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Pentagon says US 'able to respond' if needed after Iran seizes cargo ship

WASHINGTON –  The Pentagon said Wednesday that the U.S. would "be able to respond" if necessary to help a Marshall Islands-flagged ship that was diverted, and boarded, a day earlier by Iran -- though it remains unclear how far the U.S. Navy might be willing to go if the tense situation escalates.
Obama administration officials have given conflicting signals over what obligation the U.S. has to protect the vessel, as the Marshall Islands and U.S. have a longstanding security agreement.
Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said a U.S. guided-missile destroyer, the USS Farragut, is in the area and "keeping an eye on things," and in close enough proximity to the ship that they "will be able to respond if a response is required."
When pressed on what kind of incident aboard the ship would elicit a U.S. Navy response, he was vague, saying: "These [U.S. military] assets give commanders options." He said he didn't know "what the possibilities are," and the U.S. government is "in discussions with the Marshall Islands on the way ahead."
White House and State Department officials also said the U.S. continues to monitor the situation.
The open-ended answers underscore the difficult and complicated position the U.S. is in, just a week after the U.S. and Iran averted a potential stand-off in the region over an alleged arms shipment to Yemen.
Though the Marshall Islands gained independence from the United States in 1986, the U.S. continues to have “full authority and responsibility for security and defense of the Marshall Islands,” according to the State Department’s website.
On Tuesday, the Maersk Tigris was preparing to enter the Strait of Hormuz when the Iranian Revolutionary Guard fired across the Marshall Islands-flagged ship’s bow and boarded it. On Wednesday, it was en route to Bandar Abbas, the main port for Iran's navy, under escort by Iranian patrol boats, according to Maersk Line, the company that had chartered it.
Fox News is told the crew is mostly being confined to their cabins. The parent company of the Maersk Tigris said Wednesday the crew is safe but offered few details about the incident that took place 24 hours earlier.
There had been conflicting signals out of Washington over whether the U.S. has a responsibility to protect the ship.
"I am not aware of any specific agreement or treaty that calls for us to protect Marshallese vessels," a defense official told Fox News on Wednesday.
But a day earlier, State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said otherwise. “The security compact between the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands gives the U.S. authority and responsibility for security and defense matters that relate to the Marshall Islands, including matters related to vessels flying the Marshallese flag,” he said at a briefing.
On Wednesday, Warren deferred to the State Department, saying they were correct. He clarified the U.S. compact with the Marshall Islands covers its flagged vessels. He said the U.S. has "discretion" to take action under maritime law, though it would require a presidential order.
Aside from the USS Farragut, he said three Navy patrol boats are in the southern end of the Persian Gulf.
The Marshall Islands – officially known as the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and a former U.S. trust – enjoy “associate state” status with the United States, meaning the U.S. agrees to defend the islands, and provide economic subsidies and access to federally funded social services. The U.S. initially gained military control of the Marshall Islands from Japan in 1944.
The islands have scant natural resources, and in recent years have focused on expanding their service economy – including delving into the shipping industry.
The Marshall Islands signed a Compact of Free Association with the U.S. in 1983 and gained independence in 1986. Between 1999 and 2003, the two countries negotiated an amended compact that entered into force in 2004. Section 311 of the compact cites “the obligation to defend the Marshall Islands and the Federal States of Micronesia and their peoples from attack or threats thereof as the United States and its citizens are defended.”
Rathke said Tuesday that in addition to America’s interest in maintaining open, safe shipping lanes, the U.S. also has “a particular relationship with the Republic of the Marshall Islands.”
He added that it was unclear what legal obligations the United States had to provide defensive help to a Marshall Islands-flagged ship and said talk about using military force was “premature.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif claimed Wednesday that the ship has a history of legal issues, including failing to pay for damages, but he did not elaborate. The ship was asked to come to port, and when it refused, Iran's navy took action, he said.
Zarif, speaking at an event at New York University, also said “freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf is a must and must be defended.”
Zarif maintained that international politics had nothing to do with Iran’s seizure of the cargo ships and deflected criticism that the incident heightens concerns that Tehran cannot be depended on as a trustworthy country, especially as a nuclear deal is still in the works.  
Iran's semi-official Fars news agency Wednesday quoted the maritime deputy director of Iran's Ports and Sailing Organization, Hadi Haghshenas, as saying the ship was seized over “some unpaid debt.”
Cor Radings, a spokesman for the ship's operator, Rickmers Ship Management in Singapore, said the company had no known issues itself with Iran and that it would be up to Maersk to comment on the Iranian claim.
Maersk Line spokesman Michael Storgaard earlier said his company had not been "able at this point to establish or confirm the reason behind the seizure" and said later he had no new information when asked about the Iranian allegations.
There has been a history of escalations and provocations in the region.
The takeover of the Tigris was the second incident of Iranian "harassment" of free shipping within the Strait of Hormuz in four days, Warren said.
On April 24, four Iranian Revolutionary Guard gunboats "harassed" the American-flagged cargo ship Maersk Kensington as it transited the Strait into the Persian Gulf.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders: 'I am running for president'

