U.S. Navy boat crew held at gunpoint aboard their own vessel in a photograph taken at the time of the seizure.

A U.S. Navy investigation board’s Report was publicly released on June 30, 2016, via a FOIA request.  Although the Report had been classified Secret/NOFORN, the FOIA request triggered an MDR (Mandatory Declassification Review) by the Navy.  In my estimation, the MDR process did not go overboard in redacting too many important facts of the case; it was a fair review.  Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michelle Howard, endorsed (with comments) the Report.

Rather than regurgitate the entire report, which, if read carefully cover-to-cover, takes about two hours, I will summarize the key facts here.  I also developed a map to help visualize the Persian Gulf geography that factored into the Iranian seizure incident.

In January 2016 two U.S. Navy coastal riverine patrol boats based out of Kuwait City received orders to make an all day trip through the Persian Gulf to the naval support facility in Bahrain.  Approximately half-way through their non-combat sortie, one of the two boats developed an engine casualty, and both boats stopped to troubleshoot and repair the problem.  While the two riverine boats sat dead-in-the-water in the middle (literally!) of the Persian Gulf, they drifted inside the territorial limit surrounding tiny, Farsi Island, which belongs to Iran.  Before the two Navy craft could make repairs, and get underway again, they were detained at gunpoint by patrol boats of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN).  The American boats and their crews were seized (without violence), and directed to follow the IRGCN boats to a jetty on Farsi Island.  The sailors and their boats were released 24 hours later unharmed, following high level negotiations.  A U.S. Navy investigation was immediately launched to determine the facts leading to the seizure incident.

Background Information

The entire Persian Gulf area, including the surrounding countries, fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. military’s Central Command.  The naval warfare & maritime security component of U.S. Central Command is a dual-hat leadership command held by a Vice Admiral who also commands the Navy’s Fifth Fleet (CFF).  Carrier Strike Groups (CSGs) patrol the Persian (Arabian) Gulf, the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman, the Red Sea, and northwest portions of the Indian Ocean (i.e.; the Arabian Sea).

In addition to the CSGs, CCF has numerous support forces located in, and around, the Persian Gulf.  One of the most important of these is Task Force 56 (CTF56), headquartered in Bahrain.  CTF56 is commanded by a Navy Captain (O-6).  CTF56 has numerous Task Groups structured under it for such things as: EOD, diving & salvage, and maritime security.  The maritime security component is Task Group 56.7 (CTG56.7), headquartered in the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Jebel Ali port facility, adjacent to Dubai.  CTG56.7 is a command billet for a Navy Commander (O-5).  The two Navy patrol boats seized by Iran were part of CTG56.7.

Standard Navy practice for CTG56.7 is to deploy a complete Coastal Riverine Squadron (CRS) from CONUS for a six-month tour (sans a small reach-back staff left at home for unit coordination).  While the CRS is deployed, its billeted commander is dual-hatted as CTG56.7’s commander.  CTG56.7, at the time of the seizure incident, had four detachments; one co-located with CTG56.7 headquarters at Jebel Ali, and three sub-deployed (remote) detachments.  One detachment was located at the Port of Fujairah on the UAE’s eastern coast, almost directly due east of Dubai; it is reachable by car in less than two hours.  The other two remote detachments were located in Bahrain and Kuwait City.  The two boats involved in the seizure belonged to CTG56.7’s three-boat detachment in Kuwait City.

The two incident boats were U.S. Navy Riverine Command Boats (RCBs). The RCBs come from Sweden, and are labeled as: CB90-class, fast assault craft.  The U.S. Navy purchased six of these boats.  RCBs are 52’ long, drawing just 2½’ of water, with a flank speed of 40+ knots.  By U.S. Navy standards, RCBs are manned for combat by a crew of six sailors; only five per boat were aboard at the time of seizure.  A normal crew consists of a boat captain (usually an enlisted, Chief Petty Officer), a coxswain, a boat engineer, and three gunners.  Enlisted boat captains have been trained, qualified and previously served as coxswains, engineers, and gunners.  Likewise, coxswains have been engineers & gunners, and engineers are also experienced gunners.  RCBs have some features similar to the Navy’s 31’ PBRs successfully used in the Vietnam War.  These features include: being fast, highly maneuverable (due to the Jacuzzi-style water jet pumps), and can transition from flank speed to dead-in-the-water in just 2.5 boat lengths.  RCBs typically carry a Mark 19 automatic 40mm grenade launcher, and three .50 caliber heavy machine guns.  Another RCB feature (common to all small watercraft) is its limited, 130 nautical mile operating range with a full fuel load.  The RCB’s range would figure into the events leading up to the seizure.

