5th Fleet Focus: Singapore Navy to Return to Persian Gulf

One of the great undiscussed aspects of the coalition of the willing for Iraq has been the steady contribution of Singapore's Navy for security for the Iraqi oil platforms KAAOT and ABOT. As far back as 2003 Singapore has sent its LSTs for operations near the oil terminals, specifically providing the Iraqi Navy with a base at sea for training and operations. This isn't a small thing, by using large amphibious ships as forward bases, the Iraqi Navy saves 3 days round trip to and from port for provisions.

RSS Endurance (L 207) operated in the Persian Gulf from October 2003 until December 2003. RSS Resolution (L 208) operated in the Persian Gulf from November 2004 until January 2005. RSS Endeavour (L 210) operated in the Persian Gulf from February 2006 until April 2006. RSS Persistence (L 209) deployed this past weekend to contribute to Task Force 58.

A Singapore Navy transport ship has left for the Gulf to support coalition forces, the defence ministry said in a statement.

The RSS Persistence and 180 personnel left Saturday for a three-month deployment.

The vessel will provide logistic support, protect the waters around key oil terminals and conduct patrol and boarding operations, the ministry said.

Since 2003, Singapore has deployed Landing Ship Tank vessels, a Hercules C-130 aircraft and refuelling tankers to the Gulf.

The tiny city-state, which US President George W. Bush visited last November, has been an unwavering US ally and its leaders have urged the United States to "stay the course" in Iraq.

I haven't written much about Singapore, but I should. Mullen recently visited Singapore and gave an interesting interview I need to dig up, among the topics was the importance of basing. The US Navy intends to use a base in Singapore as a swap location for LCS mission modules, which was identified in study as a better location for swapping LCS modules than either Guam or Australia.

Singapore is very active regionally, participating in Malabar 07-02 with India, Australia, Japan, and the United States for example. While the Endurance class deployments to the Persian Gulf have largely gone unnoticed, as are all contributions by nations other than the US and Britain in Iraq, they are important.

A side note, RSS Resolution (L 208) was on station when the incident occurred involving the Royal Australian sailors who faced off against Iran. I went back and reviewed the TF 58 ships from that time, and unless I am missing something it had to be Singapore Navy helicopters that helped out the Australians (note: it is entirely possible I am missing something). Given the number of maintenance hours per flight hours of the helicopters there at the time, an often forgotten statistic, for the coalition to provide 24/7 coverage for boarding it seems the ready flight had to be from Singapore. I could be wrong, but I think there is a reason the helicopter rescue details of that incident were conveniently not given as part of the story.