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Bush Orders 'Force Protection' Raids Against
Iranians in Iraq
Saturday, January 13, 2007
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi foreign minister says detained
Iranians were working at liaison office
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243560,00.html
Five Iranians detained by U.S.-led forces were
working in a decade-old government liaison office
that was in the process of being upgraded to a
consulate, the Iraqi foreign minister said Friday.
U.S. President George W. Bush issued an order
several months ago that authorized a series of U.S.
raids against Iranians in Iraq as part of a broad
military offensive, Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice told The New York Times.
Click here to read the New York Times report.
Rice said the president acted "after a period of
time in which we saw increasing activity" among
Iranians in Iraq "and increasing lethality in what
they were producing."The State Department said
Friday that U.S.-led forces entered the Iranian
building in the Kurdish-controlled northern city of
Irbil because information linked it to Revolutionary
Guards and other Iranian elements engaging in
violent activities in Iraq. There was no truth to
reports that Iran was carrying out legitimate
diplomatic activity at the site, State Department
spokesman Tom Casey said.
Tehran condemned the raid in the Kurdish-controlled
northern city of Irbil and urged Iraq to push for
the Iranians' release.
For the latest news on Iraq, click here.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the
building where the Iranians were detained Thursday
had operated with Iraqi government approval for 10
years.
"We are now in the process of changing these offices
to consulates," he said. "It is not a new office.
This liaison office has been there for a long time."
He also echoed concerns the U.S. and Iran were
dragging Iraq into their fight.
"We don't want Iraq to be a battleground for
settling scores with other countries," Zebari, a
Kurd, told CNN.
The diplomatic tussle came at an unwelcome time for
the United States as President Bush faces criticism
over his new strategy for ending the violence in
Iraq. Bush also vowed to isolate Iran and Syria,
which the U.S. has accused of fueling attacks in
Iraq.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani plans a trip to Syria
on Sunday, the highest-level Iraqi visit to the
country in more than 24 years. The neighbors
restored diplomatic relations in December that were
cut in 1982 amid ideological disputes between
Damascus and the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's office,
meanwhile, rejected Bush's plan to send 21,500 more
troops to Iraq as part of an effort to curb
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.
Local leaders of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which
has been blamed for much of the sectarian violence,
said they were bracing for an attack and avoiding
appearing in public with their weapons.
Zebari's Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki,
called on the Iraqi government to secure the release
of the five Iranians, Iranian state television
reported. "Such illegal and adventurous acts by the
U.S. should be stopped," the broadcast quoted
Mottaki as saying.
Mottaki condemned the raid, saying it contravened
the Vienna Convention. "This behavior by the United
States contradicts its claims of providing security
in Iraq," he was quoted as saying.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin
also harshly criticized the detentions, calling them
a "flagrant violation" of international conventions.
"It's absolutely unacceptable when the military
storms a foreign consular office on the territory of
another state," Kamynin said. "The unlawful actions
by the U.S. servicemen mark an open abuse of a
mandate issued to the multinational forces in Iraq."
The 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations
says consular premises are "inviolable," but it was
not clear how that would apply as the building was
not a consulate.
Zebari 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.
A Pentagon official in Washington said that after
troops detained the Iranians, they learned another
person might 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 was not authorized to speak
about the incident.
Meanwhile, sectarian violence persisted. Suspected
Shiite militiamen attacked a Sunni mosque in a
religiously mixed neighborhood of Baghdad, prompting
clashes that wounded two guards, police said.
Attackers later blew up a Shiite mosque that was
under construction in the northern city of Kirkuk,
police Col. Anwar Hassan said. No casualties were
reported.
At least 19 people were reported killed or dead
nationwide, including 10 bullet-riddled bodies found
in Baghdad and an Iraqi journalist who was killed in
a drive-by shooting in the northern city of Mosul.
Khudr Younis al-Obaidi was the second journalist
killed this year. Associated Press staffer Ahmed
Hadi Naji was found shot in the back last week.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists
condemned the attack.
"Authorities must do more to bring those responsible
to justice, or journalists will remain vulnerable to
attacks," CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said in
a statement.
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Russ Mitchell previews this evening's stories
including an exclusive "60 Minutes" interview with
President Bush.
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