RCBs are typically crewed by Navy Special Warfare Combatant Craft Crewmen (SWCCs).  SWCCs are one of the most highly trained Navy career fields; almost as much as a SEAL.  Due to sequestration and budget cuts in 2012, The Navy merged Riverine Group 1 and the Maritime Expeditionary Security Group 2, into the Coastal Riverine Force (CRF).  CRF was created with two Coastal Riverine Groups, one near North Island in San Diego, and the other in Portsmouth, Virginia.  Each group has three CRS’ under its command.  CRS3 belongs to Coastal Riverine Group One in San Diego.  When the CRF was formed, it combined two groups with differing raisons d’être.  The new CRF launched comprehensive cross-training to level-set the skills needed to integrate the sailors from the two, now defunct, groups.

In-Theater Details Leading Up to the Seizure

At the time of the incident in January 2016, CRS3 was in the fifth month of its six-month deployment as CTG56.7.  When CRS3 arrived in-theater, the Kuwait City detachment did not exist.  After negotiating the Iranian Nuclear Agreement, the Pentagon deemed it prudent to activate a fourth detachment in Kuwait City to keep tabs on Iranian naval activity in the Gulf’s northern reaches.  To accomplish this, three RCBs and their crews, plus some support personnel, were ordered to stand-up a new detachment in Kuwait.

In my estimation, one of the ominous signs involving this new detachment was assigning a naval aviator as the Officer-in-Charge (OIC).  Giving the benefit of the doubt to the miscast OIC, I do not dispute the OIC’s leadership skills, above average intelligence, nor considerable educational background.  Beyond these “given” factors, however, it is not easily understood why a career aviator was assigned to lead a coastal riverine detachment that was outside of his normal skill-set.  The Navy investigation revealed that the naval aviator/OIC’s detachment leadership was laid back.  The detachment’s lax atmosphere was not a direct factor in the seizure incident; but, it was contributory.  Of greater concern to me was the questionable decision-making by CTF56 and CTG56.7 commanders.  Assigning an aviator as OIC of a riverine boat detachment was just one of the numerous, flawed leadership decisions made at both levels.

Based on investigation interviews, and the investigator’s additional research & fact-checking, the Report laid-out a character profile of Task Force 56’s skipper at the time of the RCB’s seizure.  I also took the time to conduct my own research into various aspects of the overall situation in CTF56, such as: its operating tempo, the regional situation it dealt with on a daily basis, command climate, ROEs, personnel issues, and the military equipment & weapon systems they employed.

My summary of the CTF56 commander can be stated using several common euphemisms, like: gung-ho, hard charger, failure is not an option, can-do attitude, et al.  In the arena of sociology and organizational behavior, some might translate the foregoing terms into a “Theory X” leadership style – often prevalent with a Type A personality.  There is nothing intrinsically wrong with these characterizations, as long as they are tempered at times with some moderation.  One of the themes that came through in the Report, and my own research, was the CTF56 skipper fostered a command climate of “will do,” not just “can do.”  Many decades ago I worked for a retired Army Colonel.  His command style was to shout, “jump” to everyone.  The only response he expected was two-fold: First, without hesitation, you leaped into-the-air; and the second response while you were airborne was simply, “how high?”  This may be an appropriate fit for the CTF56 command climate.

Speaking of command climate in CTF56, investigators traced several angles that surfaced in this regard.  One angle to bear fruit was the not-so-uncommon hesitancy to ask questions-of-clarity about command orders by lower ranking officers.  The officers indicated their concern about appearing like they were trying to “rock-the-boat,” as the saying goes.

About halfway through CRS3’s six-month tour in the Persian Gulf, orders came from U.S. Central Command to increase Navy maritime security presence in the northern Gulf.  This decision came in the wake of the successfully concluded Iranian nuclear deal.  The Bahraini detachment was the northernmost unit of CTG56.7.  Traveling from Bahrain to the northern gulf is about a 300-mile trip, one way; this far exceeded the RCB’s range.  CTG56.7 staffers immediately began planning the effort to stand-up a new detachment in Kuwait City for northern gulf patrols.  Although the Fifth Fleet could have ordered a larger, deep draft vessel already stationed in the Persian Gulf to take-on the new tasking, this was quickly ruled out for two reasons: 1.) Sending a larger combatant vessel into an area where they routinely did not operate might be seen as provocative by Tehran, and; 2.) Assigning a deep draft vessel to patrol the confines of the northern gulf posed an unhealthy security risk of being exposed to attack from too many directions at once, especially from land.  Since surveillance was the primary role of the new patrol – not armed reconnaissance – it was deemed more prudent to keep a low profile by using coastal riverine patrol boats.

