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...again I ask, Where was the Cornwall when this was going on?

She is a very capable Batch 3 Type 22 Frigate that should have been able to see the Iranian gunboats coming and should have been able to protect her crew. She has an embarked helo too.

Do they have rules of engagement that prevent them from protecting their own from siezure? Was she not close enoogh (and if so, given the history, why not)? Where was she?

HMS Cornwall

Washington Post's revised reporting:

"In addition, the U.S. has accused elements of the Iranian government of supporting sectarian violence in Iraq and supplying insurgents with explosives. Several Iranian personnel have been taken into custody in U.S. raids."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1805510/posts#14

First Report from WP:

Iran Nabs British Sailors in Iraq Waters......A Pentagon official said the Britons were in two inflatable boats from the frigate H.M.S. Cornwall during a routine smuggling investigation, said the official, who spoke on condition on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the incident.

He said the confrontation happened as the British contingent was traveling along the boundary of territorial waters between Iran and Iraq. They were detained by the Revolutionary Guard's navy, he said.

A fisherman who said he was with a group of Iraqis from the southern city of Basra fishing in Iraqi waters in the northern area of the Gulf said he saw the Iranian seizure. The fisherman declined to be identified because of security concerns.

"Two boats, each with a crew of six to eight multinational forces, were searching Iraqi and Iranian boats Friday morning in Ras al-Beesha area in the northern entrance of the Arab Gulf, but big Iranian boats came and took the two boats with their crews to the Iranian waters."

"...again I ask, Where was the Cornwall when this was going on?"

This is amazing. You have Marines in small boats and the HMS Cornwall doesn't protect their own troops from being kidnapped in plain sight?

If the Iranian ships actually entered Iraqi territorial waters, where were the Coalition air and navel assets to repel an incursion?

The Iranian ships should have been challenged the moment they entered Iraqi Territorial waters and a warning shot fired into their bridge.

War is heck.....