MoD bows to public pressure and halts sale of hostage interviews to media
Des Browne, the defence secretary, has bowed to massive public pressure and withdrawn the right of the captured 15 British sailors to sell their stories to the highest bidder, a mere 24 hours after the Navy had given permission for them to do so.
If the BBC's comments section is anything to go by, then the decision to allow them to sell their stories in this way has proved profoundly unpopular. The government U-turn is yet another indication that this entire affair has left Labour desperate to reverse what they see as a public relations coup for Ahmadinejad, but unable to do so without offending huge swathes of public opinion. It was always a tacky decision, and that impression has not been removed by the government's hasty reversal.
It's hard to argue with Heseltine's logic. This was an own goal of staggering proportions from a Defence Department determined to reverse the impression that Ahmadinejad created with his bizarre press conference in which he portrayed himself as magnanimous in releasing the 15 as "a gift to the British people".The decision to allow the sailors and marines to sell their stories for sums of up to £100,000 was condemned by opposition politicians, families of dead service personnel and former officers. Some of the 15 have already given interviews for free. Lord Heseltine, the former deputy prime minister and defence secretary, said the decision was tantamount to saying: "Look lads, Rupert Murdoch's Sun has taken over. He's got the big cheque books and if he's prepared to pay to hell with any rules or regulations, any understandings, any customs, any traditions, it's all up for grabs.' That's called New Labour. I am profoundly shocked.
"What an extraordinary story, that people who every day take calculated risks with their lives are expected to earn relatively small sums of money whilst people who get themselves taken hostage, in circumstances which are worth exploring, can make a killing. I have never heard anything so appalling," he said.
One can only think that Downing Street were so angered by this that they have temporarily lost their collective power of reasoning and thought it important to get the stories of the fifteen out as quickly as possible. Although, even the stories that have been released have hardly had the required effect.
Early during their two-week detention in Iran, a group of British sailors and marines were blindfolded, hands cuffed behind their backs, and lined up facing a wall in a prison in Tehran. Behind them, they recalled, Iranian guards cocked their guns.The stories released so far say far less about Iranian bad behaviour towards the fifteen than they do about the perceptions the fifteen had about their captors." 'Lads, lads, I think we're going to get executed,' " a voice said in the darkness, recalled one of the marines, Joe Tindell. After that, someone got sick, "and as far as I was concerned, he had just had his throat cut."
The only PR value their telling of their tales has had so far is that they have been able to clear up their reasoning behind their decision not to fight their way out of the situation.
Des Browne struggled to explain the decision that has been made, even as he was reversing it:When confronted by the Iranians, "I explained we were conducting a routine operation, as allowed under a U.N. mandate, but when we tried to leave, they prevented us by blocking us in," Air explained in a prepared opening statement. "Some of the Iranian sailors were becoming deliberately aggressive and unstable. They rammed our boats and trained their heavy machine guns, RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] and weapons on us.
"Another six boats were closing in on us. We realized that our efforts to reason with these people were not making any headway, nor were we able to calm some of the individuals down. It was at this point that we realized that had we resisted, there would have been a major fight, one which we could not have won and with consequences that would have had major strategic impacts."
"Our team had seconds to make a decision, and we believe we made the right decision," he said.
It may well have been a tough call, but it was one that they called wrongly. Des Browne is right to reverse the original decision, but one can't help feeling that the appalling precedent has been set.But last night Mr Browne claimed that pressure on the 15 and their families "made it inevitable that some of them would accept media offers to tell their story in return for payment" and the navy had faced a "dilemma".
He added: "Many strong views on this have been expressed, but I hope people will understand that this was a very tough call, and that the navy had a duty to support its people. Nevertheless, all of us who have been involved over the last few days recognise we have not reached a satisfactory outcome. We must learn from this."
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