U.S. Opts Not to Release Iranians Detained in Iraq Raid
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
June 20, 2007
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 growing behind-the-scenes pressure from Iran, according to U.S.
officials. The delay is as much due to miscommunication within the U.S.
government as a policy decision, they said.
During his Washington visit Monday and Tuesday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar
Zebari appealed to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary
Robert M. Gates to free the five Iranians, who were arrested in the Kurdish city
of Irbil in January, U.S. and Arab officials said.
Zebari told U.S. officials that the release would promote progress in 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, since Tehran
now has greater influence in Iraq with a wider cross section of parties than any
other country. It has also armed, funded and trained many of the militant
groups.
Zebari warned that Tehran either might not attend a second session or not be
cooperative unless the five Iranians are released, according to the sources.
The U.S. raid on Iran's northern liaison office Jan. 11 was designed to detain
two senior Iranian officials, including the deputy national security adviser,
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 Iranian operatives followed President Bush's vow to break up
Tehran's networks inside Iraq. The fate of the so-called Irbil five has since
reached the highest levels of the White House; Bush's top foreign policy
advisers met to discuss their fate in the spring. After lengthy discussion, they
agreed to hold the five just as they detain 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. But unbeknownst to the top U.S. military and diplomatic officials in
Iraq, the Multinational Force headquarters reviewed their status in April, which
means they are not eligible for another review until October, U.S. officials
said. Neither Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq,
nor Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker was aware that a review had taken place until
last week, they noted. Zebari was not informed of the new time frame during his
talks in Washington this week, U.S. and Arab officials said.
On June 13, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki also issued a warning
that the United States would face unspecified 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 at a Tehran press
conference.
The same day, Iran filed a letter of complaint with the United Nations about the
5 a.m. raid.
"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. "They also
confiscated some documents and other properties of the Consulate General."
U.S. officials said there is no link between the five Iranian detainees and the
broader U.S.-Iran dialogue or Iran's detention of at least four Americans --
including Haleh Esfandiari of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars -- and the disappearance of a fifth, former FBI agent Robert A.
Levinson. Esfandiari was put under virtual house arrest before the Jan. 11 raid
and, like the other Americans, is believed to be held because of Iranian
suspicions about a $75 million U.S. program to promote democracy in Iran.
