The decision to send an aircraft carrier and a group of Air
Force bombers to the Middle East was based in part on intelligence indications
that Iran had moved short-range ballistic missiles by boat in waters off its
shores, an American official said Tuesday, according to AP.
The movement, first reported by CNN, was among a range of
recent indications that Iran might be considering or preparing to attack US
forces in the region, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in
order to discuss sensitive intelligence.
The official said it was not clear whether the boats with
missiles represented a new military capability that could be used against US forces
or were only being moved to shore locations.
When the White House announced Sunday that the USS Abraham
Lincoln carrier strike group and a bomber task force were being deployed to the
Middle East, John Bolton, the national security adviser to President Donald
Trump, cited “troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” but did not
explain what they were.
Bolton said the movement of additional military firepower to
the Middle East was meant to send a “clear and unmistakable message to the
Iranian regime that any attack on the United States interests or on those of
our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”
Patrick Shanahan, the acting secretary of defense, told
reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday that he had approved the expedited
movement of the Lincoln strike group and the deployment of a bomber group based
on “credible reporting” on Iran.
“What you see is us getting in the right posture for that
dynamic environment” in Iraq and elsewhere in the region, Shanahan said. The US
has about 5,200 troops in Iraq.
