Persian Gulf & Middle East Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran threatened Tuesday to take action if the U.S. Navy moves an aircraft carrier into the Gulf, Tehran's most aggressive statement yet after weeks of saber-rattling as new U.S. and EU financial sanctions take a toll on its economy.

The prospect of sanctions targeting the oil sector in a serious way for the first time has hit Iran's rial currency, which has fallen by 40 percent against the dollar in the past month.

Queues formed at banks and some currency exchange offices shut their doors as Iranians scrambled to buy dollars to protect their savings from the currency's fall.

Army chief Ataollah Salehi said the United States had moved an aircraft carrier out of the Gulf from because of Iran's naval exercises, and Iran would take action if the ship returned.

It did not name the carrier, but the USS John C Stennis leads a task force in the region, and the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet website pictured it in the Arabian Sea last week.

"Iran will not repeat its warning ... the enemy's carrier has been moved to the Sea of Oman because of our drill. I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf," army chief Salehi said.

"I advise, recommend and warn them over the return of this carrier to the Persian Gulf because we are not in the habit of warning more than once."

Lieutenant Rebecca Rebarich, spokeswoman for the U.S. 5th Fleet based in Bahrain, said she was not immediately able to respond.

Tehran's threat comes at a time when sanctions are having an unprecedented impact on its economy, and the country faces political uncertainty with an election in March, its first since a 2009 vote that triggered countrywide demonstrations.

The West has imposed the increasingly tight sanctions over Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is strictly peaceful but Western countries believe aims to build an atomic bomb.

After years of sanctions that had little impact, the latest measures are the first that could have a serious effect on Iran's oil trade, 60 percent of its economy.

New sanctions signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama on New Year's Eve would cut off any financial institutions that work with Iran's central bank from the U.S. financial system, blocking the main path for payments for Iranian oil.

The EU is expected to impose new sanctions by the end of this month, possibly including a ban on oil imports.

Even Iran's top trading partner China - which has refused to back new global sanctions against Iran - is demanding discounts to buy Iranian oil as Tehran's options narrow. Beijing has cut its imports of Iranian crude by more than half for January and, paying premiums for crude from Russia and Vietnam to replace it.

THREATS

Iran has responded to the tighter measures with increasingly belligerent rhetoric.

It spooked oil markets briefly when it announced last month it could prevent shipping through the Straight of Hormuz - a narrow shipping lane through which flows 40 percent of the world's oil trade - if sanctions hurt its own oil business.

It then held 10 days of naval exercises in the Gulf, test firing long range missiles that could hit Israel or U.S. bases in the Middle East. But Tuesday's apparent threat to take action against the U.S. military for sailing in international waters takes the aggressive rhetoric to a new level.

The new U.S. sanctions law, if implemented fully, would make it impossible for many refineries to pay Iran for crude. It imposes measures gradually and allows Obama to offer temporary waivers to prevent an oil price shock.

The European Union is expected to consider new measures by the end of this month, possibly including a blockade. EU members such as such as crisis-hit Greece are still buyers of Iranian oil, which trades at a discount.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Paris wants new measures taken by January 30, when EU foreign ministers meet.

"France ... wants sanctions toughened and the president (Nicolas Sarkozy) has made two concrete proposals on that front - the first being the freezing of Iranian central bank assets, a tough measure, and the second an embargo on Iranian oil exports," Juppe told i>tele, a French TV channel.

Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, said member states would discuss the issue this week in the hope of reaching an agreement on new steps before the January 30 meeting.

"The ball is still in the Iranians' court," he said.

Although China, India and other countries are unlikely to sign up to any oil embargo, they will be able to insist on deeper discounts, potentially reducing the income Tehran receives from oil.

Beijing has been driving a hard bargain. China, which bought 11 percent of its oil from Iran during the first 11 months of last year, has cut its January purchase by about 285,000 barrels per day, more than half of the close to 550,000 bpd that it bought through a 2011 contract.

