more than just the names will have changed. Under the plan President Reagan announced in the wake of Iraq's inadvertent attack on the U.S.S. Stark, eleven Kuwaiti tankers are scheduled to begin sailing under the Stars and Stripes next week. They will be captained by American skippers and escorted by American warships as they ply the world's most treacherous waterway...
Congress will not, however, allow confusion to deter. Instead, it is trying to legislate its confusion with a series of stalling actions. First the Senate, then the House voted to block Administration plans to put Kuwaiti tankers under U.S. Navy protection unless they got a report from the President on the risks and dangers. A report is due soon, which means Congress might actually have to make a decision on a plan that the Administration first presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee in March. At which time, pre-Stark, congressional leaders showed little...
Second, this scenario -- "their oil" in the gulf, "ours" safely elsewhere -- is not just false, it is beside the point. The reason for reflagging Kuwaiti tankers has little to do with securing Western oil supplies. There is no new threat to world oil supplies. Iran has long threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz and long desisted, for the simple reason that nearly all its own oil flows through the strait. And the tanker war in the Persian Gulf has been raging for almost four years, during which time the world has seen the greatest oil glut and sharpest price...
...Hormuz. Drawing up a wide range of such plans is routine procedure. Testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Admiral William Crowe, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said nothing directly about the Silkworms. But speaking of the Reagan Administration's plan to have U.S. warships escort Kuwaiti tankers through the gulf, he warned, "There are no absolute guarantees that such an operation will be casualty free or that Iran will not escalate the sea war, which will present us with further difficult choices...
Reagan defended his Kuwaiti escort service as the best way to protect oil shipments to the West. Citing the gas lines facing motorists in the late- 1970s, he vowed that "our national economy will never again be held captive." But the Administration has other motives. By assisting Iraq's ally, the U.S. hopes to counter the growing Soviet presence in the gulf. The Administration offered to reflag the vessels only after the Soviet Union aided the Kuwaitis by leasing them three tankers last March. While the Administration insists it is still neutral in the 6 1/2-year war between Iran...