US Never Apologized or Admitted Shooting Down Iran Air Plane in 1988

Proof??

July 19, 2014
When the U.S. Navy Shot Down a Civilian Airliner
Dale Steinreich

Fox News keeps playing Ronald Reagan’s indignant response to the Soviets shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 on September 1, 1983 and killing 269 passengers. (I just saw it again a few minutes ago on Jenine “Bomb Them, Bomb Them, Keep Bombing Them, Bomb Them Again and Again” Pirro’s Justice show.) Reagan’s statement is supposedly a favorable contrast to Obama’s inept response to the recent shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. (Even a former progressive war blogger now turned Beltarian seems enraptured with the apotheosis of St. Reagan.)

Down the Memory Hole is Iran Air Flight 655, shot down by the USS Vincennes on July 3, 1988. The Airbus A300 was flying in Iranian airspace and the Vincennes was sitting in Iranian waters. A total of 290 passengers (including 66 children) were killed.

Vincennes was known in the Navy as “Robo Cruiser,” a ship under the aggressive command of Captain Will Rogers III who, along with his crew, seemed to like to menace and shoot just about anything that moved.

Reagan’s contemptuous initial response to reporters: “Understandable…Ever been in combat?” he angrily snapped. Later on Reagan from Camp David:

We deeply regret any loss of life. The course of the Iranian civilian airliner was such that it was headed directly for the U.S.S. Vincennes, which was at the time engaged with five Iranian Boghammar boats that had attacked our forces. When the aircraft failed to heed repeated warnings, the Vincennes followed standing orders and widely publicized procedures, firing to protect itself against possible attack.

Navy Commander David Carlson, in charge of the USS Sides in the Gulf that day, begged to differ with Reagan on just about every detail. In the September 1989 Naval Institute Proceedings, Carlson wrote:

When the decision was made to shoot down the Airbus, the airliner was climbing, not diving; it was showing the proper identification friend-or-foe (IFF Mode III); and it was in the correct flight corridor from Bandar Abbas to Dubai…The Vincennes was never under attack by Iranian aircraft…There was no coordinated attack involving the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps boats and Iranian military forces.

Having watched the performance of the Vincennes for a month before the incident, my impression was clearly that an atmosphere of restraint was not her long suit…Her actions appeared to be consistently aggressive, and had become a topic of wardroom conversation…’Robo Cruiser’ was the unamusing nickname that someone jokingly came up with for her, and it stuck.

At the time, the Navy asserted that Revolutionary Guard gunboats attacked the Vincennes first, but Carlson revealed that the Vincennes sought permission to open fire on them, a protocol unnecessary if the ship had already been under actual attack.

Unlike the South Koreans and Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Iranians never received an apology from the U.S. government for the killing of 254 Iranians and 36 others on Iran Air Flight 655. Nevertheless, U.S. taxpayers apparently got a bill for $132 million in compensation the U.S. paid to Iran to make Iran’s suit against the U.S. in the International Court of Justice go away.

And your point is...

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Vice President George H.W. Bush said before the UN: “I will never apologize for the United States – I don’t care what the facts are.”

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That is so bad it's almost unbelievable.

This attitude is why you're getting Rick Perry as your GOP nominee.

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Has Iran ever apologized for storming our embassy and taking our citizens hostage for over 400 years?

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Who cares? We're better than that. You admit it when you're wrong. If you're sorry, you apologize. If you're not, don't. But we should be sorry for killing almost 300 civilians.

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Who cares? We're better than that. You admit it when you're wrong. If you're sorry, you apologize. If you're not, don't. But we should be sorry for killing almost 300 civilians.

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You're right a want. I guess I just get flustered because 99% of the posters who bring up shite like this had no idea this ever even happened and now they here about and think it's some kind of gotcha to defend Obama.

