U.S. HARASSMENT OF IRANIANS IN IRAQ ESCALATES TENSION

"Members of an Iranian Energy Ministry delegation visiting Baghdad at the invitation of the Iraqi government were released Wednesday, a day after being arrested at their hotel by American troops and led away in handcuffs and blindfolds... The (US) said the latest group was detained after American troops confiscated an AK-47 rifle and two 9-millimeter pistols from the group’s Iraqi guards, who “had identification but no weapons permits and also had Iranian money... (also) confiscated a laptop computer, cellphones, and a briefcase full of Iranian and U.S. money... Iraqi and Iranian officials said the Iranians were in Baghdad to help resolve Iraq’s power crisis...."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/world/middleeast/29cnd-iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

"... A media adviser to the Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq told Reuters news agency that the group was in Baghdad at the invitation of Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity to help build a power station in the Shiite city of Najaf... A manager at the hotel where the Iranians were staying said: “I told [the US soldiers] that the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity had invited them, that they were guests of the ministry and that we had a letter from the ministry confirming this.”
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/01/3559/