Left-wing British paper recycles three-month
-old story to blame U.S. for hostage crisis
Allahpundit

Good stuff. Pretend to break news that’s already been reported, assert a causal connection to another event without a single source to support it, then publish as fact. Good, hard-nosed, hard-left agenda journalganda. Here’s the “bombshell”:

[...]

Yeah, he told the same thing to NPR back on January 15th, when this story still qualified as “news.” Follow the link to the audio; the interview with Hussein begins at 1:28.

That’s not the only part of that blockquoted passage that’s already been reported, either. The Telegraph broke the news a week ago about the U.S. warning Britain to be on guard for reprisals after the Irbil raid. For reasons known only to them, the Brits evidently didn’t move to a higher state of alert. The Independent doubtless would say that they would have done so if they knew the true targets of the raid were high-ranking Iranian officials, but that’s three times stupid. First, if Jafari was in fact the target of the raid, then we surely shared that information with the British (particularly given their exposure in southern Iraq, where Iranian influence is greatest). Second, as regular readers of this blog well know, high-ranking Iranian officers have been disappearing regularly. So if the Irbil raid wasn’t enough to make the Brits take precautions, the defections/kidnappings of IRGC generals should have been. ...

In case you didn't stop by yesterday:

• 2007.04.02 Iran/Brit Hostage Crisis Roundup
  • "What Should Britain, the U.S., and Europe Do About Iran?"
  • "Brits Ready To Stick It To The Iraqis
    To Get Their Hostages Back"
  • U.K. Denounces Video of Seized Sailors
  • "Iran, The New South Africa"
  • When Britain fought back
  • Iran: All sailors have confessed — but we won’t show any more confessions
  • Iran: No Need to Try Captured British Personnel
  • ABC News: Iran has secretly tripled its enrichment capacity
  • Iran's Confident Act Of Piracy
  • Global reach, global power
  • Two Years Until Iran Goes Nuclear

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Time Out On US Causing Hostage Crisis
Dan Riehl

Drudge links a breaking Independent story suggesting that a "botched" raid by the US in Irbil is behind the reasoning for Iran to have taken 15 British sailors and marines hostage. But that story may not add up. See second link below.

In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment.

The two men were in Kurdistan on an official visit during which they met the Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, and later saw Massoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), at his mountain headquarters overlooking Arbil.

"They were after Jafari," Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Massoud Barzani, told The Independent. He confirmed that the Iranian office had been established in Arbil for a long time and was often visited by Kurds obtaining documents to visit Iran. "The Americans thought he [Jafari] was there," said Mr Hussein.

Mr Jafari was accompanied by a second, high-ranking Iranian official. "His name was General Minojahar Frouzanda, the head of intelligence of the Pasdaran [Iranian Revolutionary Guard]," said Sadi Ahmed Pire, now head of the Diwan (office) of President Talabani in Baghdad. Mr Pire previously lived in Arbil, where he headed the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Mr Talabani's political party.

This from CBS reporting at the time of the Irbil raid:

Last month, U.S. troops detained at least two Iranians and released two others who had diplomatic immunity. Two of those detained were visiting as guests of Talabani, his spokesman said.

That report demonstrates that US forces acted appropriately, if not indulgently, in accepting the diplomatic immunity of high level Iranians visiting Talibani. Given that, it's at least questionable if they would carry out a follow up mission for the very same purpose. The Irbil raid was publicized widely at the time and the Iraqi's knew who was and who wasn't seized. ...

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Morons Triumphant!
Jules Crittenden

But of course it was the Americans’ fault!  Damned Americans seizing [Iranian] agents inside Iraq forced the mullahs to seize some Brit swabs!  Even a moron can see that when Revolutionary Guards are minding their own business, financing murder and creating chaos in someone else’s country, the last thing you need is a bunch of stupid Americans to come along …   

Diplomatic efforts hampered by attacks on embassy.  Poppycock and balderdash! Stoning embassies and the seizure of jolly Jack tars are diplomacy, mullah-style. Any moron should know that! Which is why we need to start diplomatically blockading their ports and leveling their military infrastructure. ...

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Iran releases new pics of captive Brits
Allahpundit

Iran has released fresh pictures of the 15 British sailors and marines being held captive in the country.

The first picture, apparently a still taken from a video, showed six sailors sitting in blue and red tracksuits on a carpet in a room.

The caption to the picture said: “British sailors are chatting and eating fruit, drinking coffee and playing chess. It seems that the sailors are satisfied with their situation, in which they are enjoying good conditions instead of working in a hard situation in the Persian Gulf.”

Get the dig? British troops are lazy sops who’d rather munch fruit and play chess in Iranian captivity than do their jobs. There’s a word for this: humiliation. We got ours at Iranian hands in 1979. The British are getting theirs now. Until they’re stopped, perhaps we should start a pool on who these pirates will humiliate next.  ...

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Deal to release British sailors in the works?
Allahpundit

Drudge is leading with the Daily Mail quoting Blair about the next 48 hours being “critical,” but there’s not much to it. Ahmadinejad had scheduled a press conference today at which he was expected to do his usual anti-western vaudeville, but either he cancelled it or it was cancelled for him to avoid escalating the situation while negotiations are happening. According to the semi-official narrative, the “breakthrough” that precipitated all this was Iran’s NSA appearing last night on Britain’s Channel 4 — coincidentally, the same network responsible for the upcoming drama-ganda about British troops abusing Iraqi prisoners — to say that the sailors wouldn’t be put on trial. He also recommended some sort of international arbitration to decide who’s in the right here, to which I’m sure Blair will reply that he can kindly get bent. Channel 4’s posted the video; click the image to watch.

The interviewer is Jon Snow, by the way. You remember him.

Like I say, that’s the official narrative. The truth is that this is way, way too much of a coincidence not to be connected to the wrangling over the sailors. And that’s not the only maneuvering in terms of a prisoner swap. The AP is reporting that Iran’s “intensively” pursuing the release of the five Quds Force members captured by U.S. troops in Irbil, which is another dagger in the heart of that moronic Independent story insofar as it insisted that those five were small fry and that this is all about the two big fish we, um, didn’t actually kidnap. Anyway, Bush reiterated at today’s press conference that he doesn’t support any quid pro quos to get the sailors back; it’s unclear whether the diplomat released this morning was being held by Iraqi or American troops, so if Bush is secretly making deals, he’s at least got plausible deniability on that one. He won’t have deniability on the Irbil five. I trust he understands that. ...