That whole situation sucked.
The Iranians showed up as the boarding team were just leaving the ship in their inflatable boats. They would have had to speed/swim back to the cargo boat, and climb back up the ladder onto the ship to be able to "fight". The Iranians had 20mm anti-aircraft guns on their armoured boats. The Brits had life vests and a few pistols and rifles.
The team can be faulted for not being situationally aware, but the Iranian boats could have gone from shore to the cargo ship in just about 5 minutes (10km@45kts). Likely they didn't even have to go that far. Besides that, the Iranians scouted out this particular operation. We now know that we will actually have to secure our boarding teams -- imagine that in a conflict zone.
Bush still hasn't learned the concept of "securing the borders". Won't do it in America, didn't do it in Iraq. Why should Blair, a fellow neocon, understand the concept of "securing the boarders?"
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