On The Frontlines of the Red Sea Response – Tug of War

It’s important to remember just how spread out this current conflict in the Middle East is. Most of the fighting, of course, is in Gaza, not in the home of.

Israeli special forces stormed the largest functional hospital in the strip on Thursday. They claim that Hamas had previously held hostage as there Hamas has denied operating in the facility. Then there’s also Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. Things have escalated there in recent days. Israeli airstrikes killed 12 people on Wednesday as it continues to trade fire with Hezbollah. And then there is the Red sea.

‘Iranian-backed Houthi forces. And Yemen have been targeting commercial ships in the Red sea, claiming the attacks as revenge against Israel.

US and UK launching strikes on Houthi fighters in Yemen in an effort to force them to halt the months long attacks.

The second largest shipping company in the world, told CNBC it does not expect to use the Red sea route again anytime soon.

These attacks have not stopped and the US continues to respond. It carried out more strikes this week, but what does that response actually look like and is it working?

They will essentially detect the missile being launched from Yemen, and then they have essentially a few seconds to respond.

Today, our reporter takes us on board US Navy warships for a rare look at the frontline fight against the Houthis. From CNN. This is Tug of War. I’m David Rhind.

Natasha Bertrand is a national security correspondent for CNN. She’s with us today. Natasha, where in the world am I finding you right now?

Well, I’m currently in Manama, Bahrain, which is home to the U.S. Central Command. S Naval forces, which is basically in charge of all of the naval operations that we’re seeing being carried out in the Red sea right now against the Houthis out of Yemen.

Right. This is something we’ve talked about on the show a few times, and we’ve seen the US actually respond to try to reduce some of these capabilities. Has that deterrence worked at all?

So we wanted to see up close what these naval operations actually look like against the Houthis, who have been launching all of these drones into the Red sea. So we embarked on the USS Dwight Eisenhower aircraft carrier in the Red sea, which has been on the front lines of this battle. Now, these are just some of the fighter aircraft that are taking off on a regular basis from this aircraft carrier every single day, too. So the Eisenhower aircraft carrier is essentially a huge floating city.

Of about 600 people that work for the Air Department, that provide all the fuel moving aircraft around. Keep things safe on the flight deck in the hangar bay.

It has thousands and thousands of personnel on board, thousands of sailors working every day to make this aircraft carrier actually function and operate well.

We launch aircraft in cycles anywhere between an hour and a half to two hours, sometimes three hours.

It is really hard to depict just how large this ship actually is. It can hold more than 70 aircraft, and there are currently more than 70 jets and helicopters on the Ike in the Red sea right now.

Right center rudder steady on course to 89 on murder is Wakefield ten degrees from the course 289.

This space is always ready to go. 24 seven. So it doesn’t matter what day the weekend is, what time it is. We always respond to any attack or threat.

We also went on the USS Gravely, a destroyer which is also been shooting down some of these Houthi missiles. And what we found is that, yes, they are working at a very frenetic pace to try to interdict these missiles and to try to prevent them from hitting ships in the Red sea, but also the Houthis are continuing to fire.

We were woken up early this morning around 4:30 a.m., to the sounds of alarms blaring on this aircraft carrier assigned, we’re told of a potential imminent threat by a Houthi drone that was flying.

In fact, they launched one while we were on board. The USS Dwight Eisenhower aircraft carrier, and the US had to deploy fighter jets a while we were on the carrier as well to strike, missile inside Yemen that was preparing to launch also while we were on board.

Wow. That’s wild. So what does it look like then, when a situation like that comes up? Like, how much time did they have to react?

You just missed the whole family.

So we did go inside the command center of the USS gravely, which is a warship that has been based in the Red sea for the last several months. And what we saw is that they are constantly prepared to respond to an incoming Houthi missile.

Yes.

They will essentially detect the missile being launched from Yemen, and then they have essentially a few seconds to respond and determine whether.

So a supersonic missile, of course, that you only have probably ten, 15 secs to make a real evaluation of what it is, and then you want to have stuff going into place.

To determine whether that missile is going to pose a threat to ships in the area, or whether it’s going to just land harmlessly in the water. But they have to really be prepared to react within seconds. It is a very split second decision.

Can you just talk a little bit about what it’s been like being on this ship in this really kind of unprecedented moment when the Houthis have been firing pretty relentlessly here in the southern Red sea?

