In his crisply ironed uniform, Simon Massey described how he thought he was
going to die. His mother Carol and sister Hannah listened with quiet pride
as he recalled his ordeal: “It was going through my head I was never going
to see my family again.”
After he was seized by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Massey was blindfolded
and flown to Tehran with his hands tied behind his back with plastic cable.
The most terrifying moment came when he was lined up against the wall with
his crewmates and “everybody’s imagination started going”.
One of the crew members vomited. Unable to see through their blindfolds, the
other British captives feared his throat was being cut. Behind them, they
heard weapons being cocked. “It was just crazy, we were sat there with our
heads up against the wall, still blindfolded and handcuffed, and I just
thought, that was it, that was going to be it for the 15 of us.”
Massey and his crewmates continued to suffer during their imprison-ment. They
spent days in isolation in small stone cells, 8ft by 6ft, and were
interrogated at night. Massey, 22, was held in solitary confinement for
eight days, although he managed to communicate with a fellow seaman by
tapping with his knuckles in Morse code.
“Little things like that got us through,” he said, but he admitted that on day
nine he broke down before recovering his composure.
As we now know, the smug boast of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president,
that the captured sailors and marines were shown the virtues of “Islamic
hospitality” during their 13 days in captivity was a sinister mockery of the
truth.
Faye Turney, the only woman on board, was kept apart from the rest of the crew
and was the first to be singled out for propaganda purposes. She was told
that all the others had been freed except her, before she was paraded in a
hijab and began apologising for Britain’s alleged misbehaviour. The other
sailors and marines were told they had to confess to trespassing in Iranian
waters in the Shatt al-Arab or face seven years in jail.
The emotional and psychological intimidation was tough, but certainly not the
worst in the history of warfare — nor dissimilar to the experience of some
Iraqi and Afghan prisoners of coalition forces in the Middle East. And as
some commentators noted, their treatment was positively mild compared with
those abused by US forces in Abu Ghraib two years ago.
Asked whether he and his comrades had undergone a mock execution, Massey
replied: “It’s a fine line to draw.”
Nothing has proved to be simple in this sorry tale of bungling and
misadventure, in which the Iranians played the British government and
military for fools.
Whether Ahmadinejad, circus master of the bizarre hostage spectacle, has won
the lasting propaganda victory he seemed so confident of last week, is
another matter.
The deaths of four servicemen, including two women, in Basra on Thursday
following the explosion of a massive bomb under their vehicle, underscored
the brutal nature of the conflict in which Britain is engaged and refocused
attention on Iran’s support for terrorism.
Despite the occasionally farcical nature of the crisis, this was no Navy Lark.
The image of British servicemen thanking Ahmadinejad for his gracious
treatment and asking for forgiveness for “apparently” trespassing will not
be easy to erase, particularly in the Middle East. As one Iranian
commentator said mockingly: “Britannia really doesn’t rule the waves any
more.”
The British showed themselves to be “Marmite-eating surrender monkeys”, said
Michael Rubin, the American neoconservative and an Iran analyst. Others
observed that the flowery “goody bags of dishonour” containing Persian
sweets, pistachio nuts, CDs and vases, with which the servicemen returned,
seemed designed to emphasise their wimpishness.
The Ministry of Defence appeared happy enough with the way the 15 conducted
themselves. Whitehall sources pointed out that they were not prisoners of
war and were thus not expected simply to supply their “name, rank, serial
number and date of birth” — the “big four” mythologised in war films.
Instead they followed rules for “conduct in capture” under which a British
military source stated: “It is fine to tell your captors roughly what they
want to hear — as long as you don’t give away anything classified, put
anyone’s life in danger or breach operational security.”
John Nichol, the former RAF navigator who was badly beaten by the Iraqis after
being shot down during the 1991 Gulf war, said the “big four” went out of
the window after he, John Peters, his pilot, and a number of SAS men were
captured and tortured. “Until you have been there, you have absolutely no
idea,” Nichol said. “Everyone in these circumstances fights a very personal
battle for their safety.”
It was only when the freed servicemen headed home from Iran on Thursday that
they learnt that the world had been treated to photographs of them gaily
eating and playing chess during their second week in captivity.
“I understand Faye’s been getting a lot of stick for smoking,” Massey said.
“When we got back and found out this was all the footage people were seeing
. . . it makes you angry.”
Yet the contrast between the picture of the seamen in Iran waving like a pack
of wannabe reality TV stars upon learning of their release and the sober
image of them back on the tarmac in Britain in uniform suggests that they —
or at least the ministry — may have had an inkling that they had crossed the
“fine line” between maintaining their dignity and securing their freedom.
INFURIATED by the disappearance of Ali Reza Asgari, a former commander of the
elite Quds force in Lebanon, and by the Americans’ capture of five members
of that unit in Arbil, northern Iraq, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards made
sure the seizure of the British sailors and marines was a well planned
affair.
Days before the crisis broke, The Sunday Times revealed that the Revolutionary
Guards were boasting of their intention “to capture a nice bunch of
blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks”.
In a similar incident in 2004, British seamen were taken to Tehran,
blindfolded, paraded on television and subjected to mock executions. Despite
this, the Royal Navy was dismally unprepared when eight fast boats belonging
to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards appeared to come out of nowhere and
seized the 15.
HMS Cornwall, the mother ship, known as “the ice-cream frigate” because of its
designation F99, was static in the water 11 miles away when the 15 were
grabbed. A Lynx helicopter that was supposed to be watching over the
servicemen had also moved out of position, allegedly because it did not have
enough fuel. The sailors had only a few pistols between them.
The Iranians quickly overwhelmed the British seamen. “They rammed our boats
and trained their heavy machineguns, RPGs and weapons on us,” said Captain
Chris Air, the Royal Marine in charge, on his return last week. “It was at
this point that we realised that had we resisted, there would have been a
major fight . . . We made a conscious decision not to engage the Iranians
and do what they asked.”
The ease of their capture led critics to scoff that the pride of the Royal
Navy had surrendered first and apologised later. Stung by the jibes, one
senior defence official said it was easy for armchair warriors to sound off,
but the servicemen’s instructions “were not to start a war with Iran”.
Admiral Sir Jonathon Band, the first sea lord who heads the navy, said: “I
would not agree at all that it was not our finest hour.” But he added: “We
will look at the equipment, we will look at the procedures, we will look at
the things that happened. We certainly wouldn’t want this to happen again.”
FOR Tony Blair, the hostage crisis was an unwelcome test of nerves and
diplomacy. The prime minister feared the conflict could drag on for months,
overshadowing his final months in office. It was particularly embarrassing
that Britain appeared to have been singled out for retaliation over the
Americans’ actions against Iran in Iraq. Had the nation sunk so low that it
was now the weak link in the coalition’s armour?
Towards the end of the first week of the crisis, the UK government had sought
to adopt a conciliatory tone towards the Iranians — to the annoyance of some
MPs.
Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, went on Arabic television to express
“regret” at the incident. It had been decided at an early meeting of Cobra,
the emergency planning committee, that the government would not take an
inflammatory approach, that ministers should give Iran the opportunity to
back down without losing face.
In the first few days of the crisis, it was difficult to establish meaningful
contact with Tehran because of the new year holiday in Iran. But last
Saturday Whitehall received and responded to a diplomatic letter from the
Iranians — seen as a possible olive branch.
The Foreign Office’s return “note verbale” was delivered to Tehran via the
embassy in the Iranian capital. It was stamped with an official government
seal and restated London’s demands for the return of the hostages and their
equipment, but is understood to have promised that Iranian waters would be
respected.
The Foreign Office did not get a reply from Tehran, but early last week there
was a further encouraging sign from the Iranians.
Ministers were pleasantly surprised and relieved when Ali Larijani, Iran’s
chief international negotiator, agreed to appear on Channel 4 News last
Monday.