The Kuwait detachment activation was carefully planned, and then back-briefed to CTF56 & CTG56.7 leadership.   The detachment activation plan was fully approved, and the planners received a pat-on-the-back for their efforts.  A good example of the well-planned detachment activation was the transport of the three 52’ RCBs from Bahrain-to-Kuwait.  The over-the-water distance between the two port-cities was almost 260 nautical miles – double the maximum operating range of an RCB.  The Kuwait action plan included loading the three RCBs aboard an Army coastal transport ship that went back n’ forth between Bahrain and Kuwait on a regular basis.  When the RCBs encountered the Iranian Navy a couple of months later, the two boats and 10 sailors were making a 259 nmi trip from Kuwait-to-Bahrain.  This is one of the numerous factors that belied the lack of effective two-way communication during CRS3’s Middle East deployment.  Deploying the boats to Kuwait was deemed to0 far for the boats to transit on their own, so, the Army hauled them up there.  Two months later, however, two boats were ordered by CTF56 to make the same lengthy trip (in reverse) under their own power.  None of the 10 crew members on the trip had ever made that long of a continuous, over-the-water journey in a small, open boat.  In order to accomplish the feat, the RCBs were scheduled to be refueled in open water, half-way through the trip.  Allowing the boats to make this long trip under their own power was a major factor leading to the seizure incident.

Considering the “will do” climate of CTF56, and the mirroring effect at CTG56.7, the orders for two boats to travel from Kuwait-to-Bahrain were not questioned.  The orders were issued with only a one-day notice.  In January 2016, the Kuwait boat detachment was significantly short-handed in maintenance personnel and spare parts.  In order to complete the mission, as ordered, the boat crews were up all night, making their own repairs by cannibalizing parts from the third boat.  The detachment OIC received permission from higher authority to cannibalize the third boat.  Instead of authorizing the cannibalization, higher authority should have probed the request, which would have revealed the lack of parts and mechanics. Another telling gaff resulting from the “midnight maintenance” work was the complete disregard for crew-rest requirements for small boat operators.  Crewing a coastal riverine boat at high speed in open ocean is just as debilitating as it can be for military aviators.  To say the least, the two RCB crews were exhausted before their trip even started.

One of the few correct actions taken prior to making the Kuwait-to-Bahrain trip was seeking route planning guidance from the navigator aboard the Army’s coastal transport; he made the trip dozens of times.  The accompanying map of the Persian Gulf shows the situational layout of the area.  Let me familiarize the reader about the maritime situation in the Persian Gulf.

Much has been spoken of the narrow Strait-of-Hormuz at the southern entrance to the Persian Gulf.  The strait at its narrowest point is 33 statute miles.  At sea-level, the two points-of-land are about nine miles over the horizon from each other.  In an interesting twist of geography vs. political sovereignty, the land on the Arabian side of the narrowest point in the strait is Omani, not the UAE, as many people think.  The land mass jutting toward Iran is the Musandam Peninsula, and there is only one small Omani fishing village, Kumzar, at the northern end.  Musandam is so mountainous, Kumzar is unreachable by land.  In fact, Musandam Province, Oman, is completely landlocked by the UAE from Oman proper.  The nearest Omani military facilities to Kumzar are 25 miles away by boat, in Khasab.  The U.S. Navy coastal riverine detachments in Fajairah & Jebel Ali, are approximately 70 miles and 120 miles, respectively, from the tip of the Musandam Peninsula.  The narrow confines of the Strait-of-Hormuz are carefully monitored 24/7, and it is extremely difficult (and potentially dangerous!) for any military force under, on, or over-the-water, to attempt an unnoticed provocative act.