MONTPELIER, Vt. –  Promising to fight what he deems "obscene levels" of income disparity and a campaign finance system that is a "real disgrace," independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said Wednesday he will run for president as a Democrat.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Sanders confirmed his plans to formally join the race Thursday.
The self-described "democratic socialist" enters the race as a robust liberal alternative to Hillary Rodham Clinton, and he pledged to do more than simply raise progressive issues or nudge the former secretary of state to the left in a campaign in which she is heavily favored.
"People should not underestimate me," Sanders said. "I've run outside of the two-party system, defeating Democrats and Republicans, taking on big-money candidates and, you know, I think the message that has resonated in Vermont is a message that can resonate all over this country."
As he has for months in prospective campaign stops in the early voting states, and throughout his political career, the former mayor of Burlington, Vermont, on Wednesday assailed an economic system that he said has devolved over the past 40 years and eradicated the nation's middle class.

"What we have seen is that while the average person is working longer hours for lower wages, we have seen a huge increase in income and wealth inequality, which is now reaching obscene levels," Sanders told the AP.
"This is a rigged economy, which works for the rich and the powerful, and is not working for ordinary Americans. ... You know, this country just does not belong to a handful of billionaires."
The son of an immigrant from Poland who sold paint for a living in Brooklyn, Sanders has for decades championed working-class Americans. He lost several statewide races in the 1970s before he was elected mayor of Burlington in 1981, and went on to represent Vermont in the U.S. House for 16 years before his election to the Senate in 2006.
An independent in the Senate, he caucuses with Democrats in Washington and he is likely to attract some interest from voters who have unsuccessfully sought to draft Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to join the race.
But Sanders rejected the idea his appeal is limited to voters on the left, boldly predicting Wednesday that his message would appeal to both fellow independents and Republicans.
Sanders said he would release "very specific proposals" to raise taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations, as well as offer tuition-free education at all public colleges and universities. He touched on his past opposition to free-trade agreements, his support for heavier regulations of the Wall Street and the nation's banking industry, and his vote against the Keystone XL oil pipeline as a preview of his campaign.
"So to me, the question is whose views come closer to representing the vast majority of working people in this country," Sanders said. "And you know what? I think my views do."
The 73-year-old Sanders starts his campaign as an undisputed underdog against Clinton.
Sanders said he has known the former first lady, senator from New York and secretary of state for more than two decades. "I respect her and like her," he said.
He noted he has "never run a negative ad in my life," but still drew a distinction with Clinton in the interview, promising to talk "very strongly about the need not to get involved in perpetual warfare in the Middle East."
"I voted against the war in Iraq," he said. "Secretary Clinton voted for it when she was in the Senate."
Clinton is hosting a series of fundraisers this week, starting what could be an effort that raises more than $1 billion. Sanders said he will make money and politics a central theme of his campaign, including a call for a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, which he blames for unleashing a torrent of money from wealthy donors into politics.
"What you're looking at here is a real disgrace," he said. "It is an undermining of American democracy.
"But can we raise the hundreds of millions of dollars that we need, primarily through small campaign contributions to run a strong campaign? And I have concluded that I think there is a real chance that we can do that."
Sanders is the first major challenger to enter the race against Clinton, who earlier this month became the first Democrat to formally declare her intention to run for president. He is likely to be joined in the coming months by former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and ex-Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee.

