Navy: Sailors Gave Info to Iran After Wildly Botched Mission

On Thursday, the US Navy released its official report on the 10 sailors detained by Iran last January, and the whole thing sounds like something out of Down Periscope. Problems started instantly, as the two Navy vessels left Kuwait for Bahrain four hours behind schedule, Fox News reports. The vessels then attempted to take a shortcut, veering off course without any apparent concern for where they actually were. According to Reuters, that's how the vessels ended up passing through Saudi Arabian waters before suffering mechanical difficulties in Iranian territory. The report found that all it would have taken to figure out their location was for a crew member to zoom in on their navigation system's map. Instead, 10 sailors were captured by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

And the problems continued. "It is clear that some, if not all, crew members provided at least some information to interrogators beyond name, rank, service number, and date of birth," Reuters quotes the report as saying. Information given up by sailors included passwords to phones and laptops and the capabilities of their vessels. The detained sailors also shouldn't have eaten on camera, as the video was used as propaganda by Iran, CNN reports. The problems with the mission were blamed on low morale, bad planning, and lack of oversight, among other factors. Or as CNN sums up: “Crews were poorly prepared, their boats not properly maintained, communication almost entirely lacking.” The Navy will use the incident as a "case study" in the future. (More Navy stories.)