DOD: More Military Assets, Additional forces and capabilities to counter Iran “threat”

Department of Defense Briefing on Iran

Katie Wheelbarger, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs; Vice Adm. Michael Gilday, Director of the Joint Staff

ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE KATIE WHEELBARGER

We wanted to take time today to make sure you understand the decision the secretary has made this morning.  In specific, in response to credible intelligence that we see that Iran continues to plan for attacks by itself and its proxies against the United States, its forces and our allies and partners in the region, the acting secretary of defense has approved a request from the CENTCOM combatant commander for additional forces and capabilities in the region.

These capabilities are intended to enhance our defenses, harden our positions and provide additional ISR coverage to see the threat, to be able to illuminate the threat more clearly.

I want to make clear that our policy with respect to Iran has not changed.  As the president and the secretary have been clear, we do not seek conflict with Iran.  We do not see these additional capabilities as urging hostilities.  We see them as defensive in nature.

Again, our policy remains an economic and diplomatic effort to bring Iran back to the negotiating table to encourage a comprehensive deal that addresses the range of their destabilizing behavior in the region.

That being said, the secretary is committed to ensuring the protection of our forces in the region, and hence made this decision this morning in response to a request from his combatant commander.

VICE ADMIRAL MICHAEL GILDAY:

Good afternoon.  My name is Vice Admiral Mike Gilday.  I’m the director of the Joint Staff.  First, I’d like to give some context on why — to what Iran has said and done in the past three weeks that have prompted the recent movement of additional forces into the region, to include those associated with today’s announcement.

In the recent past, Iranian leaders have publicly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz.  They have backed up those threats with actions, posturing their forces in an effort to intimidate the movement of international trade and global energy sources.

Recent actions by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to include attacks against foreign tankers in Fujairah and the attempted covert deployment of modified dhows capable of launching cruise missiles, are all part of a dangerous and escalatory strategy by Iran to threaten global trade and to destabilize the region.

Even more troubling, we have had multiple credible reports that Iranian proxy groups intend to attack U.S. personnel in the Middle East.

While we won’t be able to declassify all the available intelligence, we believe that Iran’s actions and threats are troubling, escalatory and dangerous to our U.S. forces, our interests and those of our regional partners.

U.S. Central Command commander, General McKenzie, requested additional capabilities to defend against these threats.  This is why the secretary of defense recently approved sending additional forces to the CENTCOM AOR, to include the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, a bomber task force and a Patriot battery, as well as the USS Arlington.

This morning the secretary authorized additional force protection assets, capabilities requested by CENTCOM for providing increased force protection for U.S. troops in the region.  Over the coming weeks we will flow additional intelligence surveillance, air reconnaissance capabilities, as well as force protection engineering and aviation units to the region.

These assets include a compliment of manned and unmanned platforms to collect intelligence and track Iranian cruise missiles, UAVs, and aircraft.  A Patriot battalion to defend against any missile threats, an engineer element to provide force protection improvements throughout the region.  And a fighter squadron — and a fighter aircraft squadron to provide additional depth to our aviation response options.

All together this amounts to approximately 1,500 troops in the region, while we do not seek conflict with Iran we are determined to protect our forces and interests in the region from attack.

We will remain postured and ready to respond.  We continue to closely monitor intelligence sources in Iran and their proxies for further indications of impending attacks, and will continue to remain well postured to defend our U.S. force, our interests.

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