British Forces Held By Iran

my very cynical opinion of the "you may tell / you may not tell" brohaha is that sending the 15 sailors offf without adequate protection was a major fiasco . the public relations campaign is now being used as a smoke screen to divert the attention of the public from the real issue .

i have read numerous comments by british readers posted in various U.K. newspapers that are questioning the whole operation and are asking for a true account of why and how the operation was conducted and why it went so horribly wrong .

to me , the official british statement that boardings would be "temporarily" suspended is a pretty clear indication that the true and full story has not yet been told .

imo getting the british people and the world to pay attention to the "on / off" stories is working like a perfect smokescreen to hide the real story .
hbg

it's pretty sad that we citizens arrived to such a point of distrust of our leaders that we have to be cynical about pretty much everything.

i, too, have many doubts about the official version of these events, because of the way the media "constructed" a border no one in Iraq nor Iran had agreed upon, the obvious lack of protection of the sailors, the fact that no one did anything to warn them or intercept the iranian forces despite very efficient radars, etc ...

sometimes i wonder if the heightened tensions were not the very purpose of it all, and i wonder what could have been the politics behind it, in other words, the "real story" you mentionned

No 10 is accused of masterminding sale of hostages' stories

JAMES CHAPMAN and SAM GREENHILL
UK Daily Mail
Wednesday April 11, 2007

Tony Blair has been dragged into the "cash for hostages" fiasco as he is accused of allowing the Iran captives to sell their stories as part of a crude Government spin operation.

General Sir Michael Rose, one of Britain's most respected former Army officers, said he was convinced the decision to allow 15 sailors and Marines held captive in Iran to cash in on their ordeals had been driven by the Prime Minister's office.

MPs from all sides of the Commons said they too suspected a deliberate strategy aimed at hitting back at Iran, widely seen to have won the "propaganda war" during the detainees' time in captivity.
As anger grew over the decision to allow Leading Seaman Faye Turney and her fellow captives sell their accounts, the Government refused to explain why ministers failed to intervene.
Downing Street has confirmed that the Prime Minister was notified of the decision, but yesterday repeatedly refused to say when.

In an ominous development for Defence Secretary Des Browne, Number Ten appeared to be attempting to lay the blame for the debacle firmly at the door of the Ministry of Defence.

Leading Seaman Turney was not among the captives who appeared at an open-to-all Ministry of Defence press conference on Friday - prompting suspicions that she was "held back" to increase the value and impact of her story.
link

miguelito21 wrote :




the more i think about the "incident" , the more convinced i become that it was a so-called "reconnaissance operation" .
the british most likely wanted to test the speed and strength with which the iranians would respond to an "intrusion" .

in a war , small , mobile , lightly-armed groups are often sent out to test the enemies defences . imo that's what the british were doing in the persian gulf . the british purposely did NOT sent a larger force or attempted a rescue operation because they did not want this to develop into any kind of war-like conflict . the iranians played right along and after a few days released the sailors .
so both sides achieved what was important to them :
- the british were able to learn about the speed of the iranian response ,
- the iranians were able to show - at least for the time being - that they acted within their boundaries .
so , not much harm was done , but much was learned by both sides .

i'm sure that if the british would have wanted to establish their rights in the persian gulf , they could have easily brought in a large force to assert those rights .
of course , the iranians might not have responded at all in view of a larger battlegroup and the british would not have been able to gauge the response .

even now , it seems that the british are not sending in a larger battlegroup to enforce the borderline as they see it .

it reminds me somewhat of a ballet where the lover and his opponent are both trying to win the heart of the beautiful girl and strut and jump without causing harm . and at the end , all performers take a bow in front of the adoring audience .

i suppose we can be glad that both sides agreed to "keep their cool" .
hbg

ps all the brohaha about "tell/do not " helps the british military command to avoid having to tell the public what started this whole incident . the british newspapers are full of stories about the "tell/no tell" , but little is mentioned about the actual action that brought it about .

Hmm ... i've gotta admit i hadnt thaught of such possibility until you mentionned it.

until now i was more along the lines of were they trying to entice Iran into war by making them take action that would be percieved as a casus belli?

but the reconnaissance operation scenario does seem very plausible after all.

i guess my ignorance of war tactics & strategies doesnt help

miguelito21 :
of course , i have absolutely NO proof that it was a "reconnaissance operation" .
unfortunately , i still remember WW II where it was not uncommon to test the enemies' defences by sending out reconnaisance units - and they didn't always return safely !

i wonder if we'll ever learn the true story . i doubt that the sailors and marines involved were fully informed of their mission .
i would think , however , that the sailors must be wondering why they were sent on a mission without any backup ?
hbg

forword to the manual of reconnaissance operations for the canadian army :



a very informative website putting von clausewitz into today's concept of both " WAR and BUSINESS" >>>>

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