General Petraeus: British hostage [Peter Moore was] held in Iran

[Turborama]

Source: The Guardian

US intelligence is convinced that Peter Moore spent at least some of his 31 months of captivity in Iran, one of America's most senior military commanders said today.

As Moore, a computer consultant from Lincoln, flew back to Britain, General David Petraeus, the head of US central command, confirmed the American assessment that Moore – seized with four bodyguards in Baghdad in 2007 – had "certainly" been taken across the border into Iran. The Iranian role in the abduction, reported on the Guardian website on Wednesday, suggests Tehran's influence in Iraqi politics is even more pervasive than previously thought.

Moore flew into RAF Brize Norton this evening on board a plane belonging to International SOS, a global medical and security firm. He was accompanied by a Baghdad-based British consular official and is due to be reunited with his family tonight.

=snip=

The Foreign Office has repeatedly said that there is no evidence Moore was ever held inside Iran, dismissing the report as "speculation". But General Petraeus flatly contradicted the official British view at a Baghdad press conference. "I am on the record as having said that our intelligence assessment is that he certainly spent part of the time, at the very least, in Iran – part of the time he was a hostage," the general, who commands the US military in Afghanistan, Iraq and across the Middle East, told journalists today.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/01/us-general-british-hostage-iran

---

Lots of articles on this, here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/british-hostages-in-iraq

Direct link to GuardianFilms' documentary on this...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/dec/30/iraq-hostage-peter-moore-release">Revealed: evidence of Iran's involvement in the kidnapping of the five Britons in Baghdad
Mona Mahmood, Maggie O'Kane, Guy Grandjean, Teresa Smith, Jacqui Timberlake and Joe McAllister
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 31 December 2009
Following a year-long investigation, GuardianFilms has exclusively uncovered the story of what happened to the five Britons kidnapped in Iraq on 29 May 2007, as the only survivor, Peter Moore, is released
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/dec/30/iraq-hostage-peter-moore-release

This Guardian article gives insightful background to the documentary: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/31/british-hostages-baghdad-iraq-iran">Bush threats and an $18bn secret: why Iran's kidnap squad decided to strike

[bfarq]

1. These are the same people who knew exactly where Saddam was hiding his WMDs

May I humbly point out:

a) that claiming they were in Iran helps Petraeus justify all the saber rattling we have been doing about Iran, and

b) if he really KNEW they were held in Iran, why the hell didn't he send in some special forces to try to rescue them?

[Donnachaidh]

2. ding ding ding -- we have a winner! n/t

[Turborama]

3. I suggest watching the Guardian's documentary before making your mind up about that

(Also, have a look at the accompanying articles)

A) Please point out any recent "sabre rattling" that's been carried out by the Obama Administration.

PS If there was going to be any "sabre rattling" it would have been by the British, seeing as it was their guys who were kidnapped. But, as you can see in the article, the Brits are dismissing this as speculation.

B) He probably would have, if he knew exactly where they were. Probabaly more likely that Britain's SAS would have carried out the rescue mission, though.


BTW The Guardian is hardly what could be called a "pro-war" newspaper.

ETA If you prefer watching on YouTube, I've just added it to the videos forum: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x418776

[bfarq]

4. In response

#1, Petraeus is not of the Obama administration. He is of the Pentagon. That's where his loyalties are. He was a main actor in the "Axis of Evil" build-up, so justification of that point today serves his self interest.

#2, there has been LOTS of saber rattling by Israel, and that is essentially the same thing as the Obama administration, because a primary reason we are spending those trillions of dollars in the region is to promote Israel's interests. In this instance, it is saber rattling by proxy.

I'm not saying that Iran hasn't been involved in these things. Elements within Iran probably have, just as have elements within Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and a dozen other countries.

We can't invade every country on the planet. And even if we could, that wouldn't accomplish anything other than to foment more terrorism and make the arms merchants very rich.

[Turborama]

5. Who's talking about invading Iran in any of those articles or that documentary?

:shrug:

[bfarq]

8. You can't take any of it in isolation. It is all part of the big PR campaign.

And Who's talking about invading every country? Well, Joe Lieberman, for one.

And we are in fact engaged in military operations is many of those countries TODAY. You can certainly include Yemen and Pakistan as places where our assets are deploying, and there are probably others as well that have not been stated publicly.

[Turborama]

9. The Guardian are part of "the big PR campaign"?

I've been reading the Guardian for many years and I can assure you that the last thing they'd get involved in is a PR campaign to invade Iran.

[bfarq]

12. They are a vessel for the PR campaign

The objective of the campaign is to try to get that positions repeated far and wide. I'm not saying the Guardian is actively helping as a matter of strategy or philosophy but they are all players on that chess board.

