UK Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Neutral Zone said:

Finally good news! Personally I think the Iranians had decided that they rubbed Blair's nose in it enough and continuing to hold the captives would start to be counter-productive. Ahmadinejad's press conference was transmitted live around the world, so he spent an hour reeling off a list of Iran's greivances and then at the end he basically says "OK we've been wronged here, but to show that we're not the raving madmen that people portray us as, we're going to let them go unconditionally." He must have loved every second of that press conference!

There's 2 wider issues for Britain here, first it's worrying that many people and nations are not prepared to accept Britain's word against Iran's. The reason for this is almost certainly Blair's deceit over Iraq. If Blair really wants to serve Britain then he should stop clinging on like a malignant limpet and just resign now and hopefully take a lot of the Iraq ill will with him. Secondly, there needs to be some hard questions asked about how they came to be captured. Irrespective of where exactly they were, what we had was 2 motorised, lightly armed dinghies operating in most of the most contentious and volatile waters in the world with the nearest support some 10 miles away. That cannot be right. Someone screwed up big time here, either Cornwall's skipper didn't follow proceedures, in which case he should be court-martialled, or, and probably more likely, there was a deliberate decision taken not to appear too provocative. Yes there is a careful balance that needs to be struck, but does not mean you leave your people as sitting ducks. If that was a decision taken either by the RN or by politicians, then whoever made it needs to be brought to account. :nono:

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celtic-dragon said:

The ROE need to be revised, and additional security/force protection methods employed. I would seriously consider having helicopter gunship escort for any small boat missions of this sort in the future.

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FuManChu said:

The easy solution is to task the Lynx from the frigate to stick with the boarding party and not to be re-deployed from that duty except in emergencies.

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The central point of my arguement throughout is that I distrusted Blair as he is a known and serial Liar. I would say that my Cynicism has been justified as he very clearly lied about an International boundary - that does not exist! and at that point derailed any chance of an early settlement, which had up untill that point seemed likely according to some of the OTR briefings that have been published recently.

Does it matter?

Yes it does, as it means that our forces cannot be confident that the orders they are receiving are legal and that they may face uneccessary active peril or even legal action against them, despite acting in good faith.

He sent British Forces into a disputed region after telling them (we presume) that it was within Iraqi territorial waters. We can also assume that this was not a simple or routine search mission due to the lack of detailsl given about detainee no:11 which is usually indiciative of Special Forces or Intelligence Officers.

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celtic-dragon said:

I like the Lynx persoannaly, but is it really the right bird for this thing? Especially if it is a dedicated ASW bird?

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Hi Popeye - they kicked your dog but are not so keen to touch your kids - if you know what I mean

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bd popeye said:

You better believe it..:nono:

And the US "rules of engagement" are shall we say somewhat diffrent than other nations.

Explain the Mr X if you would please. Here in the US I have not heard about him reguarding this issue. We do get the BBC news on PBS but it comes on way past my bed time. About 2330!!!..Thanks

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SampanViking said:

Hi Popeye - they kicked your dog

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