Detained Iranians Released
But Iran says one has been handed over to the Iraqis
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - U.S. troops released seven Iranians early Wednesday, hours after detaining them at a central Baghdad hotel, an Iranian embassy official said.
The Iranian diplomat, who refused to give his name, told The Associated Press that one of those released contacted the embassy Wednesday morning to say that they have been handed over to Iraqi authorities.
American troops raided Baghdad’s Sheraton Ishtar hotel and took away a group of about 10 people late Tuesday. The diplomat said the seven Iranians included an embassy staffer and six members of a delegation from Iran’s Electricity Ministry.
“At 7 a.m. today, a member of the delegation called the embassy and said they are now at the prime minister’s office,” the diplomat said. “The Americans released them. They held them until seven this morning.”
The U.S. military confirmed that it had taken “some individuals … identified as being Iranian citizens with Iranian passports” into custody on Tuesday, but said they were apprehended at a checkpoint nearby the Sheraton hotel during a routine stop.
The others involved were “Iraqi escorts who identified themselves with Iraqi Ministry of Electricity badges,” the military said.
Several of the men were observed to have weapons in their cars, none of them had the appropriate permits, so all were detained, the military said.
There was no immediate comment from the military on their possible release.
The arrest of Iranians officials could add to tensions between Washington and Tehran already strained by the detention of each other’s citizens as well as U.S. accusations of Iranian involvement in Iraq’s violence and alleged Iranian efforts to develop nuclear bombs.
Videotape shot Tuesday night by AP Television News showed U.S. troops leading about 10 blindfolded and handcuffed men out of the hotel in central Baghdad. Other soldiers carried out what appeared to be luggage and at least one briefcase and a laptop computer bag.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said, “I’ve seen that report but I can’t verify it.”
The Internet site of Radio Sawa, an Arabic language station financed by the United States, said Iranian officials were detained and taken to an unknown location. It said the Iranian delegation was in Baghdad to negotiate contracts on electric power stations.
An Iranian diplomat told the AP that the Iranian Embassy had notified Iraqi authorities about the Radio Sawa report. The diplomat refused to give his name.
Iran has constantly complained about the U.S. detention since Jan. 11 of five Iranians who were in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil. U.S. officials say the five include the operations chief and other members of Iran’s elite Quds Force, which is accused of arming and training Iraqi militants.
The Iranian regime denies any involvement in the violence wracking its neighbor.
On Tuesday, President Bush lashed out at Iran for meddling in Iraq’s affairs and fomenting instability in its neighbor. Bush made his remarks in a speech to the American Legion convention in Reno, Nevada, in which he presented a ringing defense of the unpopular Iraq war effort.
“I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities,” said Bush, whose administration has accused Iran of arming Shiite militias in Iraq. “The Iranian regime must halt these actions.”
U.S. authorities are unhappy about Iran’s arrest of four people with dual American-Iranian citizenship for allegedly seeking to undermine the Islamic republic’s security. Two are imprisoned in Iran, while two are free but barred from leaving the country.
Relations also are edgy over the suspicions of the U.S. and its allies that Tehran is using its civilian nuclear power program as a screen to develop atomic weapons. Iran denies that, saying the program only has the peaceful aim of generating electricity.
The strains have many people in the region worried about the possibility of fighting between the U.S. and Iran.
But while making his latest defense of Iran’s nuclear program earlier Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the possibility of any U.S. military action against Iran, saying Washington has no plan and is not in a position to take such action.
Ahmadinejad declared that U.S. political influence in Iraq is “collapsing rapidly” and that Tehran is ready to help fill any power vacuum.
Be respectful of others and their opinions. Inflammatory remarks and inane leftist drivel will be deleted. It ain’t about free speech, remember you’re in a private domain. My website, my prerogative.
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Copied all the hard drives and documents and let them go….maybe some extra RF tags in the luggage etc.
August 29th, 2007 at 12:29 amWhat the hell’s the matter with us? Exchange them for the Americans they’re holding in Iran. You let them go?
August 29th, 2007 at 3:04 amSo what’s up with the guy they kept?
August 29th, 2007 at 3:19 amThe ministry of electricity, aren’t those the guys building the peaceful nuke reactor for electricity?
