WASHINGTON — Officials at the Pentagon breathed a collective sigh of relief this week after receiving word that the tankers damaged Thursday in the Gulf of Oman were actually accidental collisions with US Navy warships.
According to reports from 7th Fleet, both tankers were damaged nearly simultaneously by the USS Boxer (LHD 4) and the USS John P. Murtha (LPD 26) in completely unrelated yet fortuitous acts of gross negligence.
"We are happy to announce that reports of Iranian attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman were merely incompetence and dereliction of duty on the part of the U.S. Navy and not the harbinger of future wars to come," said 7th Fleet commander Vice Adm. Phillip G. Sawyer.