“We felt it was like the ‘official response’ to the letter we sent back to
Tehran through channels last weekend,” said a senior Foreign Office source.
“When Larijani refused to say that the hostages would be put on trial, we
knew there was light at the end of the tunnel.”
The following morning, last Tuesday, Cobra met in the basement of the Cabinet
Office. The meeting was chaired by Beckett and attended by Sir Nigel
Sheinwald, Blair’s foreign policy adviser. The Larijani interview had raised
hopes, but there was confusion over whether Iran would release Turney.
Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran’s foreign minister, had promised to let her go, but
Tehran was still publicly accusing the seamen of “trespassing” in its waters
and parading them on television.
Sheinwald went on to speak directly to Larijani by telephone on Tuesday
evening. “It was the first encouraging sign that the Iranians wanted to play
ball,” said a senior government adviser.
The 53-year-old foreign policy adviser is an experienced diplomat noted for
his deft touch. During the conversation with Larijani, Sheinwald restated
the British government’s position that it wanted the seamen released
immediately and that they had not strayed into Iranian waters. There was,
insist government officials, no talk of any concessions, an apology or a
deal.
“With his TV interview and the telephone call, Larijani was transmitting a
willingness to see an end to the crisis,” said a Foreign Office official.
“Sir Nigel restated our position and Larijani stated the Iranian view. It
was about how we could resolve this crisis as quickly as possible.”
The next day Ahmadinejad held a rambling two-hour press conference at which he
suddenly announced that the captives would be freed as an “Easter gift to
the British people”. The sailors’ freedom was rapidly spun as a victory for
diplomacy. “Silver lining is not the right word, but if there is anything to
come out of this crisis, it is that we have opened new lines of
communications with the Iranians,” said a senior government source.
In parts of Washington it was seen differently. John Bolton, former US
ambassador to the United Nations, was appalled. “The Iranians learnt that if
you poke people in the eye, they’re happy when you stop,” he said.
There is circumstantial evidence that a deal was struck, despite denials. “I
hope we didn’t negotiate with them because if we did, it is a mistake,” said
Bolton.
The first sign of a possible quid pro quo came when Jalal Sharafi, an Iranian
diplomat and suspected member of the Quds force held in Iraq — purportedly
by an insurgent group — was released last Tuesday. Some US sources assert
that he was in the joint custody of the Iraqi government and Americans at
the time.
According to one report, Shafari was released at the urging of the White House
over the objections of some US military commanders.
The release of the sailors also followed news that the Americans had allowed
members of the Red Cross, including an Iranian, to visit the five suspected
members of the Iranian Quds force captured in Arbil.
Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, went on to say that US and Iraqi
officials hoped to be able to give “some kind of Iranian access” to the five
prisoners. He denied they would be released, but speculation persists that
they may be freed before Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, heads
to Baghdad this month for regional talks on Iraq’s future.
Deals of this kind are never put on paper, enabling officials on both sides to
deny all tangible signs of their existence, but the evidence suggests that
America played a role in securing the hostages’ freedom.
Michael Ledeen, a former US official who dealt with the Iranians during the
Iran-contra affair, said: “It’s obvious there was a deal. It will only
encourage the Iranians to believe that the West is weak.”
JOHN WILLIAMS, the former communications director at the Foreign Office,
believes ministers are unlikely to be troubled by those who say Britain was
humiliated, especially after the details of the servicemen’s treatment
emerged.
“We got the result we wanted,” he said. “Ahmadinejad may have thought he got
himself a PR triumph, but it was pretty hollow, wasn’t it? He’s been shown
to the world to be a complete liar.”
Others disagree. Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester, said yesterday that
Ahmadinejad had shown a better understanding of moral and spiritual values
than Britain’s political leaders.
For Bolton, the Iranians received dangerous encouragement: “It was a low-cost
experiment for them designed to see how tough a response they would get from
Britain, Europe and, ultimately, the United States. The answer is ‘not
much’. It will embolden them to press ahead on the nuclear weapons front.”
