Obama’s release of five Iranian Quds Forces: The epitome of shame
These cowardly swine should have been executed, but instead, they were turned loose. Way to support our troops Mr. President!
There are a few things you need to know about President Obama’s shameful release on Thursday of the “Irbil Five” — Quds Force commanders from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who were coordinating terrorist attacks in Iraq that have killed hundreds — yes, hundreds — of American soldiers and Marines.
First, of the 4,322 Americans killed in combat in Iraq since 2003, 10 percent of them (i.e., more than 400) have been murdered by a single type of weapon alone, a weapon that is supplied by Iran for the singular purpose of murdering Americans. As Steve Schippert explains at NRO’s military blog, the Tank, the weapon is “the EFP (Explosively Formed Penetrator), designed by Iran’s IRGC specifically to penetrate the armor of the M1 Abrams main battle tank and, consequently, everything else deployed in the field.” Understand: This does not mean Iran has killed only 400 Americans in Iraq. The number killed and wounded at the mullahs’ direction is far higher than that — likely multiples of that — when factoring in the IRGC’s other tactics, such as the mustering of Hezbollah-style Shiite terror cells.
Second, President Bush and our armed forces steadfastly refused demands by Iran and Iraq’s Maliki government for the release of the Irbil Five because Iran was continuing to coordinate terrorist operations against American forces in Iraq (and to aid Taliban operations against American forces in Afghanistan). Freeing the Quds operatives obviously would return the most effective, dedicated terrorist trainers to their grisly business.
And, as the NRO piece goes on to note, the Iranian regime continues to fund operations against our troops.
Further, the release of these five terrorists is what Iran demanded in exchange for the release of Roxana Saberi. But the demands did not stop there.
Meanwhile, in an appalling act of appeasement, we released five Revolutionary Guards officers in Iraq, so that they could go to Tehran (and I doubt they will join the nocturnal chanters). I got it from Washingtontv, which somehow accepted the official Iranian misidentification of these guys:
Washington, 9 July (WashingtonTV)—The US military on Thursday handed over five Iranian diplomats (NOT! ML. The mullahs claimed they were dips, but they were IRGC officers) it has held for over two years to Iraqi authorities, Iraqi and Iranian officials said.
Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, said that the five men were handed over to Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and that they would be handed over to the Iranian embassy in Baghdad after meeting al-Maliki, reports the official IRNA news agency.
The five diplomats, accused by the U.S. of funding and arming Shiite militants in Iraq, were arrested in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil on 11 January 2007.
The timing could hardly have been worse, and I’m sure the White House is roundly annoyed that this happened just on a day when the regime’s claws and fangs were so publicly exposed. The White House had set the release up for several days ago, but then the Almighty–in the form of intense sandstorms that made it impossible to fly in and out of Tehran–intervened.
If my information is correct–and I must say I have rarely had a story so vigorously denied by my own government–this is part of the deal for Roxana Saberi, who, you’ll remember, was miraculously released from an Iranian prison a couple of months ago. These IRGC commanders–with, I am told, hundreds of lower-level Iranian terror facilitators to come in the next days and weeks–were Iran’s price for freeing the American hostage.
Unbelievable, simply unbelievable. I must ask whether or not this is more than just Obama being incredibly naive.
Tags: Obama Frees Five Iranian Quds Force Terrorists
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