Posted on 01/12/2007 9:02:05 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - 0112dvs-british-troops The Iraqi foreign minister said Friday that the five Iranians detained by U.S.-led forces in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq were working in a liaison office that had government approval and was in the process of being approved as a consulate.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, also said U.S. forces tried to seize more people at the airport in Irbil, 220 miles north of Baghdad, prompting a confrontation with Kurdish troops guarding the facility that was resolved without casualties.
A Pentagon official in Washington said that after troops detained the people in the first building, they learned another person may have escaped and fled to the airport.
An American team went to the airport, where they "surprised" Kurdish forces, who apparently had not been informed they were coming, said the Defense Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak about the incident on the record.
"No shots were fired, no one was injured, it was just a tense situation," said the official.
Local Kurdish authorities protested that they were not informed in advance about the arrests and raised fears that tensions between Iran and the United States were hurting Iraq's interests.
"We don't want Iraq to be a battleground for settling scores with other countries," Zebari told CNN in an interview.
Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's office, meanwhile, rejected President Bush's plans to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq as part of a new effort to curb rampant sectarian attacks.
"We reject Bush's new strategy and we think it will fail," said Abdul-Razzaq al-Nidawi, a senior official in al-Sadr's office. He said Iraq's problems were due to the presence of U.S. troops and called for their withdrawal.
In Washington, Sen. John McCain defended Bush's plan as difficult but necessary, parting company with lawmakers questioning the wisdom of the military build up.
"I believe that together these moves will give the Iraqis and Americans the best chance of success," said the Arizona Republican, a leading presidential contender for 2008.
McCain spoke at the Senate Armed Services Committee, where Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spent a second day on Capitol Hill defending the president's strategy.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced last weekend his government would implement a new security plan for Baghdad, including neighborhood-by-neighborhood sweeps by Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops. Similar efforts have failed in the past because of the Shiite-dominated government's resistance to cracking down on militias such as the Mahdi Army, which is loyal to al-Sadr.
The Bush proposal calls for up to 12,000 additional Iraqi troops to secure Baghdad, which has been beset by sectarian violence, much of blamed on militias. On Friday, suspected Shiite militiamen attacked a Sunni mosque in a religiously mixed neighborhood, prompting clashes that wounded two guards, police said.
Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh said the Iraqi government recognized that the country was in a precarious position.
"We all have to recognize that the situation in Iraq is serious, it's dangerous, and this dynamics of violence cannot be sustained," he said in an interview with National Public Radio. "It must be the political will by us to do it."
The raids in Irbil came as U.S. officials repeated long-standing accusations that Iran is encouraging the violence in Iraq by supplying money and weapons.
The Iranians were detained Thursday as multinational forces entered the building overnight and confiscated computers and documents, two senior local Kurdish officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
Six people suspected of being involved in attacks against Iraqi civilians and military forces were initially detained, the U.S. military said in a statement. One was later released. The statement did not identify the nationalities of the suspects.
Iraqi and Iranian officials initially said the Iranian office was a diplomatic mission, raising questions about whether those detained had diplomatic immunity. But Zebari told The Associated Press that the Iranians worked at a "liaison office" that was in the process of becoming a consulate.
"This office is not new and has been there for more than 10 years," he said. "We are now in the process of changing these offices to consulates and ... we will open consulates in Iran."
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said the facility was an "office of relations" and that it was waiting for permission to operate as a consulate. The U.S. Embassy also said it was assured the building was not a consulate.
The regional Kurdish government condemned the arrests of the Iranians and called for their release. Many Kurds, including Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, have close ties to Iran. Last month, U.S. troops detained at least two Iranians and released two others who had diplomatic immunity. Two of those detained were visiting as guests of Talabani, his spokesman said.
Zebari also said American forces went to the Irbil airport on Thursday but did not identify themselves or give advance notice to local authorities.
"No party had knowledge of this matter and that is why the force protecting the airport tried to interfere and find out who they were and what they were doing," he said.
