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Iran releases four U.S. soldiers held since Sunday
CNN ^ | Monday, June 2, 2003 | Barbara Starr

Posted on 06/02/2003 5:22:16 PM PDT by Bayou City

Edited on 04/29/2004 2:02:38 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

WASHINGTON (CNN) --The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet in Bahrain is reporting that four U.S. soldiers and four civilians aboard two small civilian contractor boats were recovered Monday in the northern Persian Gulf after several hours in Iranian hands.

All eight of the passengers were found alive, but the two boat captains are being held by Iran.


(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Free Republic; Front Page News; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: army; captured; faw; iran; southasia; ussoldiers
Update from a post earlier!
1 posted on 06/02/2003 5:22:16 PM PDT by Bayou City
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To: Bayou City
Thank you! I had read the earlier post and hadn't seen anything since. Praise God they are safe.
2 posted on 06/02/2003 5:28:11 PM PDT by Types_with_Fist
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To: Prodigal Son; cgk
Update ping!
3 posted on 06/02/2003 5:29:10 PM PDT by Bayou City
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To: Bayou City
Relief except for the captains.The Iranians are playing hardball.
4 posted on 06/02/2003 5:29:51 PM PDT by MEG33
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To: Bayou City
Thanks for the ping and update on this situation.

The Iranians are just begging for it aren't they?

5 posted on 06/02/2003 5:52:01 PM PDT by Prodigal Son
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To: Prodigal Son
Normally I am as hard on the Iranians as the next FReeper, but it looks like they had the right to detain our guys. They were in Iranian waters.

Our soldiers were released, unharmed, after an interrogation. They kept the captains. If they were not American citizens and had no business in Iranian waters, that's legitimate too.

What would you expect the Iranians to do? Kiss them and give them a bunch of flowers?

6 posted on 06/02/2003 6:35:10 PM PDT by Ronin
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To: Ronin
No, maybe you're right. Perhaps they should've just executed them. Or maybe we can have a sort of 'Iranian Hostage Crisis Lite'. The slimmer, lower fat version for the 21st Century. We can spend the next 444 days seeing our American servicemen in blindfolds on American TV.

If you're a 90 lb weakling, you don't go up to the big group of Rugby players in the pub and tell them they're blocking your view to the telly. The weakling might be in the right, but it's just not a very clever thing to do is it? At this point in history, it would be simpler for us to merely take over Iran and rename it than to go through the diplomatic rigamarole to get these two Captains back. This is something the pointy heads in the Middle East haven't cottoned onto yet. This is our age. What the Iranians think about much of anything is irrelevent. They exist at this moment only at our whim. 'Making Nice' with our enemies (and Iran is 100% one of our enemies) costs us more effort than simply removing them from this mortal plane.

I suppose the Iranians can try to push their technical right. If they think it's worth obliteration- fine. It just doesn't seem a terribly smart move if they're planning on being around much longer. If Dubya wants to invade them over this- I wouldn't bat an eyelash.

7 posted on 06/02/2003 7:00:12 PM PDT by Prodigal Son
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Everyone progably already knows this, but...

The "waterway" where this occurred is a river that is not more than about a mile wide at its widest point. So to say these boats wandered/intentionally went into Iranian waters... could have meant the boats went 10 feet too far over the center line of the river.

Here's some info about the Shatt al Arab waterway:

Shatt al Arab , tidal river, 120 mi (193 km) long, formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, flowing SE to the Persian Gulf, forming part of the Iraq-Iran border; the Karun is its chief tributary. The Shatt al Arab flowed through a broad, swampy delta, but the marshland in Iraq was drained in the early 1990s in order to increase government control over the Arab Shiites who lived there. The river supplies fresh water to S Iraq and Kuwait and is navigable for oceangoing vessels as far as Basra, Iraq's chief port.

Iraq and Iran have disputed navigation rights on the Shatt al Arab since 1935, when an international commission gave Iraq total control of the Shatt al Arab, leaving Iran with control only of the approaches to Abadan and Khorramshahr, its chief ports, and unable to develop new port facilities in the delta. To preclude Iraqi political pressure and interference with its oil and freight shipments on the Shatt al Arab, Iran built ports on the Persian Gulf to handle foreign trade. Iran and Iraq negotiated territorial agreements over the Shatt al Arab waterway in 1975, but by the end of the decade skirmishes in the area became prevalent. Full-scale war between the two countries broke out in Sept., 1980, leading to eight years of attacks on coastal areas (see Iran-Iraq War). The Shatt al Arab remains a source of conflict, as limited water access and unresolved maritime boundaries in the region persist.

