UK Paper: Botched US raid led to Brit hostage crisis

[blitzen]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2414760.ece

A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.

Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.

In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment.

....................

The attempt by the US to seize the two high-ranking Iranian security officers openly meeting with Iraqi leaders is somewhat as if Iran had tried to kidnap the heads of the CIA and MI6 while they were on an official visit to a country neighbouring Iran, such as Pakistan or Afghanistan.

....................

The raid in Arbil was a far more serious and aggressive act. It was not carried out by proxies but by US forces directly. The abortive Arbil raid provoked a dangerous escalation in the confrontation between the US and Iran which ultimately led to the capture of the 15 British sailors and Marines - apparently considered a more vulnerable coalition target than their American comrades.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Yikes!

[Richard Steele]

2. Surprise, surprise....not. K&R

[fooj]

3. Why doesn't THIS surprise me?

:banghead:

[ms liberty]

4. K&R n/t

[EFerrari]

5. I hope you all are ready to hit the street because these mofos

are going to try it. :mad:

[Subdivisions]

6. Wow! I woulda never guessed it! n/t

[file83]

7. The Bush Administration doesn't have a leg to stand on...

...when attempting to claim Iran is out of line in arresting those British soldiers. Nevermind the USA invaded Iraq illegally. I mean, that's an ENTIRE COUNTRY. So, Iran arrests some soldiers that crossed into their waters, treats them respectfully and according to the Geneva Conventions (unlike the way the US has treated many "detainees"), but Iran is the bad guy?

The bullshit is piling up so high that snow is beginning to accumulate at the top.

[DIKB]

9. I just don't

get how some people STILL can't smell the stench of the bullshit. I guess the steady stream of raw sewage coming from Faux is deadening their olfactory sense.

[Jcrowley]

8. Kick and Rec n/t

[gatorboy]

10. Wow. I can't believe there isn't riots in the streets over this stuff.

I mean, that is probably equivalent to Iran kidnapping Rumsfeld. Bush can't start war fast enough, can he? Is the MSM gonna cover this?

[Tigress DEM]

20. Can I riot tomorrow? I'm really tired today.

Oh, you mean in Iran.

There probably are, but the MSM can't see 1/2 America million people protesting the war in DC, or 2 million people at the Millions More march and they see 10's of thousands where there are 100's of thousands of people protesting, so maybe there are only 2000-3000 people protesting in Iran and so it just doesn't merit coverage.

[liberalla]

11. I keep thinking that the capture of the British

military personnel had another purpose. These schemes often seem to have multiple effects and/or desired benefits/outcomes built in...

I keep thinking that this was an attempt to further involve and commit the British in this "war". With the British people turning against it, bringing their troops home and Blair on his way out, the US government would love to find a way to get the British MORE involved in the area. They don't want to lose their last major ally.

So far, it hasn't turned out this way. I am glad of that!

[JBear]

13. I think that there was yet another purpose....

It seems that we are drumming to war against Iran. What better way to stave off an invasion than to have hostages? I see this as much more a defensive act on Iran's part than a deliberate act to secure Britain further into the war.

:bounce:

[Andre II]

12. Please also note:

Please also check out what happened on March 27, 2007

The U.S. Navy on Tuesday began its largest demonstration of force in the Persian Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, led by a pair of aircraft carriers and backed by warplanes flying simulated attack maneuvers off the coast of Iran.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/27/AR2007032700610.html

[NNN0LHI]

14. Bush wanted to hang them to fire up his base before the next election like he did Saddam

I think the Iranians knew it too. A little show trial with coerced confessions and to the gallows. Bush hasn't had anyone hanged recently so I am sure he was getting antsy.

Don

[Jacobin]

15. Heard on NPR this morning that the U.S. has released one of the

Iranian hostages.

I'm guessing we will trade hostages but the media will be nice enough not to connect the obvious dots

[gatorboy]

16. Kick

:kick:

This story not have any legs yet?

[donkeyotay]

17. The teevee news was CRAP, again? Total lies.

Way beyond the irony of trying to pretend the Iranians had done something so horrible with the captured sailors that we should go to war with them -despite all lack of black sacks over their heads, dog shit, nakedness, and women's panties aside - they FORGET to tell us that, oh by the way, this might be a reaction to the guys we took and are probably waterboarding so that this miserable excuse of an administration can blame someone else for this catastrophe? This is bush's war. He worked hard for it. It's has been his and will always be his. Even when the next president is trying to clean up after him and bush is in Paraguay.

[progressoid]

18. The Independent seems to be the only news outlet running this story...

:shrug:

[Tigress DEM]

19. Not surprised.

I keep thinking about how US & Britian conspired to trump up the intel to get US into Iraq and how they were bombing Iraq 5-6 months before *ush ever asked for ANY permission (this according to Gen Thommy Thompson's book).

Taking out airports and communications stations before EVER asking Congress to be allowed to go to war with Iraq and then moving $700 million in funding from Afghanistan to Iraq without going through Congress.

If Tony Blair could be bribed to look at the fake Niger documents and not see they were forged, so Bush could present the same old schtick in a different package that Congress was not allowed to open and inspect.. then I don't see why any pre-emptive actions this duo of no goodniks decides to pursue should surprise me.

Just saying.

[kikiek]

21. And no great surprise that the same day a missing Iranian official shows up, and

it is announced that a deal is in the works to release the British hostages. I wonder how many more we secretly have in custody.