Being the good guys means we can’t just wack ‘em.
That sucks.
August 29th, 2007 at 4:03 amsounds like ahmedajad is getting some bad intel..the power vac is gonna be in iran, then look out for the wood chipper
August 29th, 2007 at 4:31 am“I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities,” said Bush, whose administration has accused Iran of arming Shiite militias in Iraq. “The Iranian regime must halt these actions.”
Its about f’n time.
Now defeatocrats - don’t even try to tie one hand behind their backs anymore.
The others involved were “Iraqi escorts who identified themselves with Iraqi Ministry of Electricity badges,” the military said.
What absolute bullshit
As far as who was released and why ~ you can be confident that our guys are always many steps ahead and are watching very closely. Things will happen when and where they should. Now they have full clearance to handle the ahmadickwad problem.
August 29th, 2007 at 5:34 amWe’ll regret that. We might have their plans, but where is the EFP material and arms that they were probably carrying with them or coordinating transfer of?
If you were them and they captured a couple of CIA guys would they reciprocate? I don’t think so? They’d take them to the nearest Iranian torture chamber and kill them after many agonizing days or weeks…
So what is our problem? Should’t we do unto others as they would do unto us?
August 29th, 2007 at 6:17 amThe war in Iraq was lost the day it was extended one (1) day after the capture of Saddam H. We should have left Iraq soil the next day.
Bush is not fit for planning anything on my book.
We had Osama Bin Laden in Tora Bora for the kill and what he does? He asks the staff to plan and execute a major deployment of our troops to Iraq!!!!
We could had killed Saddam with one smart bomb any given second our Intel could pinpoint his exact whereabouts.
We could have used the same militias now killing our troops to finish the job of taking the regime out of power eventually…
Now he wants to mix it up with Iran!!! Are you kidding me!?
Iran is NOT Iraq! They don’t like us there since we backed and armed (with the same bio weapons we provided Saddam to use on his own people) the regime’s army to the teeth! Yet they managed to hold their ground against all odds…
Don’t get me wrong, we can beat their Air fleet in hours, their naval forces within days and their command capabilities as well; yet we must also understand that they can hit us hard and I mean really hard all over the place! Iran owns a military trained to the same degree that we train our volunteer cores, they’re capable of giving as good as they get, make no mistake about it!
To win any military campaign in a well-planned war against Iran will mean the deployment of our troops in the Iranian soil. As such I can’t imagine how any IED-Vehicle could help us there if we ride on the originators of the #1 US troop’s killer in Iraq!
Stop this nonsense about kicking as* for sure, yes we’ll do more damage than we would get, but again… Iran is NOT Iraq.
Let’s put an end to this madness of having our troops fight and die for new ground every day just to pull out to some other area and having to retake the same stupid targets almost weekly if not daily. We either make a well planned pull out with Iraq’s new troops taking over the spots or we call up a draft and dump a boot every corner of the God forsaken piece of dirt that country now represents to us.
Better yet! Let’s allow democracy to unfold as it has in 99% of the countries that now enjoy it: Home-Grown!
August 29th, 2007 at 8:20 amLet Iraq decide which kind of country it wants to become and let us deal with the outcome from our soil.
Rey P:
And your boy Klinton had OBL twice. Once by Sudan and once by CIA operatives who were trying to call in a missile strike on his camp. You have a distorted view of history. You must read alot of Howard Zinn?
You also aren’t a military expert either. You might want to stay at home with your propaganda libnut….Your arguments are a waste of electrons.
Go hang out at the DailyKos fool, since you obviously know about as much on political-mititary affairs as they do…which is NOTHING.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:48 amI expect the 5 are Quds ops, the 7 are actually who they say they are (discussions about power had been mentioned elsewhere, IIRC), the 1 was likely the obligatory intel op, and the Iraqis were IG Electricity reps or guards, likely also with 1 ore 2 intel ops.
Iran has more power available than Iraq, but really not much, or none, to spare, but is likely ready to do deals to gain influence and increase dependency.
August 29th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Corr: “1 or 2″, not “ore”, of course. 
August 29th, 2007 at 12:24 pm