Where are all the posters calling for Obama's head because of the Malaysian plane? I haven't seen them. And the ones that are were going to call for his head anyway. So no, I don't think the US should apologize at this point. It's long in the past and there is no reason to dredge it all up except for political reasons. It's childish.

Reagan would have never let that happen.

LINK )

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-Iraq War[edit]

During the Iran-Iraq War the United States took active measures in the Persian Gulf to protect shipping, mainly oil tankers, that were being threatened by both countries.

Operation Earnest Will[edit]

On 14 April 1988, the guided missile frigate Samuel B. Roberts hit a mine in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will. Six days later, Vincennes was re-deployed from Fleet Exercise 88-1, sent back to San Diego, California and told to prepare for a six-month deployment. The reason for the haste: Navy leaders decided that they needed an Aegis ship to protect the exit of the damaged Roberts through the Strait of Hormuz. One month later, the cruiser entered the Persian Gulf, and in early July, stood guard in the Strait as the damaged frigate was borne out on the Mighty Servant 2 heavy-lift ship. The ship made 14 Hormuz transits during its Earnest Will operations.

Iran Air Flight 655 tragedy[edit]

Main article: Iran Air Flight 655

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On 3 July 1988, Vincennes, under the command of Captain Will Rogers III, fired two radar-guided missiles and shot down an Iran Air Airbus A300 civilian airliner over Iranian airspace in the Strait of Hormuz, killing all 290 passengers and crew on board. According to Captain Rogers, they were being attacked by eight Iranian gun boats. Vincennes was defending itself from this attack when the plane was shot at with two Standard missiles. Crucially, the Vincennes misidentified the Iranian Airbus as an attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter aircraft. The Iran Air Flight 655 was climbing at the time and its radio transmitter was on the Mode III civilian code rather than on the purely military Mode II, as recorded by the USS Vincennes own shipboard Aegis Combat System.

The Iranian government has maintained that the Vincennes knowingly shot down the civilian aircraft.[3] Iran Air flight IR655 flew every day out of Bandar Abbas—a civil as well as military airport—on a scheduled passenger flight to Dubai using established air lanes. The Italian navy and another US warship, the frigate Sides, confirmed that the plane was climbing—not diving to attack—at the time of the missile strike. The U.S. radio warnings were only broadcast on 121.5 MHz, not air traffic control frequencies and mistakenly identified the altitude and position of the plane, so the Airbus crew, if they were monitoring "guard," could have misinterpreted the warnings as referring to another aircraft. Captain David Carlson of the Sides later said that the destruction of the airliner "marked the horrifying climax to Rogers' aggressiveness".[4]

1990s[edit]

There's a slight difference between de-stabilizing a country, and instigating faux separatist movements, and a ship that was trying to keep the lanes open for the shipment of oil for the world. The Vincennes had been under attack by Iranian gun boats, and the Commander made a tragic error in shooting down a civilian jet airliner.

The US made financial reparations to the survivors of the victims, and I don't believe Commander Rogers was exactly treated as an hero.

I remember when this happened. There was a lot of stuff going on in the Straits of Hormuz. It was an hot zone.

It's unbelievable how people on this board try to draw a moral equivalence between Russia and the US.

The US held full hearings on what happened. It never denied it shot down the jet. But if you're so hung up on an apology, consider this: It had only been a few years since the Iranians had held Americans hostage in their own embassy for more than a year.

So no apology. But if you're lucky you might get Barack Obama to issue an Hash Tag.

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the Commander made a tragic error

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No, it was worse than that.

He waved off carrier air, who could've made a visual ID. He was inside 12 miles of Iranian waters chasing the gunboats (which shot at his wop-wop if I recall correctly).

He wanted to shoot his fancy missiles.

All this was covered up. An island was deleted from a map so they could claim we were more than 12 miles off the coast. Do you know what we said? "They put dead bodies on the plane so we would shoot them down." I shite you not. That's why I laughed so hard at us scoffing at Ukraine separatists saying that.

And then we gave out medals.