Bush-Cheney to Iraq: Butt out of your business

The Bush administration is refusing once again to release five mid-level operatives of an Iranian delegation to Northern Iraq who were seized by U.S. forces several months ago when the storyline of Iranian aid to the Iraqi insurgency began to be run up the flagpole. Generously, our government has said it will re-consider the detention sometime this fall. This refusal is despite pleas from the Iraqi Government – that’s the sovereign Iraqi Government that we created – asking for the prisoners to be released. Why won’t they? Well, because, that’s why. Probably because, in addition to continuing to manufacture and maintain an on-going crisis with Iran, Cheney and Bush (and their staffs) are addicted to staging one in-your-face moment after another. If it makes perfect sense to go one way, they will go the other just to prove they can get away with it.