We Don't Negotiate With Terrorists, We Rehabilitate Insurgents

The Times covers, on page 6, what looks to all the world like a hostage swap:

U.S. Transferred Detainee Before Hostage Release
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS

BAGHDAD — Only hours before a British hostage was released, the American military turned over to Iraqi authorities one of the suspected leaders of a Shiite insurgent group believed to be behind the kidnapping, Iraqi officials said Thursday.

Both the Iraqi government and United States military officials in Iraq on Thursday denied that the British hostage, Peter Moore, had been freed after more than two years in captivity in exchange for the transfer of the suspected insurgent leader from American to Iraqi custody.

Timing is everything.  AllahPundit has a contemporaneous account of the 2007 incident.  Back to the Times:

On Thursday, Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said that Mr. Khazali was still in Iraqi custody and that court officials were trying to determine whether Iraqi authorities could legally continue to hold him.

“We are checking his file to see if there is anything criminal against him,” Mr. Dabbagh said. “If there is nothing, he will be released.”

Mr. Dabbagh said the transfer of Mr. Khazali had not been carried out in exchange for Mr. Moore’s release but had rather been part of a continuing attempt by the Iraqi government to get the League of the Righteous to agree to disavow violence.

“There was no trade,” Mr. Dabbagh said.

In a statement on Thursday, the American military also denied that there had been any quid pro quo.

“The United States has complied with an Iraqi government request in accordance with the U.S.-Iraqi Security Agreement and the rule of law to transfer Asa’ib al-Haq members, to include Qais al-Khazali, from U.S. custody to Iraqi custody pursuant to an Iraqi arrest warrant,” the statement said. “This has been occurring over a seven-month period.”

The American military statement said that Iraq’s efforts to rehabilitate the insurgent group depended on its taking five steps: halting attacks and renouncing violence; disavowing hostage taking; decommissioning its heavy weapons; ending its ties to foreign sources of support and training; and reintegrating into Iraqi society as a peaceful group.

That seven month process drew a concerned letter from Congress when Khazali's brother was released in June.

Rebecca Santana of the AP has a much lower credulity threshold than the Times (or better sources):

Commenting on the release of Qais al-Khazali, an Iraqi militant heading a group believed to have been holding Moore and the others, Petraeus said his release from U.S. to Iraqi custody was done according to an agreement with the Iraqi government to transfer detainees in American custody over or release them.
...

A representative of al-Khazali's group and an Iraqi member of the negotiating team that helped secure Moore's release told The Associated Press that the militant group did not release Moore until it got confirmation its leader was transferred.

Not that there was any quid pro quo.

Well. I don't want to be calling General Petraeus a liar, and I don't suppose an absolute rule of never negotiating with terrorists and insurgents is applicable in the context of the sort of murky counter-insurgency taking place in Iraq.

Let's look on the bright side - at least Eric Holder didn't try to fly Khazali back to New York for a civilian trial.

Comments

[PD]

Plane Attack Spooks Public Confidence in War on Terror

I'm not sure what confidence the public can have, given an administration that won't even acknowledge the term "war on terror."

[Jack is Back!]

Hope and Change, baby. Hope and Change.

To be played at all airports,">http://www.animatronics.org/strangers/strangers.htm'> Frank Sinatra.

[Jack is Back!]

Back to the topic at hand: do ya think they may have turned him? Or at least do the old Guiliani trick on the mob - let his people think he was turned.

Remember, Patreaus is a devious bastard that has sucker punched everyone from Harry Reid, Hillary, The Once and even Gates.

[Jack is Back!]

I just saw this from Bill Roggio.

Hmmmm!

Nah, this being the most ethical administration in history of Earth, it couldn't happen. But the Iraqi's - now that is another story when it comes to deviant ethics. Yep, that's who they'll blame.

[narciso]

One gets the feeling these folk never played poker, one terrorist leader for a hostage

[PD]

At least we can predict with iron-clad certainty that this won't lead to more hostage taking.

[Clarice]

It stinks, I agree. Let's hope we implanted a drone target finder under his skin before releasing him to Iran with instructions to stay away from nuclear reactors.

[narciso]

It will work as well as Al Shehri, Al Rubbaish, Al Ajmi, well you get the idea

[pagar]

"we can predict with iron-clad certainty" ??????????????????????????????????????????????

[Rick Ballard]

Pagar,

That one should have tripped the breaker on your Krupp Ironiedetektor. If you're using the ACME brand you'll need to toss the melted remnant in the trash.

Does anyone have a rational (or maybe just believable) explanation for a cause outside of outright lying for this divergence from norm? Are the Feds already surreptitiously shoveling money out the back door to failed states?

[pagar]

I just knew when I bought that cheap brand that I made a mistake. You always get what you pay for.

[Gmax]

Does anyone have a rational (or maybe just believable) explanation

Well yes Rick, I just happen to have one. I suggest we do a nose count of the CRU at East Anglia and the NASA. If we determine a shortfall, we can deduce that the mathematical wizards there have migrated to Treasury.

