US refuses to release 5 Iranians

This is surely bizarre. The Iranians were seized at a quasi-consulate in Irbil back in January. They are not charged but being classified as enemy combatants--even though there were in a building that was use for consular activities---they can be held indefinitely according to the US military version of law, one that has no real basis in international law. Neither General Petraeus nor ambassador Crocker were aware of the review or status of the Iranians but the White House was! It seems that the Bush administration is determined not do anything in the least way sensible in relationship to Iran. Well perhaps what they are doing is sensible if they are bound to cause further friction with Iran. This may be the idea.
The Iraqi government certainly allowed these Iranians into the country or perhaps even invited them. The US has not paid the slightest attention to Iraqi requests for their release. I read some commentaries on this article. Some of them speak of everything the Iranians says as crap and as being totally irrational etc. They fail to even notice that the Iraqi's have asked for the Iranians release and obviously they seem to think that it is fine to simply grab people out of a quasi consulate without the approval of the government of the country the US call sovereign.
The Iranians may be irrational and some of what they say crap but this is also a characteristic of much that the US says and does.


U.S. Refuses to Free 5 Captured Iranians Until at Least October

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 21, 2007; A20



The United States will not release five Iranians detained in a U.S. military raid in northern Iraq until at least October, despite entreaties from the Iraqi government and pressure from Iran, U.S. officials said. The delay is as much due to a communication and procedural foul-up within the U.S. government as a policy decision, they added.

During his Washington visit this week, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari appealed to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to free the Iranians, who were arrested in Irbil in January, U.S. and Arab officials said.

Zebari told U.S. officials that the release would help the new U.S.-Iran dialogue on Iraq, which brought diplomats from the two nations together last month in Baghdad at their first public meeting in almost three decades. Iran has become pivotal to U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq because Tehran exerts great influence in Iraq with a wide cross-section of parties and has armed and trained many militant groups. Zebari also warned that Tehran might not attend a second session unless the Iranians are released, the sources said.

The U.S. raid on Iran's northern liaison office Jan. 11 was designed to detain two senior Iranian officials who were visiting Iraq, U.S. officials said. The two escaped arrest, but U.S. commandos did detain five mid-level operatives working with Iran's elite Quds Force, which is the foreign operations wing of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and is tied to arming, training and funding militants in Iraq.

The detention of the Iranians followed President Bush's vow to break up Tehran's networks in Iraq. The fate of the five men has reached the highest levels of the White House, with Bush's top foreign policy advisers meeting to discuss the issue in the spring. They agreed to hold the men as they do other foreign fighters captured in Iraq, with their status reviewed every six months.

They were originally due for review six months after their detention -- or by mid-July. Instead, the Multinational Force headquarters reviewed their status in April, meaning they are not eligible for another review until October, U.S. officials said. Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker were unaware that a review had occurred until last week, the officials noted.

Zebari was not told of the new timeframe during his talks in Washington, U.S. and Arab officials said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned June 13 that the United States would face consequences for its January raid. "We will make the U.S. regret its repulsive, illegal action against Iran's consulate and its officials," Mottaki told reporters in Tehran.

The same day, Iran filed a complaint with the United Nations. "U.S. military forces, in violation of the most basic provisions governing diplomatic and consulate affairs and in a flagrant contempt for the most fundamental principles of international law, attacked the Iranian Consulate General in Irbil and abducted five Iranian consular officers after disarming the guards of the premises, breaking the doors into the building and beating and injuring the personnel of the Consulate General," the letter said.

Iran warns no co-operation with Iraq until Iranians released.

The failure of Iraq to have the Iranians released simply shows that Iraq sovereignty is a fig leaf covering the actual control by the US and its allies when it comes to security issues. The US goes its own way in security operations and in capturing and imprisoning persons they think are insurgents or involved with them. This is true also of the UK that has even attacked Iraqi police stations to release arrested Brits.
The double standard in reporting is evident. When 15 sailors are apprehended in disputed waters by Iran all hell breaks lose and there are cries for their release and outrage that it should happen. However the US continues to hold the five Iranians it snatched from a quasi-consul building and there is no outcry from the west at all.


Iran warns Iraq over Iranians held by U.S. forces

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has warned neighbouring Iraq that its failure to secure the release of five Iranians detained there by U.S. forces could impair Tehran's cooperation with Baghdad, a senior official was quoted on Sunday as saying.
Washington says the five men, detained in January in northern Iraq, are linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards and backing militants. Iran insists they are diplomats, wants them freed and has requested access.

"We are serious about the way we will confront those behind the arrest of the Iranian diplomats in Iraq," the semi-official Fars news agency, seen as close to the Revolutionary Guards, quoted Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki as saying.


Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki is seen in this March 24, 2007 file photo in New York. Iran has warned neighbouring Iraq that its failure to secure the release of five Iranians detained there by U.S. forces could impair Tehran's cooperation with Baghdad, Mottaki was quoted on Sunday as saying. (REUTERS/Chip East)
"On Friday I sent a letter to the Iraqi foreign minister and other officials in Iraq and pointed out that their efforts over the release of the diplomats have had no results and I emphasised that if this situation continues we will have problems in taking other steps to help Iraq," he said.

Earlier on Sunday, a senior adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Iran had refused to allow a plane carrying the Iraqi leader on a trip to Asia to cross its air space overnight.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini played down the incident at a regular news conference on Sunday and it was not clear whether it was linked to Mottaki's warning.

Mottaki, whose comments were originally made to an Iranian television channel, added that Iran had requested the help of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon over the arrested Iranians.

The U.S. military has said it is considering an Iranian request to visit the men. An International Committee of the Red Cross team has visited the detained Iranians twice, a U.S. military official said on Friday.




Copyright © 2007 Reuters