In Tehran, Iran's Foreign Ministry said it summoned the Iraqi and Swiss ambassadors and "demanded an explanation" about the Irbil incident. Switzerland represents American interests in Iran.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Thursday that the detained Iranians were being questioned. The U.S. Embassy declined to give an update Friday.
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Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.
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So WHAT? Just because their presence was aproved by Iraq in the first plave we should release them? We didn't grab them because they were there illegaly or covertly, but because they were wreaking havoc!
WHA!
The more these people are yelling about the actions we perform the more we know the actions we perform is having the desired effect.
no - it would seem there are elements in Iraq who want to see Iran take a early position. clearly, the iranians want the void for may reasons.
the iranians should have their butts kicked out of the void and their ability to invoke and intermeddle stripped. if tht is nnot done, they WILL annex Iraq.
IMO
Take them out for a little "PT" and conveniently make them disappear. Problem solve.
Hang onto them for 444 days, then turn 'em lose.
This is also happening constantly with perps detained via surveillance and patrol operations all over Iraq. A phone call comes in (from the Iraqi government, "he's a cousin of so-and-so official") and the perp is released (no doubt, to bomb again).
And Iran's president, Andiminajihad wagged his finger and said, "I(ran) did not have an 'office of relations' with that count(ry), Ms. Iraq, ......
Since Iraq is in theory sovereign, it is a big deal. It further shows that the government has no authority, even with us, who usually pretend they are in charge.
Whats with the Kurds...they'd all be dead turds if it wasn't for the USA.
So now we're talking with Iranian diplomats and they're still not happy.
It wasn't a consulate. It had been there 8 years and still wasn't a consulate, which makes me pretty skeptical about what they mean by it being in the process of becoming one.
If the people who are still being detained had diplomatic immunity, Iran and at least some factions in the Iraqi government would be screaming about it to the press which would be happy to tell the world.
If we find information from this raid that Iranians were coordinating attacks on American troops out of this "diplomatic mission", that should be treated as a act of war by Iran, and Iran itself should be attacked in response.
My feelings, exactly.
Iranians working for the Iranian government had been working out of this place for 10 years, yet it had not been granted consular status. Why not?
And if you don't find any information, what then? The damage had already been done. Iraqi authority has been grossly undermined.
If this were an actual consulate, that would be true. If the US is detaining Iranian diplomats that have diplomatic immunity granted by the Iraqi government that would be true.
The AP article tries to infer that these are diplomats with immunity, but never says that they are. Neither has Iran. Neither has anyone in the Iraqi government.
I think you're putting much too much faith in the AP accurately portraying the situation and not looking at the facts very carefully.
You also appear to be assuming that the US military didn't have a very good reason for carrying out this raid.
You're letting the tone of an AP article lead you to make some conclusions that I don't think the facts justify.
I didn't even notice that the news item is from AP. My faith is in the Kurdish authorities, and especially the Iraqi foreign minister Hoshair Zibary (who also happened to be a kurd). These people may not have been diplomats, but they are in Iraq legally as I understand. They were captured in Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. When you have a senior Kurdish regional official (I think it was their PM) saying they were KIDNAPPED by armed Americans, and repeatedly stressing this word, then its a serious affair. The standoff with Kurdish security was so close to causing casualties between friends. I for one don't like to see that.
As for what you said about why the place didn't become a consulate before. I don't know. But it could not have become a consulate during Saddam's era as it would have required permission from Baghdad (not possible in those days).
I can't find this mentioned in any articles. Can you point me to a reference for this?
Zebari does seem like a very credible source even though he once called our presence in Iraq an occupation when providing testimony to the UN. He appears to be a proud Kurdish Iraqi who believes strongly in the sovereignty of his nation.
As the foreign minister he is also probably very upset since it appears he was left out of the loop regarding this raid.
That doesn't however necessarily mean the Iraqi government wasn't informed about the raid beforehand or that the raid wasn't approved by appropriate members of the Iraqi government.
The Iraqi government is full of leaks and people with divided loyalties. If this raid was approved by members of the government, they are very likely to keep quiet about that for their own safety as well as operational security.
