Don't send diplomats to Iraq warns the US
The US State Department has said it was discouraging foreign governments from sending diplomats to Iraq because the absence of an Iraqi government meant normal protections accorded diplomats were not available.
Under international rules, diplomats are immune from prosecution by the host government.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher yesterday said the US, as the controlling authority in Iraq, “reserves the right to exclude people who we don’t think belong there”.
Mr Boucher spoke hours after Palestinian officials in Baghdad said US troops raided the Palestinian mission in that city and arrested 11 people, including the mission’s top representative. The official US figure was eight arrests.
The Palestinian official said the US trops ransacked the building, taking water bottles and food cans.
Mr Boucher said there were diplomats in Iraq who were previously accredited to Saddam Hussein’s government and who have remained at their posts.
“We do not regard those as diplomatic missions,” he said. “They’re accredited to a regime that is no longer existent and therefore their accreditation would have lapsed.”
He added that the US did welcome foreign diplomats who were in Iraq to help in reconstruction.
