Iraq gov detaining American embassy workers and others...

[Belmont31R]

What, 3 weeks, and its already turned to this? 4,484 US deaths and about a trillion dollars of US tax payer money for this barbarian ungrateful shitheads. :mad:



When are we going to pull out of Afghanistan? That will be FAR worse than this, and at this point we are just putting our guys lives in danger for a stupid ass "nation".



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 government’s 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 Iraq’s 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.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/world/middleeast/asserting-its-sovereignty-iraq-detains-american-contractors.html?_r=4



BTW my dad is in Iraq right now and those idiots are screwing everyones paperwork up. He has been delayed weeks now for his RR trip home because of paperwork.

[chavez_e_chavez]

link doesn't work, have to log in......Sorry about your Pop!!! How long as he been deployed??

[obucina]

I dont have an NYT account! It wants me to log in:mad:

[Belmont31R]

Weird...I don't have an account but it works fine for me.



Updated OP with first 4 paragraphs.



Dad has been in Iraq about a year. Was in Saudi for 2-3 years before that. This is his 2nd trip to Iraq. He was in Mosul around 2004-2005 as well.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

Sounds like the ten thousand all over again.

[CarlosDJackal]

This is why we never should have pulled all of our troops out. That place is by no means stable enough to stand on its own. From what I understand, the Iranian-backed insurgency got pretty active as the obama-announced pullout date got closer.

Regardless of how you feel about us going in to oust Saddam in the first place, giving up the areas we paid for in blood just because of a campaign promise is never a good idea. This is why we have not completely pulled out of Japan, Korea, Europe, the the Philippines even decades after the active conflict ended.

But I guess it is more important to cut the Defense Budget by almost the same amount given to Solyndra instead of maintaining a military presence in that volatile region.

[Iraqgunz]

I witnessed first hand what the Iraqis were about back in October before I returned home. They were confiscating weapons, armored vehicles and making life miserable.

Unfortunately with the Iraqi PM holding onto power and the internal strife going on......

I say the oil companies need to assert themselves and demand the Iraqis pull their head out and get their shit together or the oil stops.

[ICANHITHIMMAN]

We all know what is going to happen there, we have all known for a long time. I am all about guys getting paid but anyone who chooses to stay there is in for a world of hurt!

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

Here's hoping the contractors can find a puppet and just take over the place.

"Under New Management"

Throw the Chinesse some oil, keep Iran at bay to placate the Saudis, the Israelis will just chuckle, and the crazies will have a real conspiracy to complain about for once.

[Belmont31R]

Got an update from my dad. His company along with Exxon is sending tons of people home...



We just had an "all hands" meeting this afternoon. It's just as was rumored, some of the guys will be going home to work in the Houston office & some of the guys will be staying put. Our PSD personnel will be having visa issues coming up which doesn't give us enough teams for an evacuation. So we have to demobilize some of the people to get down the numbers. We have 4 guys who just came in on a business trip. They will go home asap. We have some guys on R&R at this time and they won't be coming back. We have some guys who just came back and will be going home before their 10 days are up. We have 23 guys who have the residency stamp issue, like me, who will be staying put.

It seems like the Iraqi government is trying to severely limit the expat
visas for the security companies to force them to use Iraqi's for this job. I guess they can do it too.

All of Exxon people will be gone in the next few days except for 4 of them.




Screw Iraq and I hope they go back to the stone age where they belong. Our country spends a trillion dollars freeing them, all the lives we lost, our people who were injured, and this is the "thanks" we get.

[GermanSynergy]

I just turned down a job offer there. Too bad they didn't say "Irbil" in lieu of "Baghdad".

[GIJew766]

I just turned down a job offer there. Too bad they didn't say "Irbil" in lieu of "Baghdad".

So did I actually. State Department job. Can't pay me enough to go deal with that bullshit. It was bad enough when I was in the Fleet, but I'm not going to work for DS and deal with it.

Let's just get everyone home, and sit back and watch it all ****ing burn.


H

[Belmont31R]

Got another update. Dad will be leaving there for good as soon as his stamp comes in. His company is pulling all of its employees out. Exxon has left a few people to tie up loose ends and then they will be gone. Good luck to Iraq developing its oil production without western engineering and support. Maybe the chicoms will do it for cheaper or something. Iraq sure gave a big **** you to America on our way out. Not only were they ****ing with people's stamps/visas but they were months behind on scheduled payments to these companies to the tune of tens of millions.


