Head of Royal Navy defends captives actions

AP/Washington Post:

Britain's top naval officer yesterday defended the conduct of 15 sailors and marines seized by Iranian forces after inspecting a merchant vessel in the Persian Gulf. He said such operations will be suspended while a review is conducted.
Defense officials say none of the crew will be punished.
"For the moment, we have stopped [British] boarding operations. Coalition operations continue under U.K. command," said Adm. Jonathon Band, head of the Royal Navy. "Currently, our [operations] have been suspended while we do that review."
He told the British Broadcasting Corp. he believed the crew behaved with "considerable dignity and a lot of courage" during their 13 days in Iranian captivity.
He also said the so-called confessions made by some of them and their broadcast on Iranian state television appear to have been made under "a certain amount of psychological pressure."
In Crawford, Texas, the White House denounced Iran's treatment of the British after the captives said they were threatened with prison if they did not admit to straying into Iranian waters.
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters near President Bush's Texas ranch that the Iranians did not seem to engage in appropriate behavior in dealing with the troops who were seized in the Gulf two weeks ago.
"It's unfortunate that the Iranians ever detained the sailors to begin with, considering they were operating under a U.N. mandate in Iraqi waters. So what the sailors said this morning -- it's unfortunate and extremely disappointing they were treated inappropriately in any way," Mr. Johndroe said.
The British's admiral's defense comes after several British newspapers and defense analysts criticized the captured crew's behavior in readily parroting the Iranian claims and the military for not adequately equipping the sailors.
...

While I would not defend the actions of the captives, I think the White House is correct in pointing out that the real bad actors here were the Iranians. Their egregious conduct should not be overshadowed by criticism of the captives.

Still the British need to do a better job of training their forces to deal with captivity and more importantly with avoiding it by using aggressive tactics that protect their use of force. The boarding parties need to have helicopter cover at a minimum.

BTW, I think Iran probably is responsible for the four Brits killed in Basra on the day of the release, and probably selected them because two were attractive females.