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00:00Obviously, you know this area well. If Iran is giving us gifts of allowing vessels to pass
00:05through the strait, if they're charging others some $2 million in order to do so, one could argue
00:09that is Iran being able to continually exercise control over this waterway. Is the U.S. Navy alone
00:16able to wrestle that control back? What would it take? It would take more than the U.S. Navy.
00:23I did convoy escort operations back in the 80s when President Reagan sent us there to do exactly
00:28this same thing, make sure that the oil traffic could flow in and out safely. And we didn't do
00:33it alone back then, and I really don't think the U.S. Navy wants to or can do it alone
00:37today.
00:38Now, obviously, we're the most powerful Navy in the world. We have a lot of capabilities,
00:42and certainly our destroyers can conduct these kinds of convoy escorts. But it's dangerous,
00:47it's slow, it's time-consuming, it's resource-intensive, and it's going to require a lot more ships than
00:52the U.S. Navy is going to be able to afford to that mission. It could take, you know, just
00:56to get
00:56through the straight itself. That's a good half a day transit. But depending on how long the route
01:03is, where you're picking the convoy up and where you're dropping it off, I mean, it could take
01:06days to a week. And with the traffic shut down the way it's been the last few weeks, it's going
01:13to
01:13take a while before confidence can be grown enough in the shipping industry to get back to anything near
01:19the semblance of traffic that was going through before this conflict started.
01:24Well, this is incredibly helpful, Admiral. It's great to see you. It's been a long time since
01:28we've heard from you here on Bloomberg. And so I'd like to hear a little bit more based on your
01:32experience of what it would take to reopen the strait militarily, because it's been suggested
01:36that we would need to have a full-blown, stand-up, a full-blown no-fly zone to help protect
01:41the naval
01:42vessels who would be escorting ships. The president has talked about volume, that he needed the help of
01:48our NATO allies, which he now says he never needed, to be able to create the scale. Is that correct?
01:54Is that the approach the administration should be taking?
01:57Yes. And I was glad to hear the president, when he did talk about the need for allies and partners
02:02to chip in, I think he was 100% right on that. And back to the origin of your question
02:07is,
02:07because it's not just about convoys, it's not just about a man-on-man kind of defense,
02:11putting ships with oil tankers. It's about ISR, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
02:18You have to have eyes on over that strait 24-7 so that you can see anything the Iranians might
02:23or
02:23might not be doing. And that requires, again, a lot of resources from the air. You're certainly
02:29going to need seaborne assets. And you need to worry about not just the mines. It's not just floating
02:34mines that the Iranians could put in the water or even seabed mines. It's their drones. I'm mostly
02:40concerned about the drones, air drones and sea drones. Sea drones can attack by stealth. Air
02:45drones can be very, very hard to knock down. They're very slow, slow moving, but they fly close
02:49to the level of the water. They can be hard to knock it out of the sky. And then all
02:53it takes is
02:54one, one of those things, whether it's a missile, a drone, air or seaborne, and of course, a mine to
03:00get through to shut down traffic for potentially weeks. So it's a very difficult thing to defend
03:06against, and it would require an awful lot of assets and an awful lot of time.
03:11How would two Marine expeditionary units and thousands of troops from the 82nd Airborne
03:18contribute to a mission like this or another mission, Admiral? What exactly do you think
03:24we could be getting ready for as we position these thousands of other American service members into
03:28this theater? Difficult to know, of course, what the administration's planning. But if we're just
03:33going to talk about the straits, the strait, the Marines could be helpful if you wanted to go after a
03:39couple of the small islands that bound the strait, which are in Iranian control and therefore could
03:46be used by the Iranians as bases to launch drones or even small boat attacks. So you could put the
03:51Marines on those islands and help, again, restore a little bit of confidence in the shipping industry
03:56that you've got eyes on, that you've got a presence and that you have the ability to defeat Iranian threats.
