The Persian Gulf will be overrun by pirates if U.S. forces leave Iraq too early, Iraqi Defense Minister Abdel Qader Jassem Mohammed al-Obeidi said Nov. 22, according to media reports. Al-Obeidi noted that the Iraqi navy will not receive its first ships until April 2009 and said the Gulf is currently protected by U.S.-led coalition forces. He compared the situation in the Persian Gulf in the absence of such forces in Iraq to the Gulf of Aden, where he said there have been "95 acts of piracy." He did not discuss the impact of the presence in Bahrain, a Gulf littoral state, of the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet.