Navy admiral: ‘I’ll take the hit’ on aircraft carrier mix-up

The head of U.S. Pacific Command says he deserves blame for the misunderstanding over the location of an aircraft carrier bound for North Korea.

“With regard to the [USS] Carl Vinson, that’s my fault on the confusion and I’ll take the hit for it,” Navy Adm. Harry Harris said Wednesday during testimony to the House Armed Services Committee.

“Where I failed to was to communicate that adequately to the press and the media,” he said. “That is all on me.”

{mosads}The Navy said April 9 that it was moving the Vinson strike group toward the Korean Peninsula amid rising fears over North Korea’s weapons tests.

The Vinson would reportedly skip a regularly scheduled visit to Australia and head toward the western Pacific Ocean instead.

The New York Times noted last week that the Navy posted a picture taken April 15 showing the strike force in the Sunda Strait.

The Sunda Strait is an area off the coast of Indonesia that is thousands of miles from North Korea.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer denied last week that the Trump administration had misled the public on the Vinson’s movements.

“[U.S. Pacific Command] put out a release talking about the group ultimately ending up in the Korean Peninsula — that’s what it will do,” he said.

 The Vinson group is now in the Philippine Sea. The White House has described the Vinson’s presence in the region as a deterrent to North Korean aggression.

– This story was updated at 2:17 p.m.