CNN
February 11, 2008 The Situation Room (CNN), 5:00 PM
WOLF BLITZER: Well, we begin with breaking news this hour. Chilling echoes of the cold war -- word that the United States Navy intercepted Russian bombers flying very close to a U.S. aircraft carrier.
Let's go straight to our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr.
She's watching the story for us -- Barbara, when and where did this happen?
BARBARA STARR, PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, U.S. military officials, a short time ago, confirmed a story appearing on the Associated Press that on Saturday, Japan time, in the Western Pacific, the U.S. military -- the U.S. Navy intercepted Russian TU-95 Tupolev strategic bombers flying over the deck of the U.S.S. Nimitz, an aircraft carrier operating in the Western Pacific.
There were four Tupolevs in the area. One of them flew 2,000 feet twice over the deck of the carrier Nimitz. The U.S. Navy says that there were -- they are aware of the incident. U.S. military officials -- U.S. defense officials saying that four F-18s from the Nimitz launched into the air and trailed the Tupolevs in the area. There were no shots fired. There were no incidents. There is believed to be some pictures of the incident.
This is very disturbing, of course, to the Pentagon but it is not the first time, of course. This often happened back in the cold war. And for the last several months, the Russians had been sending these bomber flight out over the Western Pacific. You may recall, it was late last year when an F-15 intercepted a Russian Bear bomber flying very close to the Alaskan shoreline.
So the U.S. military keeping a very close eye on all of this -- Wolf.
BLITZER: President Bush is going to have to call President Putin and say to his pal, what is going on?
All right, Barbara, stay on top of this story and we'll get back with more information.
But as Barbara points out, very disturbing information -- echoes -- echoes of the cold war. This kind of stuff is not supposed to happen any longer.

Next time, blow one up.

There should be a warning shoot by the Superhornet's gun.....

ask questions. lots of them.

It's not a big deal. Shooting it down would be in violation of international law (which permits aircraft to make "rigging passes" to identify vessels underway in international waters), and the last thing we need on top of Iraq is an international incident with Russia.