I think this might have been a SAS insertion.........what they were re conning is anyones guess.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,9919190%255E1702,00.html
Iraq 'joins efforts to free Brits'
From correspondents in Basra
22jun04
BRITISH forces had asked Iraqi authorities to mediate with Iran over the seizure of three British naval boats and the arrest of eight crew, a coastguard source said today.
Coastguard officials in southern Iraq had been asked to appeal to the Iranians for the release of the patrol boats and crew, the source said.
The Britons were detained after they entered the Islamic republic's territorial waters on the Iraqi border.
The source said the office of Iraqi General Ali Hammadi had made contact with the Iranian authorities and hoped the Britons would be quickly released.
They could have been hunting out terrorist insurgents who might be hiding in the marshes and islands in or near no-man's land; they could have been extracting a spy or leading dissident (that would explain Iran being all over them so soon); they could have been on an honest patrol, but gotten "spoofed" by anti-GPS technology; they could have been on a recon or sabotage mission, too.
But "delivering boats" East of Faw they were not. Not much of a cover story, I'm afraid.