Having tried to convince Gibraltar to give it to them, the US has made no secret about its interest in capturing the Iranian oil tanker, initially known as Grace 1 but subsequently renamed the Adrian Darya 1. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, however, says he personally has no plans to try to capture the tanker militarily.
“We do not talk about plans, but currently I have no plan right now sitting on my desk,” Esper told reporters. So far it’s not clear that the Pentagon has been involved at all in trying to capture the ship.
US lawyers pushed Gibraltar, unsuccessfully, to give the ship to them, and State Department official Brian Hook emailed the ship’s captain offering him millions of dollars to give the ship to the United States, which also did not work.
The efforts are based on a court ruling which suggested the Iranian ship, and its oil, could be taken in an asset forfeiture case. It does not appear, however, that the military wants to get directly involved in enforcing this, particularly when attacking an Iranian civilian tanker in the Mediterranean Sea would fuel a major backlash.
“We do not talk about plans, but currently I have no plan right now sitting on my desk,”
The new transparency: They can’t tell us anything about any plans but they can tell us when there are plans that they can’t tell us anything about.
Another words, the Plans are secret even if there are no Plans!
the plan’s ‘not sitting on his desk’, because it’s on the desk of the Assistant Secr of Defense, or perhaps over at the CIA or State
plausible denial
US cannot do anything right (legal or illegal), let alone capturing Adrian Darya 1!
I would love to see them try this.
“…particularly when attacking an Iranian civilian tanker in the Mediterranean Sea would fuel a major backlash”
I should say so!
think about how many US and UK flagged/owned ships would then be accosted and/or boarded by …. uh…. someone
Never waste our time quoting some Pentagon officer. Any member of the US military who is authorized to talk on or off the record is invariably lying.
Besides, they wouldn’t get any particular benefit from seizing this tanker now anyway – it’s probably already offloaded its oil to other ships, as has been suggested over the past week. And they already got their propaganda by having Gibralter seize it in the first place.
Wait for the *next* tanker seizure once the US Navy steps up its “escort program” in the Gulf. This will turn into a blockade of Iranian oil tankers at some point, but that may be months away. They want to start a war but they have to control how and when as much as possible.
Jason Ditz asserts: “The efforts are based on a court ruling which suggested the Iranian ship, and its oil, could be taken in an asset forfeiture case.”
The assertion is false. No such court ruling has issued, ever. This is the third time Mr. Ditz has published an article that put the same false assertion.
The reality is this:
The government submitted to a federal court clerk a PROPOSED warrant, that the clerk never signed. Had the clerk signed and issued the warrant, still the warrant would not have provided what Mr. Ditz asserts.
The PROPOSED warrant does NOT command, order, or even authorize seizure of the ship or the oil it carries.
Rather, the PROPOSED Warrant (and it is, yet, merely a PROPOSED Warrant) provides only that “THE UNITED STATES MARSHAL’S SERVICE AND/OR [sic] ANY OTHER DULY AUTHORIZED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER” serve the ship and all interested parties a notice that, according to the party (the United States government) seeking the seizure “the defendant property is subject to seizure and forfeiture to the United States pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 881(a)(6).”
The PROPOSED Warrant ends thus:
“YOU ARE FURTHER COMMANDED to provide notice of this action to all persons thought to have an interest in or claim against the defendant property by serving upon such persons a copy of this warrant and the Verified Complaint In Rem, in a manner consistent with the principles of service of process of an action in rem under the Supplemental Rules for Certain Admiralty and Maritime Claims and Asset Forfeiture Actions. and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
“YOU ARE FURTHER COMMANDED, promptly after execution of this process, to file the same in this Court with your return thereon, identifying the individuals upon whom copies were served and the manner employed, UNLESS [my emphasis], pursuant to Rule G(3Xc)(iiXA) of the Supplemental Rules for Admiralty or Maritime Claims and Asset Forfeiture Actions, the defendant properties are in the government’s possession, custody, or control, or pursuant to Rule G(3)(c)(iv), execution of the warrant involves transmission to an appropriate authority outside the United States where the property is located.”
The government bears the burden of proving that the United States District Court of the District of Columbia has jurisdiction sufficient to support enforcement of the Warrant, and nothing indicates that the government has proven so. No United States federal (or state) court has jurisdiction of a ship that is not within territorial waters of the United States or its foreign land-holdings (like Guam or Wake Island or Puerto Rico). At the time of the government’s submitting the proposed warrant and at all times after, the ship was NOT within territorial waters of the United States.
The government bears the burden of proving that the Warrant’s issuance would be valid, and nothing indicates that the government has proven so.
I find no record indicating that the Warrant was signed by a JUDGE of the United States District Court of the District of Columbia.
Here is a copy of the PROPOSED Warrant: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1196366/download
Notice that the PROPOSED warrant misstates, by three months not yet occurred, the date of the Warrant. See the Warrant’s second paragraph, lines 2 & 3 of that paragraph.