Anger Over Brit Sailors Selling Stories

The British Ministry of Defense's decision to allow the service members held captive in Iran for almost two weeks to sell their stories has ignited a furor in the U.K.

The Sun newspaper published an interview Monday with the only female sailor detained, 25-year-old Faye Turney, who said she believed she was being measured for a coffin while in detention.

The paper also reported that she was told by her captors that her 14 male colleagues had been released while she alone was being held.

Another sailor, Arthur Batchelor, 20, said he was singled out by his captors because he was the youngest of the crew.

The interviews were the first results of the Ministry of Defense's decision to permit the 15 former captives to sell their stories to the media. The financial arrangements for Turney and Batchelor were not disclosed, but Turney said the offer she accepted was not the largest she had been offered.

"I was offered a hell of a lot of money for this," Turney told Britain's ITN television network.

"That may be an understatement," reports CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar, who says Turney was paid almost $200,000 for her story.

The Sun said Turney feared at one point that she would be killed.

"One morning, I heard the noise of wood sawing and nails being hammered near my cell. I couldn't work out what it was. Then a woman came into my cell to measure me up from head to toe with a tape," The Sun quoted Turney as saying.

"She shouted the measurements to a man outside. I was convinced they were making my coffin."

Turney said she asked one Iranian official where her male colleagues were.

"He rubbed the top of my head and said with a smile, 'Oh no, they've gone home. Just you now,"' she said.

At another time, Turney said the same official asked her how she felt about dying for country.

By her fifth day in detention, she said she was told that she could be free within two weeks if she confessed that the crew had intruded into Iranian waters.

It was Turney who wrote letters saying the British forces had been trespassing in Iranian waters, an act that she told her ITN interviewer made her "feel like a traitor."

"I had no choice. If I didn't comply I was looking at being charged with being a spy," Turney said.

MacVicar reports that Britain's Ministry of Defense, normally very tight-lipped, cited "exceptional" public interest in its decision to allow the service members to accept payment for interviews.

But the decision set off howls of outrage, especially from the families of British soldiers who have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"As soon as you start talking about money then people really lose sympathy," said Michael Aston, whose son died in Iraq.

Retired Maj. Gen. Patrick Cordingly said he believes the sailors and marines were being used "almost as a propaganda tool" by the British government.

"I was depressed because I thought the team were so good on the press conference — they didn't overplay their unpleasant experience and we could all imagine what they had gone through," Cordingly said in a British Broadcasting Corp. radio interview.

"I think it's unfortunate the (Ministry of Defense) are using the sailors and Marines in this way. They are using them almost as a propaganda tool and it seems to be encouraging us to feel irritated with Iran rather than dialogue going on," he said.

Retired Col. Bob Stewart said, "Our interests are not well served by stories that may or may not be able to be checked and may or may not be blown apart across the world."

To counter the harrowing headlines this morning, the Iranians released new pictures of the detainees. MacVicar says the images of the sailors and marines laughing and playing ping pong paint a very different story from the harrowing tales in the tabloids.