The impact of falling government income from oil sales can be felt on the streets in Iran in soaring prices for state subsidized goods and a falling rial currency.

Some exchange offices in Tehran, when contacted by Reuters, said there was no trading taking place until further notice.

"The rate is changing every second ... We are not taking in any rials to change to dollars or any other foreign currency," said Hamid Bakshi in central Tehran.

Housewife Zohreh Ghobadi, waiting in a long line at a bank, said she was trying to withdraw her savings and change it into dollars.

Iranian authorities played down any link between the souring exchange rate and the imposition of the new sanctions.

"The new American sanctions have not materialized yet," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told a news conference Tuesday. "It will take a few months until these sanctions are fully implemented."

The economic impact is being felt ahead of a nationwide parliamentary election on March 2, the first vote since a disputed 2009 presidential election that led to the worst unrest since Iran's 1979 revolution.

(Additional reporting by Hashem Kalantari in Tehran, Humeyra Pamuk in Dubai, Brian Love in Paris and Florence Tan in Singapore; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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U.S. Navy rescues Iranians from pirates in Gulf

By Lolita C. Baldor - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Jan 6, 2012 15:08:53 EST

WASHINGTON — A U.S. Navy destroyer has rescued an Iranian fishing boat that had been commandeered by suspected pirates just days after Tehran warned the U.S. to keep its warships out of the Persian Gulf.

American forces flying off the guided-missile destroyer Kidd responded to a distress call from the Iranian vessel, the Al Molai, which had been held captive for more than 40 days, the U.S. Navy said Friday. The Kidd was sailing in the Arabian Sea, after leaving the Persian Gulf, when it came to the sailors’ aid.

A U.S. Navy team boarded the ship Thursday and detained 15 suspected Somali pirates. They had been holding the 13-member Iranian crew hostage and were using the boat as a “mother ship” for pirating operations in the Persian Gulf.
Related reading

Analysis: Iran bluster may hold other messages (Jan. 6)

Iran to hold new naval drill near Hormuz (Jan. 6, Navy Times)

Pentagon pushes back on Iranian threat (Jan. 3, Navy Times)

Amid escalating tensions with Tehran, the Obama administration reveled in delivering the news.

“This is an incredible story. This is a great story,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, explaining that the very same American ships the Islamic republic protested for recently traveling through the Strait of Hormuz were responsible for the Iranian vessel’s recovery.

“They were obviously very grateful to be rescued from these pirates,” Nuland said.

The episode occurred after a week of hostile rhetoric from Iranian leaders, including a statement by Iran’s Army chief that American vessels are no longer welcome in the Gulf. Iran also warned it could block the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway that carries to market much of the oil pumped in the Middle East.

The Iranian threats, which were brushed aside by the Obama administration, were in response to strong economic sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear enrichment program. Last week, President Barack Obama signed into law new sanctions targeting Iran’s Central Bank and its ability to sell petroleum abroad.

According to the Navy, the Kidd was part of the John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group, which had recently left the Persian Gulf through the Strait and into the northern Arabian Sea.

A Navy search and seizure team was taken by helicopter from the Kidd to the Al Molai and met no resistance from the pirates, who surrendered quickly.

“The Al Molai had been taken over by pirates for roughly the last 40-45 days,” said Josh Schminsky, a Navy Criminal Investigative Service agent aboard the Kidd. “They were held hostage, with limited rations, and we believe were forced against their will to assist the pirates with other piracy operations.”

Schminsky said the Iranian boat’s captain thanked the U.S. for assistance. “He was afraid that without our help, they could have been there for months,” Schminsky said in a prepared release.

The U.S. team gave the crew food, water and medical care. Nuland said the crew then returned the Iranians to their fishing vessels “and they went on their way.”

The captured pirates remain on the Stennis while the U.S. considers options for prosecution and consults with other nations that have joined forces against piracy.