The foregoing is mentioned as a contrast to the relatively more open areas of the Gulf reaching north from the Straits-of-Hormuz.  Traveling by water from Hormuz, you must go 130 miles west-southwest, and then another 470 miles north-northwest, to reach the northern limits near the Iraq/Iran border.  After moving away from Hormuz into the open Gulf areas, the narrowest area between Saudi Arabia and Iran is just over 100 miles across.  This narrowest point on the Arabian coast is 52 miles north of the large port city, Dammam.  One of the major difficulties for any vessel transiting the Persian Gulf is the preexisting natural barriers and obstacles, including numerous islands, and sand bars.  These issues can further reduce the Gulf’s navigable waters.  And, as if this were not enough, the various countries all have territorial limits that further restricts what is considered open, navigable, international waters.  The location in which the boat seizure occurred was the Iranian-owned Farsi Island (Note: The Farsi Island land mass is less than one square mile!).  The Gulf is 130 miles wide at Farsi Island’s location, just about in the middle.  Saudi territorial waters completely surround Farsi Island.  This means that if any vessel transiting the area wants to remain in open, international waters, they cannot pass through the 65-mile gap between the Saudi coastline and Farsi Island; it would be an encroachment of Saudi sovereignty.  Standard procedure for any shipping without official business in Saudi waters, is to pass to the east of Farsi Island.  Over-the-water passage between Kuwait and Bahrain cannot be made via a direct route without crossing through sovereign, Saudi Arabian waters.  As noted on the map, Kuwait-to-Bahrain is almost a 260 mile, two-leg trip around Farsi Island.  This was the planned track the boats were expected to transit on-their-own, meeting a refueling ship en route.

Report findings show that not long after the Kuwait boat detachment was activated, the concept of “running-a-tight-ship” waned rather quickly.   When the Navy investigators dug into the root cause of the lapses in normal military practice, much of the blame fell on the discernable lack of senior “eyes-on management.”  In specific terms: throughout the six-month deployment of Coastal Riverine Squadron, Three, three of the four officers over Task Force 56, and Task Group 56.7 (i.e.; the CO and XO from both levels), never visited the Kuwait-based boat crews.  The only one to make the effort was the XO from CRS3/CTG56.7.

Details on the Day of Seizure

Aside from the detachment’s midnight maintenance mentioned above, the Bahrain transit mission had operational problems before the boats ever cast off their lines.  Chief amongst the mission day problems was a four-hour departure delay.  Since the trip would take most of the day, the crews wanted to complete it during daylight hours; the plan was to leave Kuwait early in the morning.  Most adverse incidents & accidents occur due to a series of unplanned events.  If just one event in the chain of many can be stopped or avoided, it is unlikely the future incident/accident would still occur.  Clearly, the four-hour departure delay should have aborted the trip, and reschedule it for the next day. Unfortunately for the two boat crews, the mission was not aborted; they departed four hours late.  Navy investigators learned from boat crew interviews that scrubbing the mission would be seen as a failure of the “will do” credo, and bring unwanted attention on the RCB sailors.  Eliminating an important risk avoidance factor of transiting in daylight hours by ignoring the four-hour delay, was seen by the Kuwait detachment as preferable to getting their butts chewed-out for aborting the mission.  The four-hour delay ensured the crews would not arrive in Bahrain until well after dark.

Another contributory factor was the lack of mission surveillance.  Standard doctrine for small boat missions is to not only maintain periodic radio communications between the boats and the Tactical Operations Center (TOC), but, also monitor the boat’s physical location via GPS and other tactical sensors.  On mission day for the two RCBs, the TOC was never informed in advance about the transit mission to Bahrain.  Once the two boats left Kuwait, no one knew where they were.  The lack of alerting the TOC about the mission frag is another example of poor mission planning (non-existent, for the most part).  Had the mission surveillance protocol been followed, the TOC would have been able to alert the boat crews that their mission navigation was faulty, that they were deviating from the planned track.  In terms of situational awareness, the only entity with some sort of knowledge about the boat’s mission that day, was the skipper & crew of the refueling ship sent to the rendezvous location.

In another case of missed opportunity in breaking the chain-of-events, had the TOC been following the mission track, they would have spotted the route deviation almost the moment the boats cleared the Kuwaiti port.  The reason the TOC would have spotted the deviation so quickly via route surveillance is shown on the accompanying map via the blue route.  The blue route represents an approximation of the RCB’s actual route.  In an effort to make-up for the four-hour delay, the embarked patrol officer and boat captains decided to take a short cut through Saudi waters, rather than go out and around Farsi Island.  When the Iranians encountered the two boats which had stopped for an engine repair, they were 1.5 miles from Farsi Island.

The actual seizure itself was contributed to via some poor decision-making by the boat captains and patrol officer.  In the case of the two boat crews, there were nine enlisted personnel and one commissioned officer.  Based on training and experience, the officer was not a mission-qualified patrol officer, yet.  In fact, only one of the Chief Petty Officers who were qualified boat captains, was also a qualified patrol officer.  Legally speaking, the commissioned officer was only boat captain qualified that day.  Although the crew’s orders showed the one Chief Petty Officer as the patrol officer, he tacitly deferred to the commissioned officer to exercise patrol officer duties.  Part of the abdication philosophy held by the CPO, was his overt acknowledgement that the commissioned officer had more experience & training in conducting maritime navigation.  Aside from the track deviation, the commissioned officer made several, key errors in judgment & leadership, both before, and after the boats encountered the Iranians.

