00:00And with U.S. officials sending mixed messages at the moment about escorting tankers through
00:06the Strait of Hormuz, what does this tell us about America's readiness to protect
00:12shipping in the Gulf and just how difficult that could be?
00:17Well, this operation doesn't have anything to do with the escorting of shipping itself.
00:24The escorting of shipping will depend upon a completely separate set of circumstances.
00:28So that's going to depend upon, first, we're going to have to ascertain, do we have the
00:33right asset force in place to confirm that we have sufficient demining capability, to
00:41confirm that we have removed all of the missiles, the mobile missile launchers, that we have
00:46confirmed that we can provide protective capacity against the drone force that Iran may use.
00:53Over time, we have significantly degraded Iran's missiles and drone force.
00:58It's been a remarkable success.
00:59It's something Iran can't deny.
01:01It's on schedule for how the U.S. military had expected to perform.
01:06It's just a simple fact.
01:08This said, the drone force remains.
01:10A small number of mines and mobile missiles will be a threat.
01:14And how that's dealt with needs to be handled in a very careful manner.
01:18Because remember, when you're dealing with a convoy, that's a very long, slow-moving of a number
01:25of vessels.
01:25And you want to limit their exposure.
01:27So you don't want to expose them to a potential threat unless you've ensured that you've reduced
01:32that to the smallest amount possible.
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