The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship (a spy ship), USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats, on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War. The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two marines, and one civilian NSA employee), wounded 171 crew members, and severely damaged the ship. At the time, the ship was in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula, about 25.5 nautical miles (47.2 km; 29.3 mi) northwest from the Egyptian city of Arish. Israel apologized for the attack, saying that USS Liberty had been attacked in error after being mistaken for an Egyptian ship. Both the Israeli and U.S. governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Israeli confusion about the ship's identity. Others, including survivors of the attack, have rejected these conclusions and maintain that the attack was deliberate. Thomas Hinman Moorer, 7th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused President Lyndon B. Johnson of having covered up that the attack was a deliberate act. 'The Americans have findings that show our pilots were aware the ship was American,' a newly published document by the State Archives says. - Source USS Liberty survivor Phil Tourney and Candace Owens talk about Israel planned their attack a year in advance. - Source On November 21, 2024, Senior Judge Marsha J. Pechman of the US District Court for the Western District of Washington issued what seems likely to be her final order in Kinnucan v. National Security Agency et al. The order came more than four years after the federal case was first filed in September 2020. The suit was brought to obtain records the NSA, Central Intelligence Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency had failed to release despite a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests concerning the USS Liberty (AGTR-5). More than 57 years after the attack, the FOIA lawsuit revealed new details and, more importantly, it made it clear that the US government is still refusing to release hundreds of pages of documents concerning the assault. - Source [link] [comments] |