And here is a longer article on the waterway: Shatt al-'Arab waterway Iran/Iraq

8 posted on 06/02/2003 7:58:37 PM PDT by BagCamAddict
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To: Bayou City
Thanks for the update! All I knew was they had been found, but nothing else. Looks like we avoided another hostage crisis...
9 posted on 06/02/2003 11:10:30 PM PDT by cgk (Bob Geldof: "President Bush is radical, in a positive sense. Clinton just screwed everybody.")
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To: Bayou City
They'll give those two captains back in good order. This is no time for them to be pushing us and they know it.
10 posted on 06/02/2003 11:16:44 PM PDT by McGavin999
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To: Prodigal Son
Errrgh, Joeeey Deeeaaaconn
11 posted on 06/03/2003 1:18:13 AM PDT by Yaron
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To: BagCamAddict
Thanks for the info about the river!
12 posted on 06/03/2003 2:49:26 AM PDT by MEG33
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To: MEG33
The iranians don't want to invite themselves to the game....nor do I think they are prepared to see the mullahs on decks of cards.
13 posted on 06/03/2003 9:54:21 AM PDT by RasterMaster
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To: Prodigal Son; Ronin
This story is equivilent to Iranians in a boat on the Rio Grande getting captured by US Agents and then released. We would probably do the same if something looked suspicious to us. We are viewed as a threat to Iran and they are just protecting their border. Nothing happened to our guys and they were released, no big deal.
14 posted on 06/03/2003 1:52:32 PM PDT by m1-lightning (Gephardt's "fortunate millionaires" are the liberal left in Hollywood.)
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To: m1-lightning
This story is equivilent to Iranians in a boat on the Rio Grande getting captured by US Agents and then released.

They weren't just simply captured and released.

They were "taken at gunpoint and blindfolded". They were "interrogated hourly throughout the night".

15 posted on 06/03/2003 4:53:32 PM PDT by FreeReign (V5.0 Enterprise Edition)
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To: m1-lightning
I am sure you meant Mexicans on the Rio Grande, but that is precisely my point.

They were intercepted by soldiers of the Iranian government who followed orders and then released them upon instructions from higher authority.

This is not anything for anyone to get that bent out of shape about. I would say the Iranians handled it about as well as anyone has the right to expect.
16 posted on 06/04/2003 2:53:07 AM PDT by Ronin
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To: Ronin
I am sure you meant Mexicans on the Rio Grande

Actually I meant Iranian 'soldiers' on the Rio Grande. Our border patrol/coast guard takes it more seriously when there is a military prescence near our territory. A bunch of illegal immigrants aren't nearly the cause for concern as a military half a world away doing their business next door to us. And you're right, there's no reason to get bent out of shape about it. Interogations are protocol for most military protecting their border.

17 posted on 06/04/2003 6:47:42 AM PDT by m1-lightning (Gephardt's "fortunate millionaires" are the liberal left in Hollywood.)
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To: FreeReign
They weren't just simply captured and released. They were "taken at gunpoint and blindfolded". They were "interrogated hourly throughout the night".

Our military would do the same thing. It's security precautions. If they were tortured or humiliated, then it would be a different story.

18 posted on 06/04/2003 6:51:30 AM PDT by m1-lightning (Gephardt's "fortunate millionaires" are the liberal left in Hollywood.)
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To: Prodigal Son
On the other hand...when the Iraqis wandered into Iranian waters during our recent little war, the Iranians captured them and kept them. And the Iraqis were trying to sneak through the Iranian waters to attack our forces. When the Iranians did that we were of course pleased.

They are just protecting their border in territorial waters like a nation state is supposed to do. Unlike what we do with our Southern border, since we are to wimpy to put troops down there.

19 posted on 06/04/2003 8:02:52 AM PDT by dark_lord (The Statue of Liberty now holds a baseball bat and she's yelling 'You want a piece of me?')
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