It’s great to get our Royal Navy and Royal Marine personnel back after what seems a relatively short time in captivity. To me the whole affair seems to have been a propaganda exercise played out in Iran by those supporting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a time when the rest of the government in Iran were on holiday! Once the real politicians got back from holiday it was all sorted! Thank God!
Getting the most vunerable members of the group to appear on TV reading out whatever you tell them to, because you’ve threatened them with whatever, doesn’t strike me as being a particularly clever thing to do if you want to get ahead in World politics really. You may get a few jeers from your bully boy mates, but you’re not going to impress the more intelligent members of your electorate.
Since coming back from Iran the Ministry of Defence gave the hostages full backing to sell their stories. (Now taken back) Presumably to counter any statements that the Iranian government made previously this week after the official news conference from Chivenor where the Iranian government stated it was a “staged press conference”. I would say that all press conferences are staged, if you want to get picky 
. Somebody, presumably in government ( it’s not MOD policy to let personnel sell stories to the press ), thought it would be a good idea to let them tell their stories to the public independently. I think the question of taking money for stories may not be a good idea. Over the next few weeks we’ll see if it has the desired effect. It’s an attempt to sway public opinion of Iran in this country and around the World.
It would be interesting to know the full extent of any interrogation that went on? From early statements made by the crews, considering they were being threatened as being “spys”, there doesn’t seem to of been much apart from psychological pressure. No doubt we will find out more over the coming days.
As for any intelligence gathered from all this. I would think we have learned alot here. From the moment this all started there will of been all sorts of irregular communications flying about over the airwaves ( there was a holiday on) , telephone calls, flights, military activity, individuals changing plans, loads of stuff to analyse. All being monitored no doubt about it!
It’s seems Iran is hell bent on having a showdown as “GW” would put it!
(19.07.07 - Things seem to have calmed down now on the news front from Iran? I guess it’s a matter of time. The are getting restless, petrol rationing etc. Iran has loads of oil, however they need to refine it in large quantities)
