Was It Or Wasn’t It?

There has been a lot of storm and fury today about reports that American forces raided an Iranian "consulate" in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil today. A lot of people have weighed in on this already. The Iranian government and local Kurdish officials have denounced the raid. But at this point it is not at all clear whether the "consulate" was actually an officially sanctioned consulate at all. There are also extreme conflicts in how the actual "raid" was accomplished. I think it may be too soon to really get het up about this one way or the other.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — The U.S. military operation Thursday in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil that resulted in the arrests of six Iranians has drawn a sharp denunciation from Iraq's Kurdish regional government.

A spokesman for the autonomous regional government and its presidency expressed their "alarm" and condemned the Thursday morning operation.

They characterized it as a raid on the Iranian consulate in Irbil, "which opened in the provincial capital in an agreement between the Iraqi government and the Iranian government."

The Kurdish regional government is based in Irbil.

The Kurdish statement, which includes a call for the immediate release of the detainees, says the consulate is entitled to immunity in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963.

The statement also says the Kurdish government, which covers the provinces of Irbil, Sulaimaniya and Duhuk, needs to be informed when such actions are taken.

In Washington, a U.S. official confirmed that six Iranian officials were detained for questioning. But he disputed accounts that troops broke open a consulate gate and conducted a raid.

"No shots were fired. No altercation ensued," said the official. "It was a knock on the door and, 'Please come out.' "

The official also explained that the Iranians in question were not inside an officially designated diplomatic consulate or embassy-like building.

If this was a designated consulate and the individuals currently detained actually have diplomatic passports which were properly presented to the Iraqi government, we have one issue. If the individuals were in a building not officially sanctioned and still have valid diplomatic passports, we have a different one. You can work out all the other combinations, it isn't really hard.

But Iran protesting American actions against a consulate, even if it was a legitimate consular installation, is ridiculous. They assaulted an embassy and took diplomats hostage. And they still hold the embassy to this day. Their protests should be laughed at. Frankly, Iran has been at war with the US for nigh on 30 years now, I'm not real worried about their hurt feelings.

But I am also waiting to see some real details as opposed to Iranian spin-doctoring on this issue.

UPDATE: The New York Times is reporting that the building in question was a liaison office and that there are legitimate questions as to whether or not the building had any sort of diplomatic status. More troubling is a detail I had not seen before. Kurdish troops apparently surrounded the American column that conducted the operation for two hours.

There was a tense standoff later in the day between the American soldiers and about 100 Kurdish troops, who surrounded the American armored vehicles for about two hours in this northern Iraqi city.

The attack was denounced by senior Kurdish officials, who are normally America’s closest allies in Iraq but regarded the action as an affront to their sovereignty in this highly tribal swath of the country. Iran’s Foreign Ministry reacted in Tehran with a harsh denunciation that threatened to escalate tensions with the Bush administration.

The American military said that it had been “conducting routine security operations in Erbil Jan. 11 and detained six individuals suspected of being closely tied to activities targeting Iraqi and coalition forces. One individual was released and five remain in custody.”

American officials have long accused Iran of sending weapons and money into Iraq. In late December the American military detained a number of Iranians in Baghdad, including two diplomats and two who turned out to be senior Iranian military officials. The diplomats were released but the others were forced to leave Iraq under suspicion that they had been working with Shiite militias. The incident also comes at a time when tensions are high between the United States and Iran over its nuclear program.

The incident was a major embarrassment for the Iraqi government, which has been trying to foster initiatives with its neighbor for improving regional security and trade, as well as other issues, and it calls into question the extent of Iraqi control over its own affairs.