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That Hormuz incident? Oops.....it was a fabrication!

What can one possibly say about the revelation - in an IPS report here - that the the so-called incident in the Straits of Hormuz just before George W "hit" the Middle East was a total fabrication? Shades of deja vu of the Gulf of Tonkin incident back during the Vietnam War.

And the Americans wonder why they have lost almost all credibility?

"Senior Pentagon officials, evidently reflecting a broader administration policy decision, used an off-the-record Pentagon briefing to turn the Jan. 6 U.S.-Iranian incident in the Strait of Hormuz into a sensational story demonstrating Iran's military aggressiveness, a reconstruction of the events following the incident shows.

The initial press stories on the incident, all of which can be traced to a briefing by deputy assistant secretary of defence for public affairs in charge of media operations Bryan Whitman, contained similar information that has since been repudiated by the Navy itself.

Then the Navy disseminated a short video into which was spliced the audio of a phone call warning that U.S. warships would "explode" in "a few seconds". Although it was ostensibly a Navy production, IPS has learned that the ultimate decision on its content was made by top officials of the Defence Department."

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