“Sadly, this is not a new thing,” she told reporters, citing more than 1,000 pirates picked up at sea who are under prosecution in some 20 countries. “So this is always a question of where to send them and who will do the prosecution.”

Asked if the rescue mission could provide a chance for a thaw in relations with Iran, Nuland declined to comment. She said the Navy had made a “humanitarian gesture” to take the Iranians onboard, feed them and ensure they were in good health before setting them off. She said the U.S. and Iranian governments have had no direct contact over the incident.

———

Associated Press writer Bradley Klapper contributed to this report.

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TEHRAN – Iran's foreign ministry on Saturday labeled the U.S. Navy's rescue of 13 Iranians from pirates who had hijacked a fishing vessel a "humanitarian and positive" act.

"We consider the actions of the U.S. forces in saving the lives of Iranian seamen to be a humanitarian and positive act and we welcome such behavior. We think all nations should display such behavior," Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told broadcaster al Alam.

U.S. forces rescued the Iranian sailors Thursday after a Navy helicopter spotted a suspicious skiff alongside an Iranian-flagged boat and picked up a distress signal from its captain.

Ironically, the forces that came to assist the sailors were assigned to the USS John C. Stennis strike group -- the same aircraft carrier that was subject to an Iranian threat just days earlier amid heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran over the Islamic Republic's pledge to close the Strait of Hormuz.

A counter-piracy team from the Navy destroyer USS Kidd boarded and detained 15 pirates who had been holding the boat's crew hostage for more than a month, using their ship, the Al Molai, as a launch pad to mount raids on other vessels.

The captured pirates were put on board the Stennis while authorities considered prosecuting them.

The rescue came just days after Iran's army chief warned the Stennis against returning to the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route for up to 20 percent of the world's oil.

The aircraft carrier, one of the largest in the U.S. fleet, had vacated the area while Iran's navy conducted war games in the Persian Gulf for ten days.

U.S. officials have dismissed the threat of closing the waterway as an increasingly isolated Iran lashing out at the international community.

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ARABIAN SEA (Jan. 6, 2012) A Sailor assigned to the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd’s (DDG 100) visit, board, search and seizure team greets a crew member of the Iranian-flagged fishing dhow Al Molai. Kidd's visit, board, search and seizure team detained 15 suspected pirates, who were holding a 13-member Iranian crew hostage for several weeks, according to the members of the crew. Kidd is conducting counter-piracy and maritime security operations while deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo/Released)

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andyhugfan said:

Great work of the iranian military! When wil china and russia will take a look at it. It looks to me as if the 'intenstines' of this beast are allready gutted.

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American sailors have come to the rescue of distressed Iranian fishermen for the second time in less than a week, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

The United States Coast Guard cutter Monomoy "picked up six Iranian mariners after their vessel broke down" in the Persian Gulf Tuesday, the BBC reported.

At about 3 a.m. local time, the Coast Guard vessel "was hailed by flares and flashlights from the Iranian cargo dhow, Ya-Hussayn," the U.S. Navy Central Command/Fifth Fleet public affairs report said. The Iranian fishing ship asked for assistance from the Monomoy because their engine room was flooding.

"Monomoy immediately launched their small boat and approached the Ya-Hussayn," the Pentagon report said. "Two persons were rescued from the vessel, and four from a life raft tied off to the dhow's stern."

The six Iranian mariners were taken aboard the Coast Guard ship and given water, blankets and halal meals, the Pentagon said. One Iranian sailor received medical treatment for minor burns. The Coast Guard then turned the six mariners over to an Iranian Coast Guard vessel at approximately 4:30PM local time, the Pentagon said.

The Captain of the Iranian Coast Guard vessel, the Naji 7, speaking through a translator, thanked the Monomoy captain and crew "for assisting and taking care of the Iranian sailors," the Pentagon said.

