Aircraft Carrier Wasn’t Sailing to Deter North Korea, as U.S. Suggested<br />Sea of Japan N. Korea S. Korea 2 Japan China South China Sea Philippines 1 Indonesia<br />3 April 8 Pentagon statement said the Carl Vinson was departing Singapore.<br />"This should have been communicated more clearly at the time." Sea of Japan N. Korea Japan<br />S. Korea China The Carl Vinson was thought to be headed for the Sea of Japan last week.<br />3 APRIL 18, 2017<br />The miscues began on April 9 when the public affairs office of the Navy’s Third Fleet issued a news release saying<br />that Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., the Pacific commander, had ordered the Carl Vinson, a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered carrier, and its strike force — two destroyers and one cruiser — to leave Singapore and sail to the Western Pacific.<br />By MARK LANDLER and ERIC SCHMITTAPRIL 18, 2017<br />WASHINGTON — Just over a week ago, the White House declared<br />that ordering an American aircraft carrier into the Sea of Japan would send a powerful deterrent signal to North Korea and give President Trump more options in responding to the North’s provocative behavior.<br />Mr. Mattis, however, had conflated two things: Admiral Harris had canceled only a port call for the Carl Vinson in Fremantle, Australia, according to Pentagon officials, because he feared<br />that images of sailors on shore leave would be unseemly at a time when North Korea was firing missiles.<br />In July 2010, President Barack Obama ordered the aircraft carrier George Washington to the Sea of Japan<br />to intimidate the North after it had torpedoed a South Korean Navy corvette, killing 46 sailors.
