PACOM Commander Takes Blame for Not Informing Media of Aircraft Carrier Movements
What really bothers me about this whole USS Carl Vinson story is why should the US Navy report to the media where their ships are at?:
The U.S. military’s top Pacific chief was in the hot seat Wednesday at a House hearing and took the blame for apparent miscommunication over the USS Carl Vinson carrier’s movements amid the rising tensions with North Korea.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump said in an interview the military was sending “an armada” to the Korean Peninsula and reports at the time indicated the carrier strike group was led by the Vinson. But as tensions mounted with North Korea over the nuclear and ballistic-missile threat, it was learned last week from a New York Times story the Vinson was actually headed in another direction and not toward Korean waters.
“With regard to the Carl Vinson, that’s my fault on the confusion and I’ll take the hit for it,” Navy Adm. Harry Harris, the four-star commander of U.S. Pacific Command, testified at a hearing of the House Committee on Armed Services.
Harris explained that he made the decision to pull the aircraft carrier out of Singapore and cancel a port visit to Australia. He also ordered the carrier to proceed north. However, he said, he failed to communicate that adequately to the press. “So that is all on me.” [CNBC]
You can read more at the link.
“took the blame for apparent miscommunication over the USS Carl Vinson carrier’s movements”
In other news the head of the CIA apologized for not releasing the names of their deep cover agents, Apple expressed regret at not publishing their source code, and KFC promised to be more open about their mix of secret herbs and spices.
Well there’s a major difference between an administration run by politicians and one run by business men. Obama’s probably wouldn’t have made it sound like it was going to be there in a few minutes.
The smart thing to do would’ve been to determine when the group would be in actual position to be a show of force and wait until the right time to make the announcement.
Sounds like Trump asked “What’ve we got?” and some Admiral said “Well sir we have this carrier group that’s…” and Trump was like “Ok, it’s heading there now, I’m going to go announce it’s creating tidal waves at the speed it’s racing towards North Korea!” but the Admiral then said “No wait sir, it’s still has stuff to do before it can go and it’ll take a week just to get there… sir! sir? Where’d he go?”
Gotta remember that people’s expectations of how things work in the military are usually wrong thanks to Hollyw00d… you know those guys who like to portray Apache’s engaging the enemy from 50′ away? 😛