Were you an adult at the time that we had the build-up to the Iraqi war? I ask that as a serious question, because it sounds to me like you are not very familiar with how this stuff works.

[Turborama]

13. Have a look at this post...

...I've added to my journal to see how "familiar" I am with "how this stuff works": http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Turborama/84

BTW I was an "adult" during the build up to "Desert Storm", not that it's any of your business.

"They are a vessel for the PR campaign" "I'm not saying the Guardian is actively helping as a matter of strategy or philosophy"

Your 1st statement contradicts the second, a "vessel" in this context is usually a media outlet that actively helps in a PR campaign. The Guardian carried out a year long investigation into this particular incident. I have a strong suspicion you haven't read any of the supporting articles or watched the documentaries provided in this thread and therefore don't know anything about their findings and are just reacting to the headline with Petraeus' name in it. I say this because you haven't discussed anything in the aforementioned articles/documentaries and instead vaguely go on about some grand PR campaign to invade Iran.

I don't take suggestions about some secret plan to invade Iran lightly. I'm an expat living in a Muslim country and one of the reasons I carried out an online campaign to help Barack Obama get elected as president was because I was very concerned about McCain getting in and bombing Iran (which would be just the beginning of his war against Islam). To give an idea of what I'm talking about, one of the campaigns I ran during the election was to help these videos go viral:

Republicans and military men on John McCain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdJUCU1UH2w

McCain's Pastor Problem
http://motherjones.com/politics/2008/05/mccains-pastor-problem-video
The Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXZbIGJrDkg

[bemildred]

6. Freed Iraq hostage Peter Moore denies Iranian involvement in kidnapping

Nobody seems to care what Mr Moore thinks about what happened to him.

Peter Moore, the British hostage freed this week, has named two locations in Iraq where he was held during his two and a half years in captivity. During an initial debriefing the 36-year-old computer consultant, who is due to fly home today, has told officials that he last saw his fellow hostages about 18 months ago.

The bodies of three Britons who were his bodyguards — Alec MacLachlan, Jason Swindlehurst and Jason Creswell — were passed to the British authorities last year. Mr Moore has said nothing to change the Government’s view that Alan McMenemy, the fourth bodyguard kidnapped, has also been killed, according to officials.

Mr Moore’s testimony strenghtened the Foreign Office’s insistence that it had no evidence that Tehran was directly involved in the kidnap and that the hostages had been held in Iran.

An unnamed member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard told The Guardian that the kidnapping in Baghdad was masterminded by the organisation and the men were taken within a day of their capture to prison camps run by its external wing, the al-Quds Brigade, within Iran.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article6973031.ece

[Peace Patriot]

7. Is anybody else wondering why Peter Moore, a computer consultant, had FOUR body guards?

That stood out to me in the first accounts of this event. FOUR body guards. Is that normal for "consultants" in Iraq? (I really don't know.) And also the fact that, even with FOUR body guards, Moore was taken. He was taken with his body guards. They were all there. So that means a high degree of organization by the kidnappers, and, unless those body guards were sloppy and inept (were not, for instance, varying his routes of travel, etc.), they somehow obtained good knowledge of the details they would need to take him and four body guards. (--always a chance that they were just real lucky but still, they had to have sufficient force and sufficient planning to locate them, and then to disarm four people trained to oppose them).

Another thing that strikes me about this story: When the Iranians caught British sailors in Iranian waters, back in spring 2007 (shortly after Rumsfeld resigned), the Iranians didn't bite...ahem...the Iranians treated them well and smilingly returned them. So much for one of Rumsfeld's schemes to manufacture a "Gulf of Tonkin"-type incident, to "justify" nuking Iran, I thought at the time. It was the tail end of the intensifying talk about nuking Iran, which had been building to fever pitch around the time Rumsfeld resigned. Then it all went away, and Iran seemed to get taken "off the table."

Could this kidnapping have been another such scheme to entangle Iran in an escalating incident--maybe another scheme that failed, and/or that Iran got onto and foiled? Maybe Iran influenced the kidnappers to return Moore. And maybe Betrayus was surprised and disappointed at Moore surviving and being released, and is trying to cover his ass by insisting that Iran was involved.

That's another unexplained detail of this event: Why did the kidnappers--after killing the body guards (if they did)--return Moore?

I think we can safely presume that Betrayus is lying. But about what? Was this a covert action actually initiated by the Pentagon, the CIA or some special ops team--to kidnap Moore and take him to Iran--a scheme that went awry? The kidnappers were paid to do it, but once they had Moore, betrayed their paymasters and changed their own goal. What was their goal? Why did they kill the body guards, keep Moore and then release him?

