[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Rather like the claims initially made about the transmissions during Gaza ships incident.

I heard no such claims so I can not comment.

Exactly, there is a boundary as there are two states but the location of that boundary is not established therefore the territorial claims by those two states are disputed.
The UN mandate under which the coilition remained in Iraq, and the british government and armed forces policies do not allow for operations in the disputed territory as that would be an act of aggression.

It is established. The current location of the established boundary is unknown. Colition forces operated under the most recent known location of the established boundary while the IRGCN operates where they wish and routinely violate the boundary.

And what does the treaty say about foreign countries?

What is interference to one country is assistance to another.

A misunderstanding??????
Was it what it was claimed to be? No

After the political BS died down it was.

Did the naval personell featured make several glaringly obvious mistakes in their own transmission? Yes

Where? The two videos of the incident are of communications from two different ships! The IRGCN boat is in contact with the USS Port Royal ("Coalition Warship 73") while the USS Hopper is on a different channel. The channel the IRGCN ship was previously transmitting on- they switched from Channel 16 to channel 11 but continued to transmitted briefly on channel 16 before the commander realized his radio operator had not switched the channel. (I have a feeling that the "Glaring Mistakes" you mention were not the obvious poor training of the IRGCN) FWI Channel 16 is requied to be monitored by all US vessels (USN, USCG, Civil) and is to be used for both distress calls and contacts between two approaching vessels. At that point a some local jack ass sends the famous transmission on Channel 16.

Were the claims made by the DoD and Whitehouse spokesmen at the time false? Yes.

False and in error are two different things, false implies malice. The Press Secretaries are not experts they are just good at talking.

The incident was indeed a misunderstanding by the US, but its portrayal was deliberatly misleading and false....rather like the claims made by the British at the time of their incidentand indeed the claims that were found to be tantamount to lying to Parliament.

How were the British lying? They agreed with the first Iranian claim of where the RN sailors were captured. The Iranians first press release showed the IRGCN boarded the RN zodiac in Iraqi Waters! It wasn't until the British government mentioned that that they changed their story.

Yea someone was lying to their government and I have the feeling it was an officer in the IRGCN.

I suppose its kinda like the Tonkin incident where the only real truth in the statement given was that the USS Maddox was indeed a US Destroyer

And that the North Vietnamese Navy operated torpedo boats, and the USS Maddox was hit by a 14.5mm shell, and a USN F-8 was also hit. Did we distort what happened? Sure. Did the North Vietnamese? Sure, they claimed to have hit the Maddox with a torpedo!