Let The Games Begin
Great news out of Iraq. U.S. forces have been playing catch and release with dozens of Iranian agents in Iraq. Now, they are authorized to kill them. This, is it hoped, will send a message to Iran. Nothing like the message killing Iranian agents in Iran will send, but its a start. WaPo:
The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran’s influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort.
For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The “catch and release” policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries. U.S. forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go.
Last summer, however, senior administration officials decided that a more confrontational approach was necessary, as Iran’s regional influence grew and U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran appeared to be failing …
“There were no costs for the Iranians,” said one senior administration official. “They are hurting our mission in Iraq, and we were bending over backwards not to fight back.”
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Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:16 am on Friday, January 26, 2007
8 Responses to “Let The Games Begin”
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January 26th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Bush Gives Troops Authority to Kill or Capture Iranian Operatives in Iraq
This is action is long overdue:
The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran’s influence across the Middle East and compel it to …
January 26th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Wonderful news and agreed, should have happened long ago. PLEASE do not release them, to anyone…well bodies or pieces thereof excepted of course, and for God sakes do NOT even think, Gitmo.
January 26th, 2007 at 11:56 am
It’s time we stopped “trying not to intimidate our enemies. They are our enemies. If they have no trouble killing us, why are we not killing them?
January 26th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Catch and Release vs Capture or Kill
The Revolutionary Guards presence and Iranian supplied materilas used against our troops and coalition forces constitutes an act of war in and of itself.
January 26th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Good news, and long overdue.
January 26th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Heh, killing the enemy. What a revolutionary concept. Gotta be right up there with the invention of gunpowder.
January 26th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Sure beats the “War is Heck” rubric we’ve fought under since Korea.
One wonders: Do these new ROE apply to Sunni/Shia militia as well?
January 26th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Troops Authorized to Kill Iranians in Iraq
Well, it’s about time. Granted, this is the Washington Post, so we need to wait a couple of news cycles to see how this pans out. I can just see the nervous libs fretting how we might upset the Islamofascists and create more terrorists. They missed t…