2001 – In its first specific accusation against a detained U.S.-based scholar, China said Gao Zhan had confessed to spying for foreign intelligence agencies. The US denied employing her as a spy. Gao, who had been detained on Feb. 11, was released the following July. In 2003 Gao Zhan admitted to illegal profits of over $539,000 from selling 80 microprocessors to the Chinese government.
2002 – The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, “The Stick”, returns to Norfolk Naval yards after participating in combat and support operations in and over Afghanistan. The Stick now holds the record for a carrier’s continuous days at sea with 159, beating the USS Eisenhower’s previous record of 152 set in 1982.
2003 – The Bush administration seized $1.62 billion in Iraqi assets already frozen in the US. The money would be used to help rebuild Iraq once Saddam Hussein is ousted.
2003 – In the 9th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom a British armored unit destroyed 14 Iraqi tanks trying to break out of the besieged city of Basra. A sea-borne relief operation was postponed after discovering Iraqi mines in the shipping channel leading to the recently captured Iraqi port of Umm Qasr. Heavy bombing on Baghdad destroyed a main telephone exchange.
2003 – Coast Guard cutter Wrangell, homeported in Portland, Maine, along with a Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopter from Air Station Honolulu, escorted the first waterborne humanitarian aid shipment into the port of Umm Qasr without incident, while members of Coast Guard Port Security Unit 311, from San Pedro, Calif., assisted other coalition forces protecting the harbor. The shipment, consisting of vital aid donated by numerous countries, was carried aboard the British ship RFA Sir Galahad.
2004 – The 15-nation Caribbean Community withheld recognition from Haiti’s U.S.-backed interim government as leaders closed a summit renewing calls for a U.N. investigation into the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
2006 – Zacarias Moussaoui testifies in an American court that he and Richard Reid planned to fly a passenger jet into the White House as part of the September 11, 2001 attacks, contradicting his previous testimony.
2007 – United States District Court Judge Thomas Hogan dismisses a case of alleged torture against former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld brought by nine former prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2011 – NATO assumes control of military operations in Libya.
https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/march-27/
