Um, Er, ... Sorry?

Among the many reasons that the United States should not be in the military occupation business: we're not very good at it.

Further stoking sectarian tensions, U.S. troops burst into the home of a leading Sunni Arab politician before dawn, arresting him and three of his sons. After angry protests from Sunnis, the military released Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, head of the Iraqi Islamic Party, saying he was arrested by mistake.

From Arab News:

Relatives of Abdul-Hamid said US troops broke down the door of his family home, ransacked the house and put a hood over his head before taking him away.

Sunni leaders were outraged.

Iraqi Islamic Party Secretary-General Ayad Al-Samarei called the detention a provocative and foolish act. "This is part of the pressure exerted on the party," he said.

"At the time when the Americans say they are keen on real Sunni participation, they are arresting the head of the only Sunni party that calls for a peaceful solution and have participated in the political process," he added.

So, like, the only hope in heck we have of getting out of Iraq with a shred of decency is to leave at least the semblance of an indigenous government with a functioning security force. And the only plausible scenarios for that involve convincing Sunnis to play ball, rather than succumb to their expectation that the new Shiite-dominated, US-supported proto-regime is out to get them.

So, we do what in order to achieve that goal? We send armed and armored troops to break down the door of one of their leading politicians in the middle of the night, hood him, and cart him and three of his sons off to a military prison. How does that work, exactly?

Though I have no evidence for this, it isn't hard to imagine someone in the Shiite community who was out to get the Sunnis deciding to take advantage of our ignorance and world-famous forcefulness. "Hey, watch what happens if I tell the US that Abdul-Hamid is on the list!" I can picture him laughing to his hypothetical buddies. "Sure, they'll find out the mistake, but maybe he won't come calmly. Those Americans get awfully itchy fingers around 'terrorists'." It doesn't take much imagination to think of adding "death by scared-for-his-life National Guard trooper" to the list of low-cost assassination techniques in Baghdad.

Just how did such a foolish mistake get made?

Luckily for the administration, the insurgents had picked the same day to switch to explosive vests instead of car bombs, with devastating effectiveness, and an Iraqi aircraft with four US troops aboard crashed, so this little nocturnal mix-up barely rated a paragraph in even the stories that mention it, so that question won't come up.

Update: From Britain's Telegraph:

It appeared that the Americans had not sought permission for the raid from the Iraqi government, again raising questions about its supposed sovereignty. It also threatened the most serious rift between Washington and Baghdad since the administration was sworn in a month ago.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, issued a strongly worded condemnation of the arrest, saying: "I consider treating a prominent political leader such as Abdul-Hamid in this way unacceptable."

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the prime minister, ordered an investigation but said he had received no explanation for Mr Abdul-Hamid's arrest. Questions were already being raised yesterday about how accidental or mistaken the raid really was.

Mr Abdul-Hamid was certainly well known to the Americans. He was selected to sit on the US-appointed Iraqi governing council shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein and briefly served as its president.

His wife, Awatif, said that a translator with the US troops who arrested her husband shouted: "This is what happens to those who boycotted the elections."

Dr Abdul-Hamid's Iraqi Islamic Party did not join the widely successful Sunni Arab boycott on ideological grounds. His party put forward candidates but did not campaign because of insecurity in the Sunni Triangle.(emphasis mine)