Handing the soldiers over to begin with?
There's two pieces here, and I hope for some clarification. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but it has been a long ugly software-bug-encrusted day... I am not trying to put words in anyone's mouth, but my understanding here is waaaay incomplete and I look forward to some dialogue.
Step (a): The Iraqi security forces/police arrested/detained/apprehended two undercover members of the British Military (allegedly hooligans from Hereford, but I guess we'll have to wait for "Andy McNab's" next book to be sure) who were involved in a spot of bother of some kind.
Step (b): The Iraqi security forces informed the British that they had caught a couple of their boys, as per the RoE between the Coalition and the Iraqis.
Question 1: Is it the case that WC and others on the US side feel that allowing the British soldiers to be apprehended by the Iraqis was "handing them over"? And that the RoE should not have supported such a case?
Step (c): For reasons not immediately clear, the Iraqi security forces released these British soldiers to the "custody" of the local insurgent militia.
Step (d): The British took immediate action to track down their errant soldiers (I agree with SASless, I would have paid serious money to see some poor Iraqi desk clerk looking down the end of the 30 mm gun trying to explain what had happened). Aforementioned soldiers were recovered, one assumes unharmed, and a quiet night was had by all.
Question 2: West Coast, you seem to have equated some aspect of this Iraqi cock-up to placing US soldiers under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, or the War Crimes Tribunal. I really don't see that connection, since I think an international organization like the ICC is somewhat different from the Basra Precinct of the Iraqi Police Force and Rifle Club.
And one final observation. It does not fill me with a warm fuzzy feeling that the local insurgent militia were strong enough to persuade the local Iraqi Police Force to hand these guys over. I'm not going to draw the conclusion that it's all a disaster because of this one incident, which was resolved in a very British way ("Send a gun-boat"), but there are distrubing indications of the power matrix in the Basra area... which might be why British Forces were operating in a somewhat clandestine fashion.
And I assume that the Americans also have undercover people out in the country doing things that we won't hear about. Again, I'm not trying to turn this into a Yank-bashing festival -- I'm curious for other peoples' thoughts.
Nigel