Confrontation At Sea Intensifying
Two days after Navy Seals boarded a Russian oil tanker at gunpoint, the United States continues to detain the ship despite Russian demands for its release, CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin reports.
The Navy's waiting for lab tests to confirm that the oil in the Volga-Neft-147's tanks was smuggled out of Iraq in violation of United Nations sanctions. U.S. officials say they had been tracking the for 30 days as it made repeated trips to pick up oil at an Iraqi refinery and then smuggle it out of the Persian Gulf by staying inside Iranian territorial waters -- where it could not be intercepted by U.S. Navy ships.
The Navy cruiser Monterey finally caught the tanker in international waters on Wednesday. When the Russian ship refused to halt, the Monterey sent a team of 20 Seals in by helicopter with weapons ready.
The ship's crew claimed they had picked up their cargo not in Iraq but in Iran, and had charts and logs to prove it. A printout of the computerized navigation system, however, showed it had been in Iraq.
The U.S. Navy boards hundreds of ships each year in search of illegal goods coming out of Iraq. This is not the first time a Russian ship has been boarded, but this one appeared to be making as many trips as possible to take advantage of the rising price of oil.
Iraq is banned from most international commerce but is allowed to export up to $5.2 billion in oil every six months in order to buy food, medicine and other essentials for its people, and spare parts for its oil industry.
Iraq's government-run Al-Thawra newspaper said in an editorial that the American claim that Iraq benefits from illegal trade is "a sheer lie."
"The Americans are making up stories, some backed up with false figures, about vessels loaded with Iraqi oil and other Iraqi byproducts," the newspaper said in a clear reference to the Russian tanker.
If lab tests confirm that the oil came from an Iraqi refinery, the ship's cargo could be confiscated. In the meantime, the United States has increased the number of ships enforcing the sanctions against Iraq.
The United States and Russia were in a diplomatic dustup Friday over the ship's release.
"We imperatively demand the immediate release of the Russian tanker," Deputy Foreign Minister Vasily Sredin told the Tass news agency Friday. "We shall get it back and save both the ship and crew."
A Pentagon spokesman, Army Col. Vince Ogilvie, said two officials from the Russian consulate in the United Arab Emirates boarded the ship, which is in international waters off the coast of Oman, as did two American defense attache officers.
Ogilvie, who was traveling with Defense Secretary William Cohen in Germany, said he had no other details, but the boardings by Russian and American officials suggested an intensifying negotiation over how to settle the matter.
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