Flexing Muscle, Baghdad Detains U.S. Contractors
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 governments 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 Iraqs 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.
MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/world/middleeast/asserting-its-sovereignty-iraq-detains-american-contractors.html?_r=1&hp
DCBob
(24,689 posts)as it should be and should have been a long time ago.
Igel
(35,332 posts)Libya, Egypt, and Syria?
Or perhaps we're just extreme isolationists now?
DCBob
(24,689 posts)BTW we havent been occupying Libya, Egypt, or Syria.
Hugabear
(10,340 posts)Really? How do you even draw that comparison?
mistertrickster
(7,062 posts)gratuitous
(82,849 posts)You can look forward to copious coverage of these poor mercenaries and their families, subject to the whims of another country's baffling legal system and how scared they are and how unfair it all is. There will not be the first scintilla of irony or hypocrisy betrayed by the on-air personalities, and anyone who even breathes the word "Guantanamo" will lose his or her cushy sinecure.
2banon
(7,321 posts)exactly. the orwellian theatre will be interesting to observe.
I just watched 2 hours of CBS new morning show and (with the ass kisser Charlie Rose et al. and I hadn't heard one WORD of this report. perhaps i missed it.
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)Who cares what the neoconservatives think?
MinervaX
(169 posts)Guy Montag
(126 posts)They should deport the lot of them.
LarryNM
(493 posts)without Any Tax Money. See how long they last.