The latest American rescue comes just five days after a U.S. Navy ship belonging to U.S.S. John C. Stennis aircraft carrier strike group freed 13 Iranian fishermen from Somali pirates in the Arabian sea. The American sailors gave clothes, food and water to the freed Iranian fishermen, who had been held hostage by their Somali captors for six weeks.

"It is like you were sent by God," one of the freed Iranian fisherman, Fazel ur Rehman, told the American sailors, the New York Times' C.J. Chivers reported.

Iran's foreign ministry on Saturday praised that Navy rescue effort, calling it "a humanitarian gesture.

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Obama drags Middle East baggage to Asia
By Peter Lee

The signature event in United States-Chinese relations last week was not the anti-climactic release of the US Defense Strategic Review, which re-emphasized the Barack Obama administration's widely touted ambitions to perform a strategic pirouette from the Middle East to East Asia. It was the murder of another Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran.

The assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan by forces unknown serves as a message that the Obama administration will find it difficult to reinvent itself as the savior of Asian peace and prosperity; instead, the United States will find itself reprising its dreary and detested role in the Middle East soap opera as defender of the pro-Israel/anti-Iranian status quo.


In some respects, the 2012 campaign against Iran is a rerun of the drama of 2010 (which itself was a re-run of the George W Bush sanctions push of 2008, which in turn was a reprise of the sanctions push begun in 2006), with the US badgering China to jump on the anti-Iran bandwagon, and Washington brandishing the stick of sanctions against the Chinese banking system while simultaneously dangling the carrot of sweet, sweet Saudi crude before Beijing.

But there's a big difference as well.

In 2010, Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama could hold out the hope that hope that coercing Iran on its alleged nuclear ambitions would be balanced by an integration of Israel into the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime and a nice, geo-friendly win-win outcome for the Middle East (including Iran) and the world.

In 2012, pressure by the Israeli government and its US allies, enablers, and opportunistic supporters; Saudi Arabia's post-Arab Spring anxiety and aggressiveness; and the demands of the upcoming presidential campaign have combined to compel Obama to abandon his dreams of Middle East denuclearization, peace, and rapprochement with Iran.

Instead, Obama joins the dismal, unbroken series of recent US presidents whose only option is to demand Iran's head on a plate as part of a zero-sum win for Israel's Likud and the House of Saud ... and unambiguous loss for the People's Republic of China (PRC). Certainly, Obama has done his best to escape his Middle East conundrum, if not solve it.

Recent statements of the White House, State Department, and, with the announcement of the Defense Strategic Review, the Pentagon have been filled with the Obama administration's palpable yearning to refocus the United States as the indispensable counterweight to rising China, the welcomed champion of militarily weak East Asian free market democracies (plus handy ally communist Vietnam, of course), and deserving piggy at the trough of runaway Asian economic growth.

Indeed, there is a decent fit between the Asian ambitions of the United States and the needs of China's smaller and put-upon interlocutors in Asia.

The idea of a nuanced dance between the American eagle and Chinese dragon, not driven by ideology or security anxieties, but a realist tango of interest orchestrated by the intellectual brilliance of Beltway international relations wonks has understandably engaged the fancy ... of Beltway international relations wonks.

United States foreign policy insider Steve Clemons reported the official line at his blog The Washington Note, together with the welcome news that Vice President Joe Biden, an affable and indefatigable schmoozer, will serve as the human face of America in dealing with the Chinese leadership - a role I suspect that the cool, tense, and intensely cerebral Obama has little inclination or ability to fill, especially since his mission in Asia is now to administer self-righteous public scoldings to China for its perceived transgressions:
China Vice President Xi Jingping, widely estimated to be the successor later this year to Hu Jintao as China's next generation President, will visit Washington, DC in February - and the message, communicated by new China handler-in-chief Joe Biden, will be constructive but hard-headed, interest-driven mutual US-China engagement in which the US will communicate that it's legs in the region aren't weakening with China's rise - but rather getting stronger and providing an ongoing platform for the peace and stability that have benefited much of the region including, as one senior White House national security official told me, CHINA. [1]
Since CHINA has been upgraded to all-caps status, we can assume that the US is very serious about the policy. Will harsh reality support this carefully thought-out plan?

