CRAIG MURRAY
Available for a limited number of interviews, Murray is former head of the British Foreign Office’s Maritime Section. He has written extensively about the detention of the 15 Britons on his web page and was among the first to note that the boundary was contested. A piece he wrote entitled, “How I Know Blair Faked Iran Map,” was published in the British Daily Mail.

Murray said today: “Any life saved is a victory, and I am delighted that the maritime incident has been resolved with nobody being killed or even injured. That is the right perspective on this.

“Yesterday four more unfortunate British servicemen died in southern Iraq as a result of Blair’s crass Middle Eastern policy. Think of them and their families, and the 70 Iraqi civilians who on average will be killed today. Yes, rejoice at the 15 who came home safely today, but remember those who did not, and their families.

“Less than a week before the 15 were captured, the media received the confirmation that British government scientists believed that 655,000 dead in Iraq a year ago was a good estimate. That received almost no press coverage. The detention of 15 Britons for 10 days is more important than the agonizing deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

“There was a revelatory moment on BBC ‘Breakfast TV’ yesterday when Admiral Sir Alan West said he was sure we had been in ‘our’ waters. He corrected himself afterwards to ‘Iraqi waters’ but the slip reveals the mindset of the occupying forces.”

Murray is former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and author of the book Murder in Samarkand: A British Ambassador’s Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror.
More Information

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020