An Iranian gunboat set ablaze an American-owned, Liberian-registered supertanker in the northern Persian Gulf on Thursday, only a few hours after Iraqi warplanes attacked Iran`s main oil terminal on Kharg Island.
The Iranian attack against the 273,205-ton Peconic was the first ever against an American-owned vessel in the gulf.
In Washington, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the United States ”deplores and regrets” the attack but will proceed with plans to reflag 11 Kuwaiti oil tankers and provide them with U.S. military protection. He added, ”We have no intention of retaliation.”
A Defense Department spokesman, Robert Sims, said the attack on the Peconic ”shows the risk involved to unescorted ships in the area. It is certainly less likely that ships would be attacked if they are under military escort than if they are not.”
The House voted 222-184 Wednesday night to call for a 90-day delay in the reflagging operation, but the White House has made plain that it will ignore the call. On Thursday the Senate was unable to break a Republican filibuster being waged in support of the reflagging.
The Peconic is on a 20-year charter to the giant Texaco oil company. Texaco spokeswoman Anita Larsen said in New York that the registered owner of the vessel is Gray Shipping of Monrovia, Liberia, a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S. firm Universe Tankships (Delaware) Inc.
Larsen said no Americans were among the ship`s officers or crew.
The Peconic was flying a Liberian ”flag of convenience” when an Iranian high-speed, Swedish-built gunboat attacked it with 18 rocket-propelled grenades off the northern gulf coast between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Although the U.S. Navy has stepped up its presence in the dangerous gulf waterway, American policy is to escort only ships flying the American flag.
The Liberian-registered Peconic was therefore not under U.S. protection.
Still, the attack, which started a fire in the Peconic`s starboard bunker tank and narrowly missed injuring its 40-man crew, underscored the sudden dangers facing the reflagged Kuwaiti vessels when they begin running the gulf gantlet under U.S. Navy protection next week.
Peconic skipper Michael Monogios told a CBS News interviewer by radiotelephone: ”Without asking me any information–the name of the ship, nationality, or from where I was coming, to where I was going–without anything, they started shooting grenades. We counted 18 grenades. . . . Then, when finished with the grenades, she left. She changed course and went away.” The skipper was interviewed as his ship headed for repairs in Bahrain after crew members and salvage experts extinguished the fire.
Knowledgeable shipping sources said it was highly unlikely that Iran attacked the supertanker because it was American owned and operated.
Rather, they said, the attack was consistent with Iran`s pattern of quick retaliation against Iraqi-related targets after attacks on Iranian shipping, and with Iran`s strategy of targeting Kuwaiti ships because of that country`s support for Iraq in the nearly 7-year-old gulf war.
”Quite simply, they are hitting anything on the Kuwait route,” one shipping source said.
The sources said the Peconic`s Universe Tankships operators are part of the New York-based National Bulk Corp., which rechartered the vessel from Texaco and won a contract from Kuwait six months ago to shuttle Kuwaiti crude oil to safe anchorage outside the gulf off the United Arab Emirates port of Khor Fakkan on the Arabian Sea.
The shipping sources said that at the time of the attack the Peconic had been heading empty for the port of Mina Saud in the so-called neutral zone between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
The two countries help finance Iraq`s war effort against Iran.
”The Iranians know just about every move anyone makes in the gulf,” one shipping source said.
The Peconic was the third National Bulk Corp.-operated tanker to be attacked by Iran in the last three weeks. On June 19, the Swedish-registered Stena Explorer struck an Iranian mine off the Kuwaiti coast, and on June 27, the Stena Concordia, also flying the Swedish flag, was attacked by an Iranian gunboat in the northern gulf.
Those ships are being repaired in Bahrain and Khor Fakkan.
The last confirmed Iranian attack on gulf shipping was July 2, when Revolutionary Guards in several small rubber boats fired five rocket-propelled grenades at the Spanish supertanker Santa Maria near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, causing light damage.
The attack on the Peconic came several hours after the military high command in Baghdad announced that Iraqi warplanes had bombed a holding area for tankers waiting to load Iranian oil at the Kharg Island terminal, only 75 miles north of the spot where the Peconic was later hit.
The air attack was Iraq`s third reported strike on the island since it resumed air raids on gulf shipping on June 20. The Iraqi raids shattered a monthlong lull that followed the accidental May 17 Iraqi missile attack on the frigate USS Stark, which killed 37 American sailors.
Meanwhile, two of the 11 Kuwaiti tankers waiting to be reflagged were anchored off Khor Fakkan Thursday undergoing inspection by U.S. Coast Guard officials, gulf shipping sources said.
A U.S. Navy guided missile frigate guarded the 401,382-ton Ar-Rekkah and the 267,911-ton Al-Faiha as the Coast Guard officials checked specifications aboard the two tankers to prepare them for the reflagging, the sources said.
The 1,200-foot Ar-Rekkah, to be renamed the Bridgeton, will play a key role in shuttling Kuwait`s oil exports in the northern gulf to the Khor Fakkan anchorage, where the oil will be transferred to tankers unwilling to make the dangerous run up the gulf themselves.
Kuwait now shuttles between 180,000 and 350,000 barrels a day to Khor Fakkan. Kuwait`s total oil output is 1.1 million barrels a day.
Rep. Les Aspin (D., Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, warned in Washington earlier this week after returning from a visit to the gulf that U.S. warships could end up protecting 100 percent of Kuwait`s crude and refined oil exports.
But gulf shipping sources said a Kuwaiti plan to charge higher rates for shuttled oil virtually assured that the majority of its exports would not be transshipped from Khor Fakkan.
Starting in August, Kuwait will be charging most customers a 30-cent-a-barrel surcharge on shuttled oil, the sources said. It will be cheaper for buyers to go into the northern gulf and pick up the oil themselves, they said, despite the dangers from Iran and higher insurance rates.
The sources said 6 of the 11 vessels to be reflagged would be needed for long-haul voyages to the Netherlands and Japan.
Four would be carrying refined products to closer destinations outside the gulf, leaving the renamed Bridgeton to help shuttle crude oil.
The Kuwaitis also have chartered three Soviet tankers that are being used for the shuttle. One of them, the Marshal Chuykov, already has hit an Iranian mine.
