separate occasions in recent days using surface to air missiles. ellison barber joins us with the very latest from washington. reporter: yeah, the japanese owner of a tanker attacked says the tanker was hit by some sort of flying projectile. the u.s. says it was an olympic mine attack and released video allegedly showing iranian sailors removing an unexploded mine from the tanker. iran denies involvement, and across the aisle u.s. officials say iran was behind the attack. some republican lawmakers are talking about military action. it s unmistakeable what happened here. these were attacks by the islamic republic of iran on commercial shipping on the freedom of navigation with the clear intent to deny transit through the strait. if these kinds of attacks continue, there needs to be a military response. and that doesn t mean invading iran, that means taking out their ability to be able to do attack like this in the future. unprovoked attacks on commercial shipping warrant a retal
here, where i am, are now being debriefed over the next 24 hours by company officials and emarati officials, keen to find out every detail they possibly can about the nature of this alleged mine attack on their ship and on the tanker. in the case of the japanese ship, the other ship that was damaged, the owners of that say, it was hit not by mines but by projectile. it will be that sort of detail that the eyewitnesses will be able to offer, since they were onboard at the time of the attack on the norwegian ship. the saudi arabia joining the united kingdom and the united states now, firmly blaming the iranians behind these attacks. the emarati, in this attack. the attacks inside emarati
vessel s crew saw flying objects before the blast, calling reports of a mine attack false and saying that the crew, they re dismissing any reports that a bomb was attached to the side of the ship. so things are still very murky and i don t think we ll know exactly what s going on until the results of an investigation are given to us. ali, thank you very much. ben rhodes, to you first, a couple pieces in the new york times this morning about this incident, these attacks, writing the challenges are diplomatic and economic as well as military. in another piece, pointing out there s a deeper distrust of an american administration that has pulled out of the iran nuclear deal, spurning its european allies and sowing suspicion that the united states is spoiling for a fight with iran. that s where i want to go with you. it s been a year plus since the u.s. left that deal. what s your sense of how your peen al highs are looking at things like the video that the pentagon presented yesterday?
submarines headed out to sea. now it s up to the north to act and not simply just make assurances with respect to their own military activities there on the border. reporter: u.s. officials tell cnn they had two major worries first, the north koreans took the unusual step of giving a specific deadline for threatening to attack the south if it did not stop the speaker propaganda broadcasts. and second, that the south korean government was considering military retaliation in addition to artillery shells it lobbed as an empty field there at the dmz after the soldiers were hurt in a mine attack from the north. now, u.s. officials are telling me that they also pressed the south koreans to try to work with the north to try to get them to de-escalate the situation. the hope is obviously this peace agreement will last. john? barbara starr at the
it lobbed at an empty field near the dmz after its soldiers were hurt in a mine attack from the north. now u.s. officials tell me they took a couple of additional steps. reviewing the war plan in part to reassure the south koreans, and they did show them the latest intelligence about the north koreans on the move. all of this in effort to get the situation de-escalated. the hope of course is that peace agreement holds. let s hope. let s hope it does in fact. barbara, good reporting, thank you. congressman peter king, kim jong-un apparently showed diplomacy in reaching this tentative deal. what do you think? is this a promising step? i think it s hard to say anything is promising when it comes to kim jong-un. again, war was averted and a crisis has been toned down. why he did it i think we ve got to have a psychiatrist try to figure that out. let s just be hopeful and say maybe he s doing the right