In support of the effort, in January Obama paid a visit to the Pentagon to roll out the Defense Strategic Guidance intended to put the military aspects of the vaunted "strategic pivot" to Asia in place…and sound a combined warning klaxon/dinner bell to American defense contractors.

The Washington Post made the inadvertently unnerving point that Obama's election year strategy was to give the uniformed services what they wanted, so that partisan-minded Republican critics would be confronted by a solid phalanx of top brass:
By enlisting the military's help in defining its strategic priorities, Obama has sought to ensure that he has the military's support when his defense budget goes before congress, including the committees led by some of his toughest Republican critics. Military leaders, in turn, now have reason to believe that Obama will not agree to more cuts. [2]

As to what the military and the civilian leadership want, well, it's China. Quoting from the report:
US economic and security interests are inextricably linked to developments in the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia, creating a mix of evolving challenges and opportunities. Accordingly, while the US military will continue to contribute to security globally, we will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region. [italics in original] [3]
However, the document also states that the United States military, reflecting the Obama administration's infatuation with the 21st century War Lite model of regional proxies supported by US airpower and low-cost drones, will be a leaner machine, capable of fighting one and a half full-dress wars, instead of the traditional two-fer.
Even when US forces are committed to a large-scale operation in one region, they will be capable of denying the objectives of - or imposing unacceptable costs on - an opportunistic aggressor in a second region.[italics in original]
Analysts are welcome to draw the inference that Asia-Pacific is the main theater, and the US military is going to equip itself for an ocean war over there.

That's certainly the conclusion that the "Center for a New American Security" (CNAS) - a left-leaning think tank founded by current State Department China honcho Kurt Campbell - drew.

CNAS jumped in to flesh out the US policy with commendable (or suspicious) alacrity, issuing a 115-page report on the Asia-Pacific theater titled "Cooperation From Strength" backed by an interactive website designed to publicize and sell the menace.
The recommendation of the report: Anchors Aweigh!
The United States should strengthen its naval presence over the long term by building toward a 346-ship fleet rather than retreating to the 250-ship mark that the United States faces due to budget cuts and the decommissioning of aging warships in the next decade. Diplomatic and economic engagement with China and others will work better when backed by a credible military posture.
The conclusion: We come in peace!
The United States will need to get its China policy right. This will require active diplomatic and economic engagement backed by a strong US military and a growing economy. A realistic policy begins by shoring up American power and then actively supports rules-based cooperation; it avoids military conflict but not diplomatic confrontation. [4]
The call for an expanded navy is a canny but perhaps inevitable move.


With cutbacks looming for the US defense budget, somebody has to come out a winner or the Pentagon will be united in resistance to the White House. Might as well be the navy this time after the Army/Marine funding feast over the last 10 years. Also, dangling the prospect of a sizable defense build up linked to Asia-Pacific policy builds momentum for the policy itself.
For China, these recent statements of US intent are not surprises.

The US had already telegraphed the "strategic pivot" in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's article on "America's Pacific Century" in Foreign Policy magazine in October, and President Obama's "walks and quacks like economic and military containment of China" Return to Asia tour after the APEC meeting in November. [5]

In January, the People's Republic of China government has been remaining cautiously distant, hoping the US effort will fizzle due to budgetary and geopolitical realities without requiring Beijing to step up and antagonize Washington and its Asian neighbors directly with overt opposition.

