Roger
Yes they are talking about different things.
The Iranians about their response to a hypothetical US attack.
VADM Cosgriff is talking about defending his command and fulfilling his mission to keep Hormuz open. Seeing as it is pretty much a boiler plate statement that he was authorized to respond to any question about an attack on Hormuz, it is probably should be understood as a statement that his command will defend itself and keep the straights open, not a comment on what circumstances such an attack might occur.
I know there is a ‘neocon’ ideological belief that Iran should be attacked, and a mirror image “net roots” ideological belief for the last several years that an attack is likely in the next five minutes. On the other hand, when I ‘do the arithmetic” the US forces are not deployed for such an attack and it totally mess up the US situation in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
I do not see an attack on Iran unless it is a counter attack to an Iranian action or our non-Israeli friends in the area, especially the Europeans, are convinced it is necessary and will fly on the first wave. All bets off at 12 noon EST 20 Jan 2009.
"Despite confident pronouncements by Iranian leaders that the West will not dare to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, the Iranian regime has, on orders from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, been preparing for this eventuality by means of a comprehensive emergency plan called 'Passive Defense.'"
They're scared to death, in other words. 
http://www.memri.org/bin/article...a=ia&
ID=IA45108
"They're scared to death, in other words."
As they ought to be.
No matter how bad we get hurt by another war, they'd get hurt real bad.
If we were to real stupidly attack them and lose our superpower status, that wouldn't help *them* much. They'd still lose a whole lot of capital equipment and a lot of people, and maybe they'd have a lot of radioactive contamination to deal with etc.
They can't win a war with us, the best they can do is make sure we lose too. Cold comfort for them if we attack.
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