London – Britain’s government beat a hasty retreat Monday under withering criticism for allowing sailors and marines to be paid large sums for their stories about captivity in Iran.
Officials banned further paid interviews as critics complained that the fees, reportedly as high as six figures, were unseemly and a slap at families of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The appearance of the first paid interviews also brought new criticism that the 15 crew members yielded too easily to Iranian pressure to make confessions and apologies. Some worried the crew’s actions revealed a loss of Britain’s famed “stiff upper lip” in tough times.
“The sailors and marines held in Iran have been so compliant and have already said so much that they have caused excruciating embarrassment to many people in this country,” a retired colonel, Bob Stewart, wrote in the newspaper The Times.
Defense Secretary Des Browne said that pending completion of a review of the regulations governing paid interviews, announced earlier in the day, all service personnel were now barred from accepting fees for talking about their military experiences.
The announcement does not affect any of the freed crew members who already accepted fees for talking to journalists but bars them and all other service members from making new deals with media outlets, the Defense Ministry said. Two such interviews appeared Monday, but it was unknown whether others had already sold their stories.
Browne acknowledged that “many strong views” had been expressed against the idea of military personnel taking cash to give exclusive stories to the media. Such fees are a long media practice in Britain, though more usually for stories involving sexual capers and lurid crimes.
The first paid interviews appeared Monday in The Sun and the Daily Mirror, with The Sun bagging the most sought-after sailor, Faye Turney, the only woman among the captives.
The stories came out a day after Iranian state TV sought to counter claims from the crew that they were mistreated during 13 days in custody. It broadcast a video showing the captives smiling and laughing while playing chess, watching soccer on TV and eating at a long table.
Turney, 25, told The Sun that she was separated from her 14 male colleagues and held in isolation for days at a time. She said her captors led her to fear she was being measured for a coffin, told her all her comrades had been sent home and forced her to strip to her underpants.
The crux of her story was that her “confession” that the crew’s two inflatable boats intruded into Iranian waters was false and made under duress.
“I had no choice,” she said. “If I didn’t comply, I was looking at being charged a spy.”