Navy investigators determined that of the ten sailors involved in the seizure, only one (a woman) was found to have used good judgment during the incident.  U.S. Navy boats and ships carry camcorders, and are supposed to film situations involving a foreign combatant vessel; this did not occur aboard either RCB.  The bright spot in all of this is the female NCO had the presence of mind to discretely record some video on her Smartphone.  The same NCO, maintaining situational awareness, recognized the likelihood that no one knew where they were.  In order to leave some kind of clue to their whereabouts, she activated the boat’s EPIRB (emergency radio beacon).  In VCNO Howard’s Report endorsement, the female NCO was praised for her efforts in trying to make a bad situation, better.

The balance of the incident investigation covered what occurred over the next 24 hours after the boats were seized.  Mistakes were made by some of the 10 crew members just prior, during, after the seizure, and during their brief captivity.  I’m not going to cover all of this in great detail.  Except for some action/inaction decisions made after encountering the Iranian patrol boat, but, before actual seizure, the rest had no bearing in preventing the incident. After the preliminary investigation report began making its rounds for endorsement, questions arose about the legality of Iran’s actions.  This led the VCNO to direct a JAGMAN investigation into international maritime laws, and whether Iran broke any of them.  JAG attorneys said Iran clearly broke several international laws in seizing and boarding the boats, as well as, illegally detaining the crews.

Investigations like this always look at the training received by mishap crews.  Several of the 10 sailors made strong statements about being inadequately trained for the mission undertaken.  This sentiment strongly focused on the lack of open water, maritime navigation skills.  The preliminary report findings cast aspersions on inadequate pre-deployment training.  The VCNO also ordered a deeper investigation of pre-deployment training.  This supplemental investigation demonstrated that training prior to deployment was appropriate for the defined mission, and that CRS3’s final exercise scenario was done properly, and they were ready to deploy.  The lack of more intense training in maritime navigation was justified by denoting the sort of navigation used for the 259-mile trip was atypical for a coastal riverine boat crew.  The navigation skills determined to be of use in the Persian Gulf after arrival in-theater, was one that deployed leadership should have arranged for on-location, supplemental training.  Incremental, on-location training is one that all service branches are responsible to set-up when encountering a local, atypical situation.  So, instead of blaming the stateside training cadre for inadequate pre-deployment navigation training, it became another local command failure.

I am sure that my thoughts at the time of the seizure incident were no different than anyone else familiar with the U.S. military.  It was a foregone conclusion that somebody (probably plural) was going to get fired over this incident.  The biggest question was: How far up the chain-of-command would it go?  The CRS3/CTG56.7 skipper was relieved of his duty while the investigation was ongoing.  Once the final report was endorsed and released to the various commands, the CO and XO of Task Force 56 were also relieved.  When the Navy released the redacted report on June 30^th, the JAG Corps was evaluating whether certain other individuals, such as members of the two boat crews, ought to receive administrative, non-judicial punishment under Article 15 of the UCMJ.  JAG lawyers were also assessing whether a UCMJ Article 32 hearing (sort of like a grand jury investigation) should be convened to decide if there was sufficient evidence to conduct a courts martial for certain individuals.  One of the concerns surfaced by incident investigators was the possible violation of the U.S. military’s Code-of-Conduct for service members forcibly detained by a foreign entity.  The investigators recommended that the Code-of-Conduct ought to be revised to better clarify a service member’s actions while in captivity.  Again, senior flag officers reviewing the Report concluded the Code-of-Conduct should not be revised; better training was needed instead.

Summary

The seizure incident & investigation underscored my longstanding belief that for the most part, when something untoward happens, it is usually related to one or more failures to comply with existing rules & regulations.  History teaches us that our first reaction to an incident is usually empathy for the person(s) wronged; in this case, the two boat crews.  An unfortunate fact-of-life is: The ensuing investigation often finds that one or more of the “good guys” erred in judgment, or maybe cut some corners.  It might be true that the Iranian seizure was unlawful, but, that had nothing to do with the multiple errors made before encountering the Iranian patrol boats.  My greatest hope is that further Navy action avoids ruining too many lives.  If any service members end up being punished, let it be no worse than someone being administratively separated, and not something adverse that will follow that person outside of the military.

Steve Miller, Copyright (c) 2016