Hannah Beech reported on the mild Chinese response to the announcement of the Defense Strategic Guidance in Time:
When US President Barack Obama announced earlier this month that the US military would be re-orienting itself toward the Asia-Pacific - a move that many perceive as an attempt to counter China's rising power - China's state-run news agency, Xinhua, responded quickly. But instead of the usual blustery anti-Americanism, the piece was titled "Constructive US role in Asia-Pacific welcome." Parts of the story were certainly less sunny than the headline, warning that America's "possible militarism will cause a lot of ill will and meet with strong opposition in the world's most dynamic region." Still, the headline's positive spin - and the absence of pages more of aggrieved Chinese commentary in the following days - was telling. Here's more from the Xinhua piece: "The US role, if fulfilled with a positive attitude and free from a Cold War-style zero-sum mentality, will not only be conducive to regional stability and prosperity, but be good for China, which needs a peaceful environment to continue its economic development." [6]
But every time Obama tries to position the US as the guarantor of peace and prosperity in Asia, something or somebody yanks his chain back to the Middle East, war, and the prospect of global economic ruin.

The murder of Ahmadi Roshan came on the one-year anniversary of the murder of two other Iranian nuclear scientists by similar methods (motorcyclist + bomb + car). It also came at a time of heightened tensions (anyway, tensions higher than the usual heightened tensions), inviting the inference that somebody, probably somebody in the region, wants to goad the Iranian government into a response that could start the military action ball rolling.

It is a safe bet that Obama, disengaging from two futile, polarizing, and massively expensive land wars, does not want war with Iran. It is also plausible that Saudi Arabia does not relish the opportunity to prove that it really does have the excess capacity to replace Iranian energy shipments to China, Japan, and South Korea.

And it is certain that Obama does not want the corpse of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan to serve as the poster child for US foreign policy, or that he wishes to ingratiate himself to America's East Asian friends and allies by bearing the gift of $200/barrel oil (while Beijing exploits its relationship with Iran to buy energy at a discount).

And he certainly doesn't want Asian importers (or for that matter Swiss bankers offended by the aggressive US push on disclosure) to start thinking about sanctions-busting alternatives to US financial coercion - like a shadow bank network for Iran transactions, as Asia Times Online's Pepe Escobar has suggested, or the ultimate horror: a drift away from the dollar to some International Monetary Fund special drawing rights, euro, barter, or yuan settlement system that removes the US dollar from the absolute center of the world financial equation. [7]

But Iran won't go away: Israel, Saudi Arabia, and their US supporters in both parties won't let it.

Because these powerful stakeholders want to make sure that plans to widen the US diplomatic and military footprint in East Asia don't come at the expense of their perceived existential interests in the Middle East.

So Obama has to drag his Middle Eastern baggage to Asia and make the case that Asia-Pacific should help America work through its Iran obsession.

Instead of exporting American solutions to Asia, the US seems to be exporting American problems.

It does not appear that the Obama administration has figured out how to make lemonade from this sackful of citrus.

One can imagine that the Obama message to Asia is "Believe the policy, not the politics", ie, the United States knows where its interests and future lie, and is not going to drive the world off a cliff because election year politics demand appeasement of the anti-Iran cranks.

However, Asia has zero votes in US politics. On the other hand, the people who are caught up in the rhetoric of war with Iran do have the votes, interest, and money to make their influence felt in US politics.

And the growth of that influence is undeniable, not only in the Republican Party.

Within the Democratic Party, the chant that "something must be done about Iran" is a mantra that draws strength from political strategy as well as private conviction of the burgeoning and influential neo-liberal wing that essentially went into hiding after the interventionist debacle of the Iraq War but has now re-emerged.

Several commentators have also noted the "If you build it they will come" argument ie if one talks enough about war with Iran, the regime is sufficiently demonized and delegitimized, war with Iran looks less like an undesirable option and more like a justified imperative.

It is also true that Obama has also nibbled cautiously yet happily at the apple of (undeclared, unilateral) warfare in the Libyan conflict; and a crowd-pleasing limited conflict with Iran that manages to discommode China at the same time might be just what the electoral campaign doctor ordered for a frustrated and constrained American chief executive.

