Word: kuwaitis
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...Gulf is sometimes called the tanker war, and last week's skirmishes showed why. In a nighttime raid, Iraqi warplanes bombed several Iranian tankers near Kharg Island. A day later an Iranian gunboat hurled nearly a score of rocket-propelled grenades at a U.S.-operated Liberian tanker off the Kuwaiti coast; no casualties were reported. The attacks followed a bout of muscle flexing between the U.S. and Iran. Soon after Iran tested a Chinese-made Silkworm missile at the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Navy held its own drill, launching planes from a carrier in the Gulf of Oman...
...sparring also occurred in Washington, where the House of Representatives voted to delay by 90 days the Reagan Administration's plan to register eleven Kuwaiti tankers under the U.S. flag and provide them with a naval escort. The measure, however, was largely symbolic, because even if the Senate had followed suit, a presidential veto would probably have ensued. The reflagged tankers are scheduled to begin operating in the Persian Gulf next week...
...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...