04:02There's also talk, I know, about maybe using the Marines to assault Karg Island, which is that island
04:07way up in the north of the Gulf, right off the coast of Iran, about 15, 16 miles off the
04:12coast,
04:13that they use for infrastructure. That's kind of their report of departure and embarkation
04:19for all the oil that comes out of the Gulf. And so there's been talk about maybe the Marines
04:23taking that over. That is a much taller order. It's a bigger island. And I suspect that the Iranians
04:28are going to want to defend it. In fact, I saw press reports today that they're already fortifying
04:32Karg Island in anticipation of some kind of amphibious assault. And then, of course, there's
04:38always the other option here, which when you have the 82nd Airborne coming, it certainly you can't
04:44ignore it as an option, is the potential to put U.S. troops on the ground in mainland Iran,
04:50in the area around the strait, sort of southern Iran, to try to prevent the Iranians from using
04:56their coastal facilities to attack ships in the strait. That is a much, much taller order for
05:03the U.S. military and would require an awful lot of planning, organization, coordination, and of
05:08course, time. And of course, it's very risky, very risky indeed. Yeah, I don't know if these are in
05:16some of the documents, the classified documents that the president had at Mar-a-Lago that mapped out
05:22Iran battle plans, Admiral. But we are seeing reports today that the Pentagon is developing
05:28options for what they're calling a final blow. And occupying Karg Island is one of them, as well as
05:34invading Loraq, if I'm pronouncing it right, the island that helps Iran keep control of the strait
05:40of Hormuz and seizing the island of Abu Musa to that same extent. Are these battle plans that you
05:47have seen for years? Are these options that the Pentagon has been looking at for other
05:52administrations as well? Well, I won't get into the details of operational planning or what I was
05:58cognizant of when I was in the uniform. But I can tell you that the U.S. military has long
06:03been
06:03looking at threats to the strait by Iran and coming up with contingency plans for how to deal with
06:09those threats. I have no doubt that after I left service, the U.S. military and Central Command
06:14continue to refine those plans and those contingency operations. I'll leave it to the planners to speak
06:20about what they're thinking or what they're what they may not be able to do. I would just tell you
06:24that if you're going to introduce ground troops, and that certainly appears to be an option the
06:28president has not eschewed, there is a whole new level of risk here. And quite frankly, a whole new
06:36level of potential escalation of the war. Once you insert troops on the ground, then you're in a
06:41different kind of fight than we are right now. Well, of course, the president hasn't ruled that
06:46out entirely. And to your point about there being some things that you are not able to communicate
06:50publicly, obviously, things can be classified for a reason and strategic ambiguity can be a real
06:56strategy. But I wonder if you see the administration as kind of straddling the line of not having
07:02credibility either, as they seem to President Trump or the Secretary of State, the Defense Secretary,
07:08others aren't necessarily sending a consistent message as to what it is we are not only trying
07:13to do, but what it is we're willing to do to get there. It's an interesting question. I think
07:18why I spent a lot of my time focusing on the Pentagon briefings, I wish they did more. I wish
07:24they had
07:24more traditional media in the briefing room. But when you listen to General Cain, the chairman of the
07:28Joint Chiefs talk, or when you watch the videos by Admiral Cooper, the Central Command commander,
07:32you do get a clearer sense of what they believe their military objectives are, what they've been
07:37ordered by the commander in chief to do. And it's pretty simple. They're pretty limited objectives.
07:42But then when you listen to the political messaging, it does tend to be all over the map. And it's
07:47very
07:48hard on any given day to, is it unconditional surrender? Is it regime change? Is it just the,
07:53is it just the nuclear program? Or now, you know, we're talking about maybe going after energy
07:58infrastructure on the ground in Iran. There's a lot of mixed messaging. This administration might
08:05contend that that's good, that that is strategic ambiguity, that that confuses the Iranians.
08:11But if you are, in fact, in the middle of negotiations, if you are trying to end this
08:16diplomatically, then clarity and concision in message is absolutely vital, not just for the
08:22public that's paying attention like you and I are, but for the Iranians, for your enemy and for
08:27your allies, Israel. And it's not clear to me that the Israelis share the same strategic objectives as
08:32the United States in here. And they get a vote in how and whether this war ends. So clarity and
08:37concision and simplicity in the message as you approach negotiations is absolutely vital. And
08:43I would hope that we'd be able to see a little bit more of that than we have in the
08:47last couple of
08:48days. Admiral, you, of course, were appointed Pentagon press secretary by Chuck Hagel when he
08:53was the defense secretary. So you know what it's like to stand up in front of that room and manage
08:57a
08:58press corps in a very sensitive environment here. And I'm curious what you make of the posture that
09:03this Pentagon has taken when it comes to journalists. Of course, we just saw a recent court ruling in
09:09favor of a lawsuit brought by the New York Times that struck down the administration's decision to
09:14curtail the activities of reporters. And in response to that ruling, the Pentagon says it's going to be
09:20kicking reporters out of the building altogether. They'll build an annex, some sort of outhouse on the
09:24property where reporters will purportedly be allowed to work, although they still won't be
09:29allowed to solicit information, even if it is not deemed classified. Is this all good for the country?
09:35I think it's it's not only not good for the country, it's not good for the Pentagon. It's not
09:40good for Mr. Hegseth and his leadership and and for what they're trying to communicate about
09:46the war effort. So I really hope that they revisit these policies and begin to allow more more
09:52briefings to occur and more media to be in the in the briefing room for them. And to have the
09:57press
09:57back in the building, I think, is important. Look, when you're talking about issues of life and death,
10:02war and peace, when you're talking about the U.S. military and the billions of dollars the American
10:07people are spending on their national defense and literally millions of sons and daughters who are
10:13in uniform, the Pentagon has an obligation. It's not a privilege. It's not an opportunity.
10:19It's an obligation to explain what they're doing with those tax dollars and with those young men
10:24and women in uniform and how they're using those resources to keep the country safe.
10:30It's an absolutely sacred obligation. And I always looked at it that way from the podium.
10:34So did Secretary Hagel when I worked for him, Secretary Austin when I worked for him,
10:37that we had an obligation to get up there and explain ourselves. The other thing I would say about
10:42access to the press and having the Pentagon press there with you all day long, and they were
10:47with me all day long, is it makes you a better spokesman. It makes you a better policy leader
10:52because you get to hear what they're hearing from their sources. You get to understand what
10:56stories they're working on. You get an opportunity to maybe shape their thinking about those stories.
11:01And I think you also, quite critically, get a chance to make better policy because there's
11:06nothing better for policy than to throw it open to the scrutiny of an independent press every day
11:12and let them poke holes in it. Let them ask the tough questions. You can actually, if you're wise
11:17and you're humble, as Secretary Hagel and Austin were, you'll change your mind from time to time.
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