IRAQ - Who is fighting whom and why ?

What follows is part of a transcript freely and widely available on the web, of a US Army Press Conference on the 19th October,2006. The US forces apprehended Sheikh Mazen al-Saedi at his house, he was apparently involved in death squad activity that killed hundreds of Sunnis , according to US intelligence, and so he was arrested.

Sheikh Mazen al-Saedi was released the following day at the express request of the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki .The sheikh signed a conditional waiver as he was released.Iraqi interior ministry vehicles took him to his Shiite movement's offices in the Kadhimiya district of Baghdad.

"He was released," confirmed Sadr spokesman Hamdallah al-Rikabi, accusing US forces of trying to provoke the movement into armed confrontation.

IRAQ OPERATIONAL UPDATE BRIEFING BRIEFER: MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM CALDWELL, USA, SPOKESMAN, MULTINATIONAL FORCE-IRAQ LOCATION: COMBINED PRESS INFORMATION CENTER, BAGHDAD, IRAQ TIME: 8:00 A.M. EDT DATE: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2006

Q Paul Schemm, AFP. Slightly off-topic, there was a Shi'ite leader, a member of Muqtada Sadr's movement, that was arrested a few days ago. I think his name was Sheikh Mazen al-Saedi or something to that extent. He was apparently involved in death squad activity that killed hundreds of Sunnis, as the U.S. had figured out, according to their intelligence, and so he was arrested. Then there was a bit of a furor about it, and then Maliki ordered him to be released, which he was, subsequently released, though privately members of the U.S. military have said this is one of these people driving this sectarian conflict we're seeing.

And my question to you is, obviously we understand that the prime minister doesn't want the U.S. military going into Sadr City to address the militia thing there, and you do have -- but you do have your targeted operations. How can you try to stop these -- this sectarian killing if the prime minister does not allow you to arrest the people involved with them? Thanks.

GEN. CALDWELL: Well, in fact the prime minister actually has given us tremendous leeway in being able to conduct operations in support of specific targets. But we recognize the fact that we're here at the request of a sovereign nation, and anything we do in this nation, we do need to clear with the prime minister, I mean, and the government officials. I mean, we're not an autonomous operation here. We're here at their request. We're operating as guests in this country. Any kind of left and right limits that the prime minister wants to impose upon us, we need to abide by. I mean, this is his nation, after all. It's not ours.

And so what you heard was exactly correct. On October 17th, in the early morning hours, there was a raid conducted. There were several people detained, of which -- the sheikh was one of them.

And he was released the next day at the request of the prime minister, and so that did happen.

Q But my question is: Would these --

Q Is this making your job more difficult? And do you think you can actually succeed in your stated objectives if the prime minister doesn't let you arrest people?

GEN. CALDWELL: Well, I think what you have to realize, the prime minister is working at a much higher level. He's working at a national level dealing with strategic issues. He's engaged in a lot of dialogues that are going on at this point, and for us to second guess him and to try to ascertain why he did or did not make a particular decision, we have to respect the right of, one, he is the elected official, he is the prime minister of this nation, and that if he makes that decision, he has a lot of other information which we probably are not privy to in making that determination.

So the sheikh just before he was released did acknowledge the fact that he understood why he had been detained, because of involvement in suspicious activity, and that he signed a conditional release promising to support the government of Iraq and disavow future acts of violence as he was released.

Yes, sir.

Q Kirk Semple from The New York Times. Can you shed any light on the discussions that led to the sheikh's release or the conditions for his release?

GEN. CALDWELL: I think to get anything further I'd probably just refer you back to the government of Iraq because they're the ones we were responding to the prime minister's request, he was released. The sheikh did sign a conditional waiver as he was released, and probably beyond that, I should just let the government of Iraq take and answer those questions.

You will look in vain for this story in the US / European Press.

The Baker report has one interesting sentence in it - the rest is pointless verbiage.

Page - 23 Experts estimate that 150,000 to 200,000 - and perhaps as many as 500,000 - barrels of oil per day are being stolen.