excerpt from the Global Security website:
JTFEX 06-2 serves as the forward-certifying event for the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) Carrier Strike Group, and sustainment training for units from the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) Carrier Strike Group and USS Bataan (LHD 5) Expeditionary Strike Group. JTFEX 06-2 also served as a significant training milestone toward US 2nd Fleet's staff certification as a Joint Task Force (JTF) headquarters, planned for 2007.
The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) Carrier Strike Group (CSG) completed the eight-day Joint Task Force Exercise (JTFEX) 06-2 "Operation Bold Step," 28 July 2006, off the East Coast, testing the CSG's ability to operate alongside other U.S. forces and coalition partners in a complex, hostile environment.
On 03 October 2006 Eisenhower left Naval Station Norfolk as part of a regularly scheduled deployment in support of Maritime Security Operations (MSO). MSO set the conditions for security and stability in the maritime environment. Nearly 6,500 Sailors deployed from Naval Station Norfolk with the Eisenhower CSG in support of the ongoing rotation of forward-deployed forces. Fast-attack submarines USS Minneapolis St. Paul (SSN 708) and USS Newport News (SSN 750) prepared to get underway for a scheduled six-month deployment as part of the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (CSG).
London Yank did a great diary on this subject before the actual launching. Well it has been confirmed, they have left their docks.
Dave Lindorff writes:
Monday, October 9, 2006
BREAKING NEWS: Eisenhower Carrier Group Sails for Iran Theater
The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Eisenhower and its accompanying strike force of cruiser, destroyer and attack submarine slipped their moorings and headed off for the Persian Gulf region on Oct. 2, as I had predicted in a piece in The Nation magazine a few weeks back.
The Eisenhower strike force, according to my sources, is scheduled to arrive in the vicinity of Iran around October 21, at the same time as a second flotilla of minesweepers and other ships.
This build-up of naval power around the coast of Iran, according to some military sources, is in preparation for an air attack on Iran that would target not just Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities, but its entire military command and control system.
While such an attack could be expected to unleash a wave of military violence all over Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and elsewhere against American forces and interests and against oil wells, pipelines and loading vacilities, as well as a mining of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, with a resulting skyrocketing of global oil prices, the real goal of this new war by the U.S. would be ensuring Republican control of the House and Senate.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/9/16157/2198So is it just a rotation to the general "middle east theater" or a planned "Oct. surprise?"
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