A lot of puzzles here--just like that hit of the CIA "forward assassination team" in Afghanistan the other day. Someone here at DU asked: Since when does the CIA announce their agents' deaths in the field? Good question! I believe the answer is never. So what was going on with that? I heard that the bomber was someone they had invited there, whom they were trying to recruit--and he just walked in, past security, and didn't even get frisked. That is pretty bizarre, all by itself. But then we get this announcement. More strangeness. You'd think if security had been breached so badly, neither the Pentagon nor the CIA would want to broadcast this fact. As with the above, I'm thinking internal war still going on; in-house sabotage, backstabbing, dirty dealing. Maybe Bushwhack moles.

[Turborama]

10. British hostages: claims of Iraqi government collusion (another Guardian documentary)

This short 13 minute documentary shows there must have been collusion...

British hostages: claims of Iraqi government collusion
A Guardian investigation reveals allegations that high-ranking Iraqi government officials were involved in the kidnapping of five Britons in Baghdad: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/jul/30/british-hostages-iraq-government

[struggle4progress]

11. Bushbot Petraeus has always used the spectre of Iran to push for more war:

Petraeus On Iran In Iraq
08 May 2007
The commander of the Multinational Force in Iraq, General David Petraeus, says that "exceedingly unhelpful activities by Iran and Syria, especially those by Iran. . . .compound the enormous problems facing the new Iraq." At a press briefing at the Pentagon, General Petraeus said that new evidence of Iranian involvement in Iraq emerged after leaders of an Iraqi terrorist cell known as the Qazali network were apprehended: "They were provided with substantial funding, training on Iranian soil, advanced explosive munitions and technologies. . . .in some cases advice and in some cases even a degree of direction" ... http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2007-05-08-voa1.cfm

Gen. Petraeus Steps Up Accusations Against Iran
by Anne Garrels
October 7, 2007
The U.S. military commander alleges that Iran's ambassador to Iraq belongs to an elite force of the Iranian revolutionary guard that has targeted U.S. forces ... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15084571

Page last updated at 15:21 GMT, Monday, 24 March 2008
Iran 'behind Green Zone attack'
The most senior US general in Iraq has said he has evidence that Iran was behind Sunday's bombardment of Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7311565.stm

Gen David Petraeus told the BBC he thought Tehran had trained, equipped and funded insurgents who fired the barrage of mortars and rockets.
updated 8:38 p.m. EDT, Tue April 8, 2008
Petraeus, Crocker criticize Iran, call for halt to troop pullout
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The top U.S. officials in Iraq told Senate committees Tuesday that Iranian agents and weapons are fueling the ongoing strife there and that further U.S. troop withdrawals will have to wait ... http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/08/iraq.hearing/index.html

POLITICS-US: Petraeus Promotion Frees Cheney to Threaten Iran
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON, Apr 23 <2008> (IPS) - The nomination of Gen. David Petraeus to be the new head of the Central Command not only ensures that he will be available to defend the George W. Bush administration's policies toward Iran and Iraq at least through the end of Bush's term and possibly even beyond ... http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42101


Last Updated: February 14, 2009 15:57 EST
Iran Is Helping Taliban in Afghanistan, Petraeus Says (Update1)
By Henry Meyer
Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Iran is helping Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, said General David Petraeus, who is in charge of U.S. forces in the Central Asian nation and Iraq. “There is a willingness to provide some degree of assistance to make the life of those who are trying to help the Afghan people difficult,” Petraeus told a conference today in the Qatari capital, Doha. Petraeus gave no details of the Iranian assistance, which he described as taking place at “a small level” ... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?sid=aru5H2YB1Tv8&pid=20601087

Petraeus says Iran backing militants in Iraq and Afghanistan
Updated: Thursday, December 17, 2009
12:00GMT—7:00AM/EST
Washington, 17 December (WashingtonTV) — The United States’ top commander in the Middle East said on Wednesday that Iran was still backing Shiite militants in Iraq and giving a “modest level” of support to the Taliban in Afghanistan. General David Petraeus told ABC News that there were “daily attacks” in Iraq with “weapons only made by Iran” ... http://www.televisionwashington.com/floater_article1.aspx?lang=en&t=floater_blog&id=16554

Petraeus: UAE Air Force Could Take Out Iran’s
By Spencer Ackerman 12/18/09 11:01 AM
Josh Rogin finds this video of Gen. David Petraeus, at a security conference last week in Bahrain, publicly speculating about an airpower confrontation between the United Arab Emirates and Iran. I am not exactly sure why he’s doing this ... http://washingtonindependent.com/71457/petraeus-uae-air-force-could-take-out-irans