WASHINGTON – The Pentagon said on Sunday that it ordered aircraft carrier Nimitz to remain in the Middle East because of Iranian threats against President Trump and other American officials, just three days after sending the warship home as a signal to slow down. growing tensions with Tehran.
Acting Defense Secretary Christopher C. Miller abruptly reversed his earlier order to relocate Nimitz, which he had done despite objections from his top military advisers. The military had been engaged for weeks in a muscle-flexing strategy designed to prevent Iran from attacking American personnel in the Persian Gulf.
“Due to the recent threats issued by Iranian leaders against President Trump and other US government officials, I ordered the USS Nimitz to stop its routine redistribution,” Miller said in a statement late on Sunday.
US intelligence agencies have been evaluating for months that Iran is trying to target American military officers and civilian leaders to avenge the death of Major General Qassim Suleimani, commander of the elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, on an American drone strike a year ago.
But it was unclear what new urgency about these threats, if any, prompted Miller to cancel his previous order to send Nimitz home. In recent days, Iranian officials have stepped up their fiery messages against the United States. Iran’s chief justice, Ebrahim Raisi, said that all those who played a role in the death of General Suleimani would not be able to “escape law and justice” even if they were an American president.
It was not clear last week whether Trump was aware of Miller’s order to send the Nimitz to its home port of Bremerton, Wash., After a 10-month deployment that was longer than usual.
Some Trump administration officials suggested on Sunday that with a contentious political week coming on – the election of the Senate’s second round on Tuesday in Georgia and the House and Senate meeting on Wednesday to certify President-elect Joseph’s victory R. Biden Jr. – the optics of the aircraft an aircraft carrier departing from the Middle East did not match the White House.
Whatever the reason, the mix of messages surrounding the aircraft carrier’s movements raised new questions about coordination and communications between an inexperienced Pentagon leadership and the White House in the last days of the Trump administration.
Some current and former Pentagon officials have criticized Pentagon decision-making since Trump dismissed Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and several of his top advisers in November, and replaced them with Miller, a former White House counterterrorism adviser. , and several Trump supporters.
Officials said on Friday that Miller ordered the redistribution of Nimitz in part as a sign of “de-escalation” for Tehran to avoid falling into a crisis at the end of the Trump administration that would fall into Biden’s lap as he took office.
In recent weeks, Trump has repeatedly threatened Iran on twitterand in November, top national security advisers convinced the president not to make a pre-emptive strike against an Iranian nuclear facility.
The Pentagon Central Command issued several weeks of force demonstrations to warn Tehran of the consequences of any attack on American troops or diplomats.
Nimitz and other warships arrived to provide air cover for American troops withdrawing from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. The Air Force dispatched B-52 bombers three times to fly within 60 miles of the Iranian coast. And the Navy announced for the first time in almost a decade that it had ordered a submarine, carrying cruise missiles, to the Persian Gulf.
American intelligence reports have indicated that Iran and its representatives may be preparing an attack as early as last weekend to avenge the deaths of General Suleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, head of Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia in Iraq, which was killed in the same US drone attack in Baghdad last January.
American intelligence analysts in recent days said they had detected air defenses, maritime forces and other Iranian security units on high alert. They also determined that Iran moved more short-range missiles and drones to Iraq.
But senior Defense Department officials acknowledge that they cannot say whether Iran or its Shi’ite representatives in Iraq are preparing to attack American troops or are preparing defensive measures in the event that Trump orders a preemptive strike against them.