Iranian "3 Hour Tour" Delayed/Cancelled

(Image of the SS Minnow from Gilligan's Island).

Apparently the Iranian attempt to run the Isreali blockade has been delayed or cancelled.

From Ricochet:

http://ricochet.com/conversations/Iran-Ship-to-Gaza-Cancelled

From Time Live:

http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/article512971.ece/Iran-aid-flotilla-to-Gaza-delayed

Five days ago, a high amount of message traffic was exchanged over the story of a US carrier battle group entered the Red Sea:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138164

I read 3 articles on it yesterday when I saw it linked on Drudge - not a single one made it clear which direction they were headed! I thought they  were going to the Med (low interest) but maybe they are heading to the IO/AS/PG?  My admiration for the press knows no bounds (or really even existence) for their godawful reporting!


According to USN press releases the strike group deployed on 21 May and according to NAVCENT's website the carrier entered the 5th Fleet AOR on 18 June to relieve the Eisenhower's strike group. In other words, it is simply part of the normal rotation.

It's always fun when bloggers and people in the media get excited about routine deployments because they are too lazy to look up the facts. Two years ago there was similar drill. Some people got all excited about a possible strike on Iran because there was a French Rafale squadron doing workups with the TR's airwing off the East Coast and she was going to deploy to 5th Fleet with a French ship and British ship as part of her battle group. The thinking was that Washington, Paris, and London had finally had it with Iran and the TR with its airwing plussed up by a French squadron with allied ships in tow was heading to the AOR to kick some tail. Reality was of course a lot less interesting - our strike groups deploy with allied ships all of the time and the French squadron operating off the TR was there to do their annual qualifications because the Charles De Gaulle was in refit and it didn't deploy with the group.

There was some of this pre-2003...everytime a convoy of ships went somewhere, usually as part of an UNREP or other maritime replenishment of stocks, the blogs would freak and go "whoa, hey...."

Interesting this is raising so much hoo hah. Sometimes I suspect it reflects wishful thinking of the blogger/analyst rather than anything meaningful. As was pointed out, a lot of it is just reflective of how lame reporting is these days--these guys (and gals) seem to lack basic journalistic skills.