WASHINGTON _ A Navy surveillance drone was shot down by a missile fired from Iran, the Pentagon said Thursday, but U.S. and Iranian military officials disputed whether the unmanned aircraft was in Iranian airspace.
The incident was the most serious military clash between the U.S. and Iran since the Pentagon began beefing up its presence in the Middle East in early May, saying intelligence indicated that Iran was preparing to attack U.S. forces or allies.
President Donald Trump said Iran "made a very bad mistake." But he played down the attack, suggesting it was inadvertent or a misjudgment by a rogue general or military unit and perhaps not a direct provocation by Iran's government.
"I have a feeling it was a mistake made by someone who shouldn't have been doing that," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during a visit by Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau. "I find it hard to believe it was intentional."
Shunning the bellicose threats he often employs, Trump referred to the drone strike as "a new wrinkle, a new fly in the ointment" in the tense standoff between the United States and Iran.
The strike would be of greater concern had it caused casualties, he added. "We had nobody in the drone," Trump said. "It would have made a big difference."
Trump's comments suggested he might not order large-scale military retaliation for the downing of the unmanned aircraft and might still be hopeful of drawing Tehran into negotiations, instead of intensifying the confrontation in the region.
Trump's portrayal of Iran's actions as accidental was at odds with the account given by Iranian commanders. They emphasized that the missile was fired intentionally to defend Iranian territory.
Washington and Tehran have both made carefully calibrated military moves over the last month, raising tensions in the region but stopping short of acts that could start a war.
Iran has demonstrated "canny and calculated escalation" by targeting unmanned U.S. aircraft, oil tankers and other civilian targets in recent weeks, said Chris Dougherty, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a centrist think tank in Washington. "They have avoided killing U.S. personnel while showing that Iran is willing and able to strike critical targets."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday morning that administration officials would brief lawmakers.
"I think it's a dangerous situation," she told reporters at the Capitol. "I don't think the president wants to go to war. There is no appetite to going to war in our country."
U.S. officials have warned in recent days that Iran could face retaliation for any attacks that caused American casualties, and Pentagon officials have been preparing options for limited military strikes.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard said the U.S. drone was downed when it flew into Iranian airspace in Hormozgan province near the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iran's state-run IRNA news agency.
But a U.S. military spokesman, Capt. Bill Urban, said the RQ-4 Global Hawk, a high-altitude drone, was hit at 11:35 p.m. GMT Wednesday by an Iranian surface-to-air missile "while operating in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz," a critical route for global oil supplies.
"This was an unprovoked attack on a U.S. surveillance asset in international airspace," he said, but released no video or other evidence showing the plane's location.
The conflicting accounts could not be immediately reconciled.
Lt. Gen. Joseph Guastella, the U.S. Air Force commander in the Middle East, said a brief statement by telephone to reporters at the Pentagon that the drone was flying over the Strait of Hormuz at a high-altitude and was approximately 21 miles "from the nearest point of land on the Iranian coast" when it was hit by the missile.
The missile was fired from the vicinity of Georuk, Iran, a small town in the Iranian coast along the strait, he said.
He said the plane fell into "international waters," but he released no radar data showing the location of the plane.
Unlike Trump, Guastella implied the attack was intentional.
"This attack is an attempt to disrupt our ability to monitor the area following recent threats to international shipping and free flow of commerce, he said.
The Global Hawk is an unarmed drone that flies at high altitudes, sending live video feeds from advanced cameras and other data from sensors to Navy intelligence centers in the region and in the United States.
Abbas Mousavi, a spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, said Iran cannot condone the "illegal trespassing and invading of the country's skies by any kind of foreign flying object," according to the semiofficial Tasnim news agency.
In a speech carried live on Iranian state television, Gen. Hossein Salami, commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, called the shooting-down "a clear message" to America. Iran, he said, does "not have any intention for war with any country, but we are ready for war."
The incident occurred four days after the Pentagon said Iran had tried to down another drone, which was flying near one of two oil tankers hit by explosions in the Gulf of Oman. That missile missed the drone by more than half a mile, the Pentagon said.
The U.S. has blamed Iran for fiery explosions on two oil tankers, saying limpet mines were attached to the hulls, though it has not released evidence that proves Tehran's involvement. Iran has denied responsibility.
On Thursday, Navy Cmdr. Sean Kido, who is leading the investigation into the tanker explosions, told reporters at a Navy facility in the United Arab Emirates that the limpet mine used in the attack resembled "Iranian mines that have already been publicly displayed in Iranian military parades."
The Pentagon has released grainy video and color photographs showing what it says are Iranian sailors removing an unexploded mine from the hull of the Kokuka Courageous, one of the two crippled tankers.
Kido sidestepped questions about whether the U.S. has evidence directly linking Iran to the attack, saying the Navy assessment was that Iran was responsible.
Trump has said he does not want war with Iran and on Monday called the tanker attacks "very minor," though the downing of a U.S. drone could move him closer to his more hawkish advisors.
The U.S. has rapidly built up its military forces in the region since early May, sending an aircraft carrier battle group, a fighter squadron, B-52 bombers, anti-missile batteries and other forces totaling around 8,500 troops. More than 30,000 troops are already stationed there.
The incident quickly became fodder for the 2020 presidential campaign.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who's seeking the Democratic nomination, called Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran a "self-inflicted disaster" and suggested Trump's withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran had led to the current turmoil.
"By walking away from diplomacy, Trump has made military conflict more likely. Another war in the Middle East is the last thing we need," Biden said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., blamed Iran for the heightened tensions, noting Tehran had rebuffed Trump's offer of direct talks with Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe conveyed the offer during a visit to Tehran last week but Khamenei publicly rejected it, saying Trump could not be trusted.
Graham urged the White House to target Iran's naval capabilities and oil refineries, calling them the "economic lifeblood of this murderous regime," if it decides to respond with force.