[Gmax]

Found this which may be of some assistance, its from the AP so do consider the source.

Budget-strapped state governments will struggle with higher spending on unemployment insurance in 2010. States are required to set aside money in a trust fund to pay jobless benefits, but 25 have already run through their funds and have borrowed $26 billion from the federal government.

The Labor Department has projected that 40 states may need to borrow as much as $90 billion by 2012.

Thirty-five states have already increased the unemployment insurance taxes they levy on employers for 2010, according to the National Association of State Workforce Agencies. Some are also cutting benefits as they try to reduce the size of budget shortfalls that are expected to reach $180 billion in the coming fiscal year.

The drain on federal and state finances could force Congress to consider raising the federal unemployment insurance tax, which is currently 0.8 percent on the first $7,000 of wages, or making other changes.

One more thing to anticipate in 2010, higher FUTA taxes. Joy...

[Gmax]

Does anyone have a rational (or maybe just believable) explanation

Well Bernie Madoff does have a fair amount of time on his hands, and could be consulting to the Treasury on creative accounting for fun and profit. Just sayin'

[Old Lurker]

The even badder part of having states borrow from the Fed for unemployment funds is that that, once again, shifts the cost of profligate states onto the backs of the others. When Wyoming and Texas have to pay even more for the public union and other excessive costs of CA,NY & MI, then things will get pretty nasty.

What was Po saying yesterday about the erosion of states' rights?

[narciso]

You know I would rather cut off my arm, than link Ambinder, but he has an interesting comment from Ishmael Jones, on the caliber of
the personnel lost in Khost yesterdaym in the LUN

[Soylent Red]

When Wyoming and Texas have to pay even more for the public union and other excessive costs of CA,NY & MI, then things will get pretty nasty.

I call it "catalyst for change we can believe in".

It's a states-level model for what is happening to the average American on a micro-level starting this tax year. Once people in red states figure out they're getting screwed twice to pay for the failure of progressive utopianism in blue states...

Yeah, "catalyst" is the word I'd use.

[Gmax]

Once people in red states figure out they're getting screwed

Oh I think they have already got that one nailed. They might not know the frequency or the extent, but they know what going on.

Take a look at the Ben Nelson poll in Red State Nebraska. Seems the voters did not like what he cooked up for them.

It will likely make some differences in typically indigo blue states too. There is a Tsunami coming.

[Soylent Red]

GMax:

During my leave I have both sat in the local office of E. Benjamin Nelson, and sat amongst the inebriated football watching proles here in Nebraska.

There is, I can assure you, a breakdown in communication between the two that is bound to be addressed at earliest possible moment.

But I think the notion of paying for California's excesses would be particularly odious to the Big Red throng. And I don't think they're unique.

When the reaction happens, it's going to be almost chemical in nature. Nothing is going to put it out until it burns itself out.

[glasater]

I see some job potential in my future--flogging for folks to come live in WA state:

Washington is on track to add seat in U.S. House

All we need is twenty five thousand unhappy tax payers in blue states to move to a blue state that does not have an income tax:)

[matt]

one of the biggest problems in Iraq is that Iran has been doing their best to destabilize the country. The Quds Forces have been in kidnapping war with us and the Iraqis; we nab one of theirs, they nab or murder a few of ours.

Unless we can roll them up fast, it is likely they will send a few more truck bombers into the most volatile areas of the country to try and set off more sectarian violence.

One thing I think for sure this year is that Iran will be drawn into some very violent situations. Between the Nuclear showdown and the likelihood they will further provoke both the Big Powers and Israel; the internal dissent, and their low grade support of the Taliban and Iraqi crazies, something is gonna blow and I hope it blows Ahmedinejad to hell.

[pagar]

"Are the Feds already surreptitiously shoveling money"

Looks like they will be, the way I read this article!

"Foreigners Send a Message: Your Debt Instruments Suck"

[Clarice]

B.S.--Though I kid of thik the Chinese army may be overrated.

[matt]

clarice;

I have seen them up close recently and they are at the least competent to fight hard. I would say their tactics and strategy also have improved over the purely communist era.

I was in Hangzhou recently where the airport was closed for 2 hours as the PLAF ran exercises over some of the busiest airspace in the country. The military gets what they want and remember are the largest single industrial complex in the nation, which then further funds modernization.

They've stolen us blind in the technology sector, including the W-88 small mobile warhead. Where they may fail is in execution. Manufacturing quality control just isn't that good in most Chinese companies, but they do build robust simple systems and a lot of them.

When you see them co-opting former American assets like the Panama Canal, the former Long Beach Naval Shipyard (now a CFS), you realize how smart they are.

They view us as big, dumb and happy at best, bankrupting ourselves all the while, and consider themselves the wave of the future.

[Barbula]

Is this the dawn of the 'Chinese Century'?