00:00Have there been increased or decreased instances of Iranian vessels either approaching or trying to breach the blockade the longer
00:08it is in effect?
00:10And another question about the mine threat. Has the mine threat been neutralized enough to facilitate freer flow in the
00:18Straits?
00:19Well, to the second question, first of all, we are seeing vessels transiting.
00:23There are paths that are open. And part of what the president is threatening is ensuring if there's attempts to
00:29lay recklessly and irresponsibly lay more mines, we're going to deal with that.
00:33It's a violation of the ceasefire. So transit is occurring much more limited than anybody would like to see and
00:39with more risk than people would like to see.
00:41But that's because Iran is doing irresponsible things with small fast boats, crafts, like I said, with with weapons on
00:48them.
00:48These are commercial ships, in some cases, cruise ships, cruise ships that came through being threatened by these.
00:56So as far as breaching the blockade, it's been a pretty consistent or a number of ships at the beginning.
01:01Then you had the interdiction that the chairman described where we took out the engine room and disabled that ship.
01:07I think that sent a very clear sign that this is not a fake blockade. This is a real full
01:11blockade.
01:12We'll use up to and including lethal force if necessary. And that stopped. And other ships have have taken note
01:18of that.
01:19So any ships that have attempted, there's been levels of escalation, but none that far. And they've turned around. Absolutely.
01:26Yes.
01:27Good morning, Mr. Secretary, Mr. Chairman, David Zia, Real America's Voice.
01:31To follow up on Alexandra's question, how big are these mine laying boats? Can they be achieved from fast boats?
01:39And I wanted to follow up on my last week question about as jet fuel stocks in Europe reportedly are
01:45only about six weeks left.
01:46They get most of the jet fuel from the Gulf. Have any European countries reached out to assist in coordinating
01:52off the strait and participating in escorts?
01:56I know there's a lot of talks. You saw the I would call it a silly conference in in Europe
02:02last week where they got together and talked about talking about maybe doing something eventually when things are done.
02:08Those are not serious efforts yet. We would welcome that. We would welcome a serious European effort to do something
02:16about this strait and this passage, considering it's their energy capabilities that are most at stake.
02:22I think it's a wake up call. It's a wake up call for countries around the world. Either you have
02:26capabilities or you don't.
02:27Otherwise, you're at the behest of a country like Iran and the only country that can do something about it
02:32is the United States military.
02:34Do you want to talk about the mines and the small crafts?
02:37They have a variety of smaller Boston whaler sized boats. We have we have forces up there deterring and preventing
02:44them from continuing to do that.
02:46And we'll continue to do so pursuant to the orders of the secretary and the president.
02:50But it would reckless mining like that is a violation unwise to do that.
02:56You
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