The Revolutionary Guards in Iran accused the United States on Wednesday of fabricating a video showing Iranian speedboats confronting United States Navy warships in the Persian Gulf over the weekend, according to a report carried by the semi-official Fars news agency and state-run television. “Images released by the U.S. Department of Defense about the Navy vessels are from archive, and sounds on it are fabricated,” an unnamed Revolutionary Guards official said, according to Fars. The news agency has close links to the Revolutionary Guards. The comments were Iran’s first on the video, which the Pentagon released Tuesday. The Pentagon immediately dismissed the assertion. Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, told correspondents that Iran’s “allegation is absurd, factually incorrect and reflects the lack of seriousness with which they take this serious incident.”
President Bush chastised Iran on Tuesday for committing a “provocative act.” On Wednesday, at the start of a trip with Mr. Bush to the Middle East, Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser, again warned Iran, saying that it had “to be very careful about this, because if it happens again, they are going to bear the consequences of that incident.”
The unnamed Revolutionary Guards official asserted that the video had been released to coincide with Mr. Bush’s trip and “was in line with a project of the Western media to create fear.” The official said the sounds and the images on the video did not go together. “It is very clear that they are fake,” the official said. The video and audio were recorded separately and then matched, Naval and Pentagon officials said Tuesday.
The episode was first described by American officials on Monday, who said it took place the day before in the strategic Strait of Hormuz. They said five armed Iranian speedboats had approached three United States Navy warships in international waters, then maneuvered aggressively as radio threats were issued that the American ships would be blown up. The confrontation ended without shots fired or injuries.
The video runs just over four minutes and, according to Pentagon officials, was shot from the bridge of the guided missile destroyer Hopper. It supported the American version of events, showing speedboats maneuvering around and among the Navy warships. “I am coming to you,” a heavily accented voice says in English. “You will explode after a few minutes.”
Navy officials said the voice was recorded from the internationally recognized bridge-to-bridge radio channel. An American sailor then is heard repeating the threat, stating, “He says, ‘You will explode after a few minutes.’ ” The American is also heard identifying the Navy vessel as a “coalition warship” and announcing: “I am engaged in transit passage in accordance with international law. I intend no harm.”
Bush administration officials say they believe that Iran was trying to provoke the United States on the eve of the president’s visit to the Middle East. “We viewed it as a provocative act,” Mr. Bush told reporters in the Rose Garden on Tuesday, just hours before he left for the weeklong trip in the Middle East. “It is a dangerous situation, and they should not have done it, pure and simple.”