Former US commander calls for nuclear missiles to be taken off high alert

A former commander of U.S. nuclear forces says taking U.S. and Russian missiles off high alert might keep a possible cyberattack from starting a nuclear war, although neither country appears willing to increase the lead-time to prepare the weapons for launch.
Retired Gen. James Cartwright said in an interview that “de-alerting” nuclear arsenals could foil hackers by reducing the chance of firing a weapon in response to a false warning of an attack.
Adding a longer fuse can be done without eroding the weapons’ deterrent value, Cartwright said. Cartwright headed Strategic Command from 2004 to 2007 and was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before retiring in 2011.
The Obama administration had previously rejected the idea of taking nuclear missiles off high alert. There appears to be little near-term chance that Moscow would agree to pursue this or any other kind of nuclear arms control measure, given the deteriorating U.S.-Russian relations after Russia’s intervention in eastern Ukraine.
The two countries are at odds over a U.S. accusation that Moscow is violating a treaty banning medium-range missiles.
Robert Scher, the Pentagon's top nuclear policy official, told Congress this month that "it did not make any great sense to de-alert forces" because the administration believes the missiles "needed to be ready and effective and able to prosecute the mission at any point in time."
An example of the high alert level of U.S. nuclear weapons is the land-based nuclear force. These are the 450 Minuteman 3 missiles that are kept ready, 24/7, to launch from underground silos within minutes after receiving a presidential order.
A study led by Cartwright proposes to adjust the missile command and control system so that it would take 24 hours to 72 hours to get the missiles ready for launch.
Cartwright said cyberthreats to the systems that command and control U.S. nuclear weapons demand greater attention. While the main worry was once a hacker acting alone, today it is a hostile nation-state, he said, that poses more of a threat even as the Pentagon improves its cyberdefenses.
"The sophistication of the cyberthreat has increased exponentially" over the past decade, he said Tuesday. "It is reasonable to believe that that threat has extended itself" into nuclear command and control systems. "Have they been penetrated? I don't know. Is it reasonable technically to assume they could be? Yes."
Cyberthreats are numerous and not fully understood, officials say.
Defense officials are tight-lipped about countering certain cyber threats.
Last week the No. 2 official at the National Nuclear Security Administration, Madelyn Creedon, was asked at a Senate hearing about progress against this threat to nuclear command and control. She said the government is "doing better," but she declined to publicly discuss details.
Two years ago the Pentagon's Defense Science Board, an advisory group, reported that "most of the systems" in the U.S. nuclear arsenal had not been fully assessed to understand possible weak spots in the event of an all-out cyberattack.
Cartwright is the lead author of a report published Wednesday by the Global Zero Commission, an international group co-founded by a former Air Force nuclear missile launch control officer, Bruce Blair, now a research scholar at Princeton. The report calls for a phased approach to taking U.S. and Russian missiles off high alert, with 20 percent of them off launch-ready alert within one year and 100 percent within 10 years.
The report argues that lowering the alert levels should be preceded by both Russia and the U.S. eliminating a strategy known as a "launch on warning" — being prepared to launch nuclear missiles rapidly after early warning satellites and ground radar detect incoming warheads. It says this presents an unacceptable level of nuclear risk, and argues that vulnerability to cyberattack against the warning systems or the missile control systems is "a new wild card in the deck."
"At the brink of conflict, nuclear command and warning networks around the world may be besieged by electronic intruders whose onslaught degrades the coherence and rationality of nuclear decision-making," the report says.
Lisbeth Gronlund, co-Director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' global security program, said Wednesday her group, which favors abolishing nuclear weapons, endorses de-alerting.
"Keeping missiles on hair-trigger alert makes them more vulnerable to an unauthorized launch, including one resulting from a cyberattack," Gronlund said.

Report: Freddie Gray may have intentionally tried to injure self in police van

Freddie Gray, whose death triggered Monday’s rioting in Baltimore, may have intentionally tried to injure himself in a police van, according to another prisoner in the vehicle, the Washington Post reported late Wednesday night.
The Post said the unidentified prisoner, who was separated from Gray by a metal partition and could not see him, reportedly said he heard Gray “banging himself against the walls” and believed he “was intentionally trying to injure himself.
The prisoner’s statements were contained in an investigative document obtained by the paper, which said it was unclear if there was any additional information to support the theory.
Gray, who is black, was arrested April 12 after he ran from police. Officers held him down, handcuffed him and loaded him into the police van. While inside, he became irate and leg cuffs were put on him, police had said. At some point, he suffered a severe spinal injury and was unconscious when the van arrived at a police station.
Authorities have not explained how or when Gray’s spine was injured. He died April 19.
The death of Gray sparked riots earlier this week in Baltimore as protests turn violent resulting into major property damage throughout the city and around 200 arrests
Tuesday, the city started to enforce a curfew starting at 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. More than 3,000 National Guardsmen and law enforcement officers were called into the city to make sure no more violence took place in the city. Baltimore stayed quiet throughout the night Wednesday as well.
Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has also come under fire after a senior law enforcement told Fox News Wednesday that she ordered police to stand down.
The source, who is involved in the enforcement efforts, confirmed to Fox News there was a direct order from the mayor to her police chief Monday night, effectively tying the hands of officers as they were pelted with rocks and bottles.
The claim follows criticism of the mayor for, over the weekend, saying they were giving space to those who "wished to destroy."
Rawlings-Blake has defended her handling of the unrest, which grew out of protests over the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody.
The mayor, in an interview with Fox News' Bill Hemmer on Tuesday, denied any order was issued to hold back on Monday.
"You have to understand, it is not holding back. It is responding appropriately," she said, saying there was no stand-down directive.
She said her critics have a right to their opinion.
Baltimore police are expected to finish their investigation Friday and turn the results over to the city’s state’s attorney office, which will decide whether to seek indictment. Six police officers, including a lieutenant and a sergeant, have been suspended.