problems. my question is why were they out there? these are small patrol boats that are 45 feet long. they re meant to carry 20 people on each boat. they only had ten total for the two. they were transitting from kuwait to bahrain. they should have been along the coast. that was strange, where they were. i have no idea what they were doing out there. somebody in the may navy will h to take responsibility. you showed a clip of a lieutenant apologizing. you know, i m not going to second guess a navy officer in that circumstance saying what he had to say to guarantee the safety of his crew. i think we need to find out what kind of situation he was in before we second guess him. certainly understand. and, of course, it will be interesting to see if we do hear some sort of explanation from the u.s. navy as to why these ten sailors were so close to
it was about diplomacy. there was no danger. this wasn t about iran s active aggression. but then we have this video. it seems to shame the sailors, as weak. and then one of the sailors is on camera apologizing. was he under duress, was he not? what is actually going on here? we can get answers for you. the pentagon is now speaking out. peter cook is the press secretary for the pentagon, joins us now. help us understand, mr. cook. the early word was this was a sign of iranian aggression. they took these sailors. you say that s not the case. so what is the case? well, chris, i don t think we said explicitly that iran took these sailors. what we first told everyone and what we first learned is that we lost contacts with these sailors a are, these two crafts as they were doing a routine transit from kuwait to bahrain, part of
seized tonight. iran s news agency announcing those sailors are under arrest. u.s. officials say the sailors were on a training mission traveling from kuwait to bahrain. it is a major embarrassment for the obama administration coming hours before the president will be here delivering his final state of the union address. the president was expected to toss out the conventional script for his speech and trump it what considers his successes. on top of that was the iranian nuclear deal. we are live at the white house. we begin our coverage with our national security correspondent jim sciutto. this is not good news for the president. very quickly we heard from administration officials, defense department officials making the case this was not a hostile act. early on they said they had assurances the sailors were safe and would be released quickly. that said as we learn new
all right. i have to leave it there. thank you so much for joining me today. i m carol costello. at this hour with berman and bolduan starts now. this is cnn breaking news. hello, everyone. i m kate wauld bibolduan. and i m john berman. this new video just into cnn that shows the moment ten u.s. sailors were taken into custody by the iranian revolutionary guard. you can see them with their hands behind their heads, provocative video to be sure. again, cnn just confirmed this video is of the nine men and one woman who were held overnight after their two boats entered iranian waters. that s what the iranians say. the americans were released this morning. u.s. military says there are no indication that the sailors were harmed in any way during their detention. according to the pentagon, the ten americans had been traveling from kuwait to bahrain. they were held then at an iranian naval base. and just hours ago, as we ve
international waters at farsi island. now we are hearing claims perhaps it was a navigational error of some kind or breakdown in equipment of some kind. not clear. that will all be part of the investigation. the ten sailors, including the nine men, one woman, are back at the u.s. navy base in bahrain. one of the first things they ll do is go through reintegration protocol in which they ll be examined for any possible injuries or wounds. also any psychological damage that may have occurred as a result of detention. mik, going to interrupt you. secretary of state john kerry started to speak. we want to listen for a moment. i want to underscore how pleased i am that our sailors were safely returned into united states hands this morning.