But, as Agence France-Presse reported, "China Says War Over Iran Will Bring Disaster" and quoted a PRC diplomat, Wang Xiaodong, as saying:
Everyone knows that 40 percent of the oil shipped daily to every part of the world goes through the Strait of Hormuz, so once war starts in this region not only will the relevant nations be affected and attacked, it would also ... bring disaster to a world economy deep in crisis. [8]
That's a message that Obama would do well to heed ... even if he dislikes the messenger.

Notes
1. Obama's Team Could Learn from Rumsfeld on Defense Department Shifts, The Washington Note, Jan 9, 2012.
2. In creating new defense strategy, Obama attempts to outflank Congress, Washington Post, Jan 8, 2012.
3. Substituting USGlobal Leadership, US Department of Defense, January 2012.
4. Cooperation from Strength, Center for a New American Security, January, 2012.
5. America: The new sick man of Asia?, Asia Times Online, Nov 19, 2011.
6. The US Military Eyes the Asia-Pacific. China's Response? So Far, A Shrug, The Global Spin, Jan 9, 2012.
7. The US-Iran economic war, Asia Times Online, Jan 7, 2012.
8. China says war over Iran will bring disaster, Yahoo News, Jan 10, 2012.

Peter Lee writes on East and South Asian affairs and their intersection with US foreign policy.

(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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Flexing Muscle, Baghdad Detains U.S. Contractors
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: January 15, 2012

BAGHDAD — Iraqi authorities have detained a few hundred foreign contractors in recent weeks, industry officials say, including many Americans who work for the United States Embassy, in one of the first major signs of the Iraqi government’s asserting its sovereignty after the American troop withdrawal last month.

The detentions have occurred largely at the airport in Baghdad and at checkpoints around the capital after the Iraqi authorities raised questions about the contractors’ documents, including visas, weapons permits and authorizations to drive certain routes. Although no formal charges have been filed, the detentions have lasted from a few hours to nearly three weeks.

The crackdown comes amid other moves by the Iraqi government to take over functions that had been performed by the United States military and to claim areas of the country it had controlled. In the final weeks of the military withdrawal, the son of Iraq’s prime minister began evicting Western companies and contractors from the heavily fortified Green Zone, which had been the heart of the United States military operation for much of the war.

Just after the last American troops left in December, the Iraqis stopped issuing and renewing many weapons licenses and other authorizations. The restrictions created a sequence of events in which contractors were being detained for having expired documents that the government would not renew.

The Iraqi authorities have also imposed new limitations on visas. In some recent cases, contractors have been told they have 10 days to leave Iraq or face arrest in what some industry officials call a form of controlled harassment.

Latif Rashid, a senior adviser to the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, and a former minister of water, said in an interview that the Iraqis’ deep mistrust of security contractors had led the government to strictly monitor them. “We have to apply our own rules now,” he said.

This month, Iraqi authorities kept scores of contractors penned up at Baghdad’s international airport for nearly a week until their visa disputes were resolved. Industry officials said more than 100 foreigners were detained; American officials acknowledged the detainments but would not put a number on them.

Private contractors are integral to postwar Iraq’s economic development and security, foreign businessmen and American officials say, but they remain a powerful symbol of American might, with some Iraqis accusing them of running roughshod over the country.

An image of contractors as trigger-happy mercenaries who were above the law was seared into the minds of Iraqis after several violent episodes involving private sector workers, chief among them the 2007 shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square when military contractors for Blackwater killed 17 civilians.

Iraq’s oil sector alone, which accounts for more than 90 percent of the government’s budget, relies heavily on tens of thousands of foreign employees. The United States Embassy employs 5,000 contractors to protect its 11,000 employees and to train the Iraqi military to operate tanks, helicopters and weapons systems that the United States has sold them.

The United States had been providing much of the accreditation for contractors to work in Iraq. But after the military withdrawal, contractors had to deal with a Iraqi bureaucracy at a time when the government was engulfed in a political crisis and Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, fearing a coup, was moving tanks into the Green Zone.

