– Virginian Pilot – A generation ago, the Navy promised to get better at finding and destroying sea mines. The proclamation came months after the first Gulf War, when Iraq’s use of more than 1,000 underwater bombs overwhelmed the Navy’s fleet of anti-mine ships and helicopters. Two U.S. warships were rocked by explosions, and the Pentagon was forced to abort plans for an amphibious assault on Kuwait, leaving some 30,000 Marines stuck at sea. More than 20 years after that embarrassment, the sea service is still working to make good on its pledge to fully address a centuries-old threat that some analysts have called the Navy’s Achilles’ heel.