Pentagon orders aircraft carrier to return home
WASHINGTON >> The Pentagon has abruptly sent the aircraft carrier Nimitz home from the Middle East and Africa over the objections of top military advisers, marking a reversal of a weekslong muscle-flexing strategy aimed at deterring Iran from attacking U. S. troops and diplomats in the Persian Gulf.
Officials said Friday that the acting defense secretary, Christopher Miller, had ordered the redeployment of the ship as a “deescalatory” signal to Tehran to avoid stumbling into a crisis in President Donald Trump’s waning days in office. U. S. intelligence reports indicate that Iran and its proxies may be preparing a strike as early as this weekend to avenge the death of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard.
Senior Pentagon officials said Miller assessed that dispatching the Nimitz now, before the anniversary today of Soleimani’s death in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq, could remove what Iranian hard-liners see as a provocation that justifies their threats against U. S. military targets.
Miller’s order overruled a request from Gen. Kenneth F. Mckenzie Jr., commander of American forces in the Middle East, to extend the deployment of the Nimitz and keep its formidable wing of attack aircraft at the ready.
The Navy had sought to limit more extensions to the carrier’s already lengthy deployment, but commanders believed the warship would stay at least another several days to help counter what military intelligence analysts considered a growing threat.
Pentagon officials said they had sent additional land-based fighter and attack jets, as well as refueling planes, to Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries to offset the loss of the Nimitz’s firepower.
Friday, the top commander of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said his country was fully prepared to respond to any U.S. military pressure amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington.
“Today, we have no problem, concern or apprehension toward encountering any powers,” Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami said at a ceremony at Tehran University commemorating the anniversary of Soleimani’s death.
Also Friday, Tehran notified international inspectors that it was about to begin producing uranium at a significantly higher level of enrichment at Fordo, a plant that is deep under a mountain and thus harder to attack.