The delays for visa approvals have disrupted the daily movement of supplies and personnel around Iraq, prompting formal protests from dozens of companies operating in Iraq. And they have raised deeper questions about how the Maliki government intends to treat foreign workers and how willing foreign companies will be to invest here.

“While private organizations are often able to resolve low-level disputes and irregularities, this issue is beyond our ability to resolve,” the International Stability Operations Association, a Washington-based group that represents more than 50 companies and aid organizations that work in conflict, post-conflict and disaster relief zones, said in a letter on Sunday to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Doug Brooks, president of the organization, said in a telephone interview that the number of civilian contractors who have been detained was in the “low hundreds.” He added in an e-mail on Sunday, “Everyone is impacted, but the roots have more to do with political infighting than any hostility to the U.S.”

As Iraqi and American officials were negotiating last summer to keep American troops in Iraq into 2012, the Iraqis refused to grant American troops immunity from Iraqi law, in large part because of violent episodes like the one in Nisour Square. Although the contractors working for the embassy are doing many of the same jobs American troops had, including training, logistics, maintenance and private security, they are not protected from Iraqi law.

Mr. Rashid, the adviser to Mr. Talabani, said Iraqis are fed up with foreign contractors. “The Iraqi public is not happy with security contractors. They caused a lot of pain,” he said. “There is a general bad feeling towards the security contractors among the Iraqis and that has created bad feelings towards them all.”

Mr. Rashid said that traveling to the United States to work was no different. “Every time I go to the airport in New York they open my suitcase three times,” he said. “How long does it take to get an American visa?”

An adviser to Mr. Maliki said that as part of the current agreement between the United States and Iraq, no Americans should be in the country without the permission of the Iraqi government.

“Iraq always welcomes foreigners into the country, but they have to come through legally and in a way that respects that Iraq now has sovereignty and control over its land,” said the adviser, Ali Moussawi.

Last month, two Americans, a Fijian and 12 Iraqis employed by Triple Canopy, a private security company, were detained for 18 days after their 10-vehicle convoy from Kalsu, south of Baghdad, to Taji, north of the capital, was stopped for what Iraqi officials said was improper paperwork.

One of the Americans, Alex Antiohos, 32, a former Army Green Beret medic from North Babylon, N.Y., who served in the Iraq war, said in a telephone interview Sunday that he and his colleagues were kept at an Iraqi army camp, fed insect-infested plates of rice and fish, forced to sleep in a former jail, and though not physically mistreated were verbally threatened by an Iraqi general who visited them periodically. “At times, I feared for my safety,” Mr. Antiohos said.

In a statement, Triple Canopy, which denied any problems with documents, said that during the detention period, company officials were in contact with employees by cellphone, and brought them food, blankets, clothing, medical supplies and cellphone batteries. All were released unharmed on Dec. 27.

The detention drew the ire of Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican who heads the House Homeland Security Committee. His office was contacted by Mr. Antiohos’s wife on Dec. 19 seeking help to get the employees released. Mr. King criticized the United States Embassy in Baghdad for failing to help release the contractors caught in a drama that he said might have resulted in part from rival Iraqi ministries’ battling for political primacy.

“They could have been held as power plays by one Iraq department against another, but what adds to the problem is that it does not appear that the State Department is doing anything near what they could be doing,” Mr. King said in a telephone interview.

The United States Embassy in Baghdad, as well as senior State Department and military officials, say that no Americans are currently being detained, and they insist the detentions and visa delays are more the result of bureaucratic inexperience than malevolent intentions.

“The embassy has pushed for consistency and transparency in the government of Iraq’s immigration and customs procedures and urged American citizens to review their travel documents to ensure that they comply with Iraqi requirements to help avoid such incidents,” an Embassy spokesman said in a statement.

One senior American military official said that the current disconnect between the Iraqis and the contractors was “primarily an adjustment of our standard operating procedures as we adapt our people and they adapt their security forces to the new situation.”

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