Now he'll be headed up to Canada for ~6 months and then has another project lined up in KSA late this year. At least the Saudis are grateful to have the expertise of western companies to design and build their shit + they pay a lot better.

[Mauser KAR98K]

Next time, we will leave Saddam in power and just lay siege to their country.

The Japanese and Germans were more grateful than this.

[Iraq Ninja]

Iraq wants to limit private security contractors..




By W.G. Dunlop
8 February 2012

(AFP) - Iraq deeply mistrusts private security companies and wants to limit
their operations here, officials say, while the contractors themselves
have faced bureaucratic delays and detentions.

This mistrust stems from perceived arrogant behaviour by employees of
these firms in the past and various incidents of violence involving them.

The most infamous incident was the 2007 killing of at least 14 civilians
in Baghdad's Nisur Square by gunmen from the Blackwater firm guarding a US
embassy convoy.

While Blackwater, now called ACADEMI, was later banned from the country,
security contractors still guard US diplomats in Iraq and provide security
for various foreign companies.

"Iraq is not looking to expand the security companies' work here,"
government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in an interview with AFP.

"We feel that Iraq should move to the normal life -- we don't want to see
the tens of the security companies taking the job of the ministry of
interior.

"Iraq has got a not friendly history with the security companies,
especially ... Blackwater, and we don't want to repeat that crisis again. So,
we
would like to limit their work here in Iraq, but we don't want to stop them,"
Dabbagh said.

The firms "have to understand that ... they don't have free (movement) in
the country. They have to follow the instruction, they have to hold the
permit, a valid permit, and they are not allowed to violate the Iraqi laws."

"They are not exempted as before, and they are not getting any sort of
immunity," he said.

"We do need them, definitely, we do need them, (and) we are not going to
stop them, but definitely, we will limit their work," Dabbagh said.

The matter has also drawn the attention of parliament's security and
defence committee.

"After discussions with the interior ministry, we found that there are
around 65 security companies, more than half of them Iraqi and the remainder
foreign," committee member MP Abbas al-Bayati told AFP.

Bayati said a small committee created to study the issue wants security
companies to use only light weapons, and that they should obtain permission
to move outside pre-determined areas.

The large number of contractors "negatively impacts the security situation
in the country," Iskander Witwit, another member of the committee, told
AFP.

"There will be strict conditions for the sake of maintaining security,"
though the companies will not be banned completely, with the goal being to
reduce their number to the minimum, Witwit said.

He added that the committee has the right to ban any company that does not
follow the rules.

For his part, Deputy Interior Minister Adnan al-Assadi said on Iraqiya
television that "the issue of the security companies is dangerous and we have
to control it."

However, he said it will take "at least five years" for foreign companies
to trust Iraqi forces to see to their security.

Doug Brooks, president of the International Stability Operations
Association (ISOA), whose members include firms guarding the US embassy and
diplomats in Iraq, discussed difficulties that contractors have faced here.

"Essentially, if you need a permit, if you need a license, if you need a
visa, all those sorts of things -- big delays, big hassles. It's very, very
hard to get your licenses on time," Brooks told AFP.

"It's not just security contractors. Yes, security contractors have
particular problems, but all the companies are facing pretty much the same
sorts
of issues," he said.

In a January letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ISOA said
"the lack of visas or renewals is preventing our member companies from
deploying into Iraq in support of embassy contracts and has led to the
detention
and expulsion of a number of member companies’ employees."

"Approved movements have been subject to stops, detentions and
confiscation of equipment without justification, impacting delivery of
equipment,
supplies, and materials to the US embassy, bases and offices throughout the
country," said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

The Congressional Research Service said last May that the State Department
estimated the number of security contractors working for it in Iraq would
reach 5,500, "with some 1,500 providing personal security for diplomatic
movements and an additional 4,000 providing perimeter security."

Brooks said "our hope is that the US government will be a bit more
proactive," as the government and embassy, in "our impression, has not been
very
active in trying to help the Iraqis address this problem."

US embassy spokesman Michael McClellan told AFP that "the embassy is well
aware of the problems contractors have been having with respect to visas
and other permissions required to operate in Iraq."

"We are working very closely with contractors and the Iraqi government to
address these issues and to ensure all visitors to Iraq are in compliance
with Iraqi immigration laws," he said.

Brooks said improvements in the situation cannot come soon enough.

"This is an industry that's used to working in these kind of
environments," he said, but "this bureaucratic hassle is getting to the point
where it's
even more difficult to operate than in a war zone."