WITH support for the war in Iraq ebbing away in America, the appetite for
military action against Iran has also been receding. In its place, a new
policy of “aggressive containment” — a phrase dating from the cold war with
the Soviet Union — is taking shape.
The “pushback”, as White House officials call it, began this year with the
arrest of Iranians in Iraq and the stationing of two air carrier strike
forces in the Gulf (soon to be joined by a third). It is being coupled with
an economic squeeze on Iran, although this is feebler than the Americans had
hoped to achieve because of Europe’s reluctance to impose tough financial
penalties on the regime.
In Dubai a diplomatic outpost has been set up to provide outreach to
dissidents. While there is some dispute over how much aid — if any — America
is giving to ethnic groups fomenting trouble inside Iran, rival nationalisms
are another source of tension for the mullahs’ regime.
The White House is deliberately trying to keep the Iranians on their toes —
terrified by the prospect of military action, yet uncertain whether America
really means to mount an attack. The British hostage crisis was a byproduct
of a game of brinkmanship, which could ultimately make war more likely.
For now, perhaps, a sense of relief is justified. But for how long? As Massey
heads off for “a couple of days with my girlfriend”, the next crisis may
already be brewing.
- Ali Ansari teaches Iranian history at St Andrews University and is the
author of Confronting Iran
Name, rank, serial number ... and TV
A VICTORY for common sense or behaviour that heaped humiliation on Britain and
its armed services?
As the 15 British sailors and marines released as an Easter “gift” by
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad flew home on Thursday clutching Iranian goody
bags and clad in poorly tailored Iranian suits, the postmortem into their
conduct began.
Under the Geneva conventions, captured service personnel need only give their
name, rank, serial number and date of birth (“the big four”). However,
today’s recruits are told to cooperate, short of revealing secrets, and
present a human face if taken prisoner.
But “were they just too co-operative?” asked one newspaper across two pages.
It’s a debate everyone had a view on. Here are the highlights:
— They did exactly as they should have done from start to finish and
we are proud of them — Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, chief of the
defence staff, Britain’s top military officer
— The international image of Britain as Churchillian bulldog has for
ever been replaced by this bunch of hapless stooges grinning and waving for
the cameras like [game show] contestants . . . I don’t blame the unfortunate
human ingredients in this pawn cocktail. They were only obeying orders —
which, ludicrously, amount to ‘surrender first and apologise later’
— Richard Littlejohn, newspaper columnist
— We did not cooperate too much. I would say the allegation is wholly
incorrect . . . Let me be absolutely clear, from the outset it was very
apparent that fighting back was simply not an option. Had we chosen to do so
then many of us would not be standing here today — Royal Marine Captain
Chris Air, one of the 15 held captive
— The British military has performed magnificently in Iraq. Even so, with
the release of the sailors, we would like to learn the full story of why the
hostages seemingly cooperated so readily with their captors. These weren’t
civilians but sailors presumably trained to resist propaganda displays —
The Wall Street Journal
— We thought we were going to the British embassy but we got taken to a
detention centre, all 15 of us. We had a blindfold and plastic cuffs, hands
behind our backs, heads against the wall. Basically there were weapons
cocking. Someone, I’m not sure who, someone said, I quote, ‘Lads, lads, I
think we’re going to get executed.’ After that comment, someone was sick and
as far as I was concerned he had just had his throat cut — Royal Marine
Joe Tindell, one of the 15 hostages sailors
— That’s the spirit — eating hearty curries, smoking, playing chess,
wearing tracksuits and denouncing Great Britain to the entire world — hardly
The Colditz Story is it? — A writer on the HolyMoly! website
— How can we criticise the actions of these servicemen and woman? None of
us were there, God only knows what was going through their minds! Waiting
for that moment when one of them is dragged out and treated like Ken Bigley,
God rest his soul — it could have happened — A post on the Army
Rumour Service, an unofficial UK military website
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