“A covert-action vessel belonging to a technical group of the Intelligence Support Agency, code-named Madcap Magician, was attacked and destroyed by Iranian air bombardment,” Philip Freeman began. Freeman was the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the previous administration; his popularity and leadership had made him a possible presidential candidate after his retirement, but he had accepted the position of National Security Advisor in the new Martindale administration instead. It had turned out to be a good choice; he was very well respected, not only in the White House but in Congress and throughout the nation as well, on a par with Martindale himself.
“Casualties?”
“No definite word yet, sir,” Freeman responded. “The ship carried a crew of one hundred thirty-three. One hundred twenty persons were rescued from the United Arab Emirates; they escaped in four lifeboats before and during the attack. The rest are presumed missing or captured by the Iranian navy. The ship was lost, sunk by aerial missile bombardment.”
“Was it on a spy mission?”
“Very definitely,” Freeman said. “Operating under Executive Order 96-119, covert surveillance of the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian heavy warship surveillance and intelligence. The vessel was the base for an unmanned stealth drone the National Security Agency began using to photograph the Iranian warships in the Gulf of Oman.”
“Shit,” the President muttered. “Sounds like we lost a real valuable asset.”
“The vessel had been used as a seagoing platform for tilt-rotor aircraft and Swimmer Delivery Vehicles,” Freeman said. “In service for about seven years, just before Desert Storm. The unit had also assisted on the GCC attack on Abu Musa Island recently—they inserted special-ops troops with laser designators to help the Arab crews hit their targets. Yes, we’ll miss that platform.”
“We never should have sent it in the first place,” Secretary of State Hartman said. Hartman was the administration’s senior member, a former Wall Street investment House CEO and twelve-term Congressman from New York who brought an insider’s knowledge both of Congress and the world of international finance to a rather young White House. Hartman had also brought an extensive web of personal contacts with him—decision makers who preferred the old-boy network over diplomatic or political bureaucracy. “The GCC had no business attacking that island, and we had no business assisting them.”
“Intelligence reports said that the Iranians were gearing up to launch an attack on the Abraham Lincoln carrier group when it entered the Persian Gulf,” Freeman responded. “The Iranians stole those islands from the United Arab Emirates and started basing antiship, antiaircraft, and long-range ballistic missiles there.”
“‘Intelligence reports’ have been saying that same thing for years now,” Hartman said. “And Iran didn’t ‘steal’ those islands—they once owned them. The ownership is in dispute, that’s all, and negotiations with the United Arab Emirates were ongoing.”
“Iran’s not negotiating any longer,” Freeman said. “It looks like the Iranians are going to block the Strait of Hormuz with their aircraft carrier battle group.”
“They’re going to park their what?” Vice President Whiting asked in complete surprise.
“You heard correctly, Ms. Vice President,” Freeman said. “The Khomeini, Iran’s new aircraft carrier, has put to sea. A fourteen-ship battle group, including two of their three Kilo-class submarines.”
“Iran has an aircraft carrier? Since when?” Whiting exclaimed.
“Since 1995 at least,” Freeman responded, and related the details of its transformation from the ex-Russian carrier Varyag.
“This is unbelievable!” Whiting said. “And now they’re going to park that thing in the middle of the Strait of Hormuz to block anyone else from entering the Persian Gulf?”
“General, better give us a quick rundown on that battle group;” the President said.
“Yes, sir,” Freeman said. He referred to his notes only briefly; he had received many detailed briefings on the Iranian military’s recent developments and knew the information, updated daily, almost by heart: “The Khomeini aircraft carrier battle group is the largest and most powerful seagoing battle group in southwest Asia, with the exception of our own—and in normal day-to-day postures, we’re certainly outnumbered, if not outgunned. Most of the ships are ex-U.S. or ex-British frigates and destroyers, but new hardware was acquired over the past three years during the Russians’ big arms fire sales, and with arms deals with China.
“Leading the group is the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Although the Iranians call it a ‘defensive aviation cruiser,’ it’s a pure aircraft carrier, designed for high-performance fixed-wing aircraft, not just vertical-takeoff jets or helicopters. It carries an air group of twenty-four fixed-wing and fifteen rotary-wing aircraft, including two squadrons of twelve Sukhoi-33 Flanker-D fighter-bombers; it can carry probably another six to ten planes above-deck, including carrier-modified Sukhoi-25 bombers and MiG-29 fighters. The ship and the planes are top-of-the-line Russian hardware and weapons—the Iranians spent four billion dollars in the past five years outfitting this ship.
“The Khomeini carries lots of anti-ship and antiaircraft weapons as well,” Freeman continued. “The Varyag was originally designed to carry nuclear anti-surface cruise missiles; we don’t think the Khomeini has any nukes, but it certainly has cruise missiles, probably ex-Russian SSN-12 Sandbox, good against ships or shore targets. The Sukhoi-33 fighter-bomber carries the Kh-41 Mosicit short-range and AS-18 Kazoo long-range ground-and maritime-attack missiles, along with air-to-air missiles. The Varyag was primarily designed as an anti-submarine warfare vessel, and so the Khomeini still has a pretty good ASW capability.”
“It’s a violation of the Missile Technology Control Regime agreement to sell sophisticated missile stuff to Iran,” Hartman pointed out. “Russia and China both signed that agreement.”
“But Iran didn’t officially get them from Russia—they got the missiles from Ukraine, Serbia, and the Czech Republic, as well as North Korea. None of these countries signed the MTCR agreement—none of these countries except North Korea even existed in 1989, and North Korea thumbs its nose at the rest of the world all the time,” Freeman said. “The bottom line is this: Iran can get its hands on any military hardware it wants, and there’s little we can do about it. If we sanctioned every country that sold Iran modern military hardware, we’d alienate three-quarters of our trading partners.
“The Iranian carrier group also includes the Chinese destroyer Zhanjiang, a very capable guided-missile destroyer,” Freeman went on. “This is supposedly being used to House Chinese officers who are also training on the Khomeini, but the destroyer was involved in shooting down the spy plane, so it’s obviously responding to orders from the Iranian commanders. The Iranians did buy one conventional Russian cruiser, which they call the Sadaf, both it and the Zhanjiang carry a big payload of surface, air, and anti-submarine weapons, but its primary purpose is carrier air defense. The group has two ex-U.S. Knox-class frigates to help out with antisubmarine defense, left over from our arms deals with the Shah, armed with Soviet- and Chinese-made missiles and electronics plus four ex-British frigates and four ex-Chinese Houku-class fast guided-missile patrol boats for outer-area screening; these boats carry Chinese-made antiship cruise missiles. The group includes a whole bunch of support vessels.”
“Thanks to our ‘friends’ in Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Iranians have lots of U.S.-made ships and equipment,” the Vice President said acidly.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see Iran start flying F-16 fighters soon,” Secretary of Defense Chastain interjected.