The standoff with Kurdish security was so close to causing casualties between friends.
LOL! Here's what the article says:
An American team went to the airport, where they "surprised" Kurdish forces, who apparently had not been informed they were coming, said the Defense Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak about the incident on the record.
"No shots were fired, no one was injured, it was just a tense situation," said the official.
The first sentence is a paraphrase by an associated press reporter. The second sentence doesn't have much context with it, but it's likely in response to questioning by reporters, and it's seems like it's trying to counter the idea that this was a dangerous situation, not support it.
It's also an unnamed defense department official. It's not like we haven't heard a lot of sensationalized and misleading crap being attributed to unnamed officials in the defense department by the AP.
The press general sensationalized situations. That Assosicated Press when reporting on the US military is far worse at doing this than most.
Do you really think that US forces rushing to the airport to try and apprehend someone is going to cause the Kurdish forces to think they are being attacked by US forces?
As for what you said about why the place didn't become a consulate before. I don't know. But it could not have become a consulate during Saddam's era as it would have required permission from Baghdad (not possible in those days).
True, but that was quite a few years ago. Sadam hasn't been in power for a while now. The Iraqi government chose not to make this a consulate for some reason or another, or perhaps it's more appropriate to say that the different factions within the Iraqi government couldn't agree on making it a consulate.
The effect is the same. It was not a consulate. Those who are being detained don't have diplomatic immunity. That means that they were simply individuals working and residing in Iraq. So the question is if there were valid reasons to raid the offices and detain these people.
The rest is just a bunch of political posturing.
The Iraqi government did not officially grant these people or this office any special rights.
Some apparent tension as American troops rushed to the airport is hardly a standoff.
You're buying a lot of hype.
The reference I have is an audio. Its a report I heard on NPR yesterday. Sorry for quoting a liberal source! but one can ignore the opinion part of it. I just found the link here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6817185
The Kurdish government spokesman who pointedly calls it a kidnapping also pointedly calls it a consulate, which is incorrect.
So does he not know what he's talking about, or is he misrepresenting the situation?
Here in Washington, I suspect you'd find a number of liberal government "officials" and even Congressmen that would call Bush a war criminal and our soldiers murders. Does that mean you should take that as a fact and official government policy even when other facts they present are false?
That audio does tell a more detailed story about the "standoff" near the airport. It does appear that Kurdish forces confronted American forces.
Someone apparently called on them to protect the fleeing Iranian "diplomat".
The Kurds have been our allies to an extent, and definitely our best "allies" in Iraq. But many of the Kurds want independence rather than being part of a unified Iraq that is plagued by violence.
I suspect that the Kurds did consider it a consulate, but the Iraqi government would not approve it as such. The Kurds are working to form diplomatic ties on their own, and the Iranians are exploiting their willingness to do so.
Notice that the official called it a violation of Kurdish sovereignty, not Iraqi sovereignty.
It seems like our actions pissed of a regional government that playing by it's own rules.
To put it bluntly. The Kurds can't defend their sovereignty on their own, and we can't let each regional government make their own rules. The "mission" was not a consulate to the Iraqi government, and the Kurdish government doesn't have the authority to grant diplomatic immunity or consulate status on it's own.
I suspect that the US forces did have approval for their operation from the Iraqi government, and someone in the Kurdish government helped an Iraqi escape. It they helped a senior player of the Iranians that are planning and and providing support for attacks in Iraq escape, that official need to hang for treason.
American soldiers are losing their lives and American taxpayers are paying billions of dollars to keep their regional government in place. If they believe that they can cut a deal with Iran to leave them alone after they undermine the Iraqi government and take over either explicitly or by placing a puppet Islamic (totalitarian) government in control, they are fools.
If the Kurds undermine us and we don't start making progress at stabilizing Iraq, they are going to find themselves on their own in the not so distant future, and they don't have the strength to stand on their own against Iran, or the terrorists Iran will send to undermine their government.
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