Navy report: Crews detained by Iran were ‘derelict’ in their duties

The 10 USA sailors detained in January by Iran inappropriately turned over sensitive information – including passwords and operational capabilities – to the Revolutionary Guard, the Navy said in a highly critical report released Thursday.

The Navy is taking disciplinary action against nine service members in connection with an embarrassing worldwide incident this year that resulted in the temporary detainment of 10 USA crew members by the Iranian military.

The report details a lax culture for U.S. Navy sailors who routinely patrol the Persian Gulf which ultimately led to a highly embarrassing incident for the U.S. military just as crippling economic sanctions were set to be lifted as part of the Iranian nuclear deal.

“A lack of leadership for geographically distributed forces resulted in degraded maintenance, poor morale, and declining standards, and the investigation also found poor coordination and communication between units and the operations centers that oversee these events”, the report found.

Although the report makes it clear that the sailors were in Iran’s territorial waters, Adm. John Richardson, the chief of US naval operations, accused Tehran on Thursday of violating worldwide law by “impeding the boats’ innocent passage transit”.

Iranian forces infringed upon 10 USA sailors’ right of innocent passage under worldwide law by arresting them at gunpoint, a Navy investigation into the January 12 incident found.

The investigation also said their lack situational awareness made their reaction times too slow when the boats were approached by the Iranian Revolution Guard Corps forces, limiting any remaining course to avoid capture.

Six-months ago, ten U.S. Navy Sailors were taken captive by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the Persian Gulf. The report said the boat captains and crews were “derelict in performing their duties”, including by failing to get approval before deviating from their planned transit route.

Capt. Kyle Moses, who headed a task force that included riverine operations, was relieved of his command, the Navy said in a statement last week.

Iran has been found to have violated worldwide law for actions of soldiers during the incident.

Iran used the detentions for propaganda purposes that kept the incident in the headlines for weeks afterward.

After the sailors had breached both Iranian and Saudi Arabian territorial waters and been forced to stop, the sailors did not have a plan for communicating their location or progress with officers.

The Iranians should have assisted the sailors, who were carrying out what mariners call innocent passage when one of their boats suffered an engine problem, investigating officers found.

The crews, led by a junior officer, a lieutenant, immediately abandoned the planned route in order to make up time, after departing hours behind schedule. “However, the investigation also found that once deployed, sustainment training, including navigation, weapons, and rules of engagement training, was not conducted”. The Iranians replaced an American flag on board with an IRGC one, ransacked the vessels, and damaged equipment, the report said.Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei awarded medals to IRGC commanders, and Iranian media broadcast videos of the detainees. For each boat, two of the five on-board weapons were mounted but not manned.

Originally, the two boats were supposed to go from Kuwait on a 259 nautical mile (480 km) trip to Bahrain, the longest such sailing the crews had ever conducted.

The crewmen’s supervisors failed to arrange monitoring of the boats’ transits, which would likely have prevented the sailors’ capture.