It’s definitely not what we expected to be out here. Definitely expected here for a little bit. Now, being in six, we have a more relaxed and chill deployment.

We spoke to some of the sailors and the pilots on board these ships. And they really emphasized that this is a brand new environment for them. They never thought that they were going to be deployed in this arena in this theater.

This is not what anybody expected here at all.

‘And it’s important to note also that the Houthis firing anti-ship ballistic missiles, that has never been done before in combat. And so all of these personnel are having to learn really, day by day, how best to respond to this very unique threat. And part of the challenge also is that these Navy sailors and pilots, they have not been able to go to port, really for the last several months. And that is very unusual. Usually they can, you know, go to port several times during their deployment to kind of get on land and get a break. Well, they have been working round the clock really since November, to try to defeat, this threat from the Houthis.

Yeah, that was going to be my next question. Like, how long can the U.S. keep this up?

So we spoke to commanders on board the Ike and the gravely, and they said that they are prepared to continue this mission against the Houthis, really, for as long as it takes.

I’ll just know we have seen a decrease in their activity. And that goes for their ballistic missile activity, their cruise missile activity, their unmanned surface vessels that they have that actually have weapons inside of them. We’ve seen a reduction in that activity, and we have pretty exquisite intelligence that tells us that as well.

So you have an idea of how many capabilities they have left and how long they could continue to launch these attacks.

We do. We have a pretty, pretty fair assessment.

I wouldn’t say months.

They are really confident that they can outlast the Houthis. They say, yes, the Houthis clearly have significant, stockpiles, but we have far more.

We’ve got our, logistics train already mapped out, to stay here as long as the president needs us to stay here.

The Dwight Eisenhower deployment is typically of an aircraft carrier in general, is typically around seven months that could easily be extended, and for other aircraft carriers in the region, it already has been. So it could be a very long mission for these sailors and pilots.

I’ll be back with Natasha in just a bit.

Welcome back to Tug of War and my conversation with CNN’s Natasha Bertrand.

The way you describe how this is all going, it really kind of gives you a sense why these shipping companies are just like avoiding the Red sea altogether, right? If it’s just so active and there’s no end date in sight.

Yeah. So the shipping companies have continued in large part to avoid the Red sea because missiles are still flying and ships are still getting hit. I mean, just in the last several weeks, we have seen at least one ship being hit directly by a missile, resulting in some damage. And so it is understandable why these ships want to protect their personnel, because not only are the ships being hit, but in some instances, the Houthis have actually managed to seize some of these vessels and take the crew hostage. And so it’s a very dangerous environment that the US Navy personnel is operating in, and they’re fully aware of that.

The last time you were on the show, we talked about how Intel suggested that Iran was not really interested in a war with the US, and certainly the U.S. is not interested in a war with Iran either. And even how Iran was feeling nervous about how its proxies were kind of being so bold. Do we have a sense of how Iran is feeling now, after all the U.S. response there in the Red sea, like you talked about and in Iraq and Syria, like we’ve seen?

It’s a complicated situation for Iran because on the one hand, obviously they are continuing to provide the Houthis with weapons and intelligence to support these attacks on the ships in the Red sea. But on the other hand, there are signs that Iran is getting increasingly nervous about what the Houthis are doing. And one particular sign is the fact that an Iranian spy ship that the US has long observed being present in the Red sea right around this area in the Gulf of Aden, specifically, where a lot of these attacks have been taking place. It moved, it moved to Djibouti. So it moved for the first time really in a couple years. And that was an indication to the US officials that we spoke to that Iran is getting uncomfortable because that spy ship was providing the Houthis with a lot of the intelligence they were using to target the ships. Now that it’s moved out of the way that has degraded the Houthis’ ability to accurately target vessels in the area.

So that could be Iran saying like, hey guys, like, let’s chill a little bit.

Exactly. So the Iranians might be saying to the Houthis, we’re going to park our vessel over here at a farther distance away. So that, you know, we can take a break from giving you some of the intelligence you’ve been using to to target these ships. It is a small but notable development that officials we spoke to say is is pretty significant.

Interesting. Natasha, thanks very much.

Tug of War is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producer is Hailey Thomas. Dan Dzuba is our technical director and Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Caroline Paterson, Mike Conte and Katie Hinman. We will be back on Wednesday. In the meantime, CNN.com or the CNN Five Things podcast is your place for the very latest. I’ll talk to you later.