U.S. Opts to Continue to Hold 5 Iranian Agents (Against Advice of State Dept.)

[BurtWorm]

:eyes:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041301282_pf.html


Administration's Move to Extend Detention at Odds With State Dept. Recommendation

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 13, 2007; 3:02 PM

The Bush administration has decided to hold onto five Iranian Revolutionary Guard intelligence agents captured in Iraq, overruling a recommendation from the State Department to release them because they are no longer useful, according to U.S. officials.

At a meeting of the president's top foreign policy team Tuesday, the administration decided that the five Iranians will remain in custody and go through the periodic six-month review used for other foreign detainees picked up in Iraq, U.S. officials said. The next review may not happen for weeks, and possibly not until July.

The five, seized in a Jan. 11 raid by U.S. forces in the Kurdish city of Irbil in northern Iraq, are at the center of increasing tensions between Washington and Tehran. Iran has been indirectly ratcheting up pressure on the United States, its allies and even its own friends in the Iraqi government to win freedom for the group now known as the Irbil five.

Iran is threatening not to attend a pivotal meeting in Egypt next month of Iraq's neighbors -- plus the United States and international groups involved in Iraq -- that Washington hopes will increase regional cooperation to stabilize the country. Without Iran, which exerts great influence in Iraq, the meeting could end up having marginal impact, according to Iraqi officials and Middle East experts.

When the Iraqi government did not help obtain the release of the five detainees, Iran refused to allow a plane carrying Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to fly over Iranian territory en route to Japan last week. Some U.S. officials now say they believe the seizure of 15 British sailors and marines last month by Revolutionary Guard naval forces may have been at least in part an effort to heighten pressure on the United States through Britain, its close ally and the second-largest contributor of troops to coalition forces in Iraq.

Ironically, one of the major reasons the United States does not want to free the five Iranians is to avoid any appearance of a deal linked to Iran's release of the 15 Britons last week, U.S. officials acknowledged.

[BurtWorm]

1. kick

[Supersedeas]

2. where is Condi...does she not have some competent authority to assert?

[IChing]

5. She found out that she can get 5 rugs for five dollars in Iraq.

You crack me up with that.........."competent authority to assert?"

I didn't know which word to pick on
would it be when you talk about her.
competent, authority, or assert?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[donkeyotay]

3. Figures

from the OP link:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went into the Tuesday meeting with a recommendation to free the men, but after a full review of the options she went along with the consensus, U.S. officials said. Vice President Cheney's office made the firmest case for continuing to hold the men.

[BurtWorm]

4. I'd like to know what was "firm" about that case

other than Cheney's resemblance to an impacted colon. What argument did the Cheney people make that was so persuasive? It certainly was not a legal or moral argument. Most likely it was a political argument: if we send them back, we have no leverage. Was assholes!