Flexing Muscle, Baghdad Detains U.S. Contractors
秀肌肉，巴格达拘捕美国承包商

BAGHDAD — Iraqi authorities have detained a few hundred foreign contractors in recent weeks, industry officials say, including many Americans who work for the United States Embassy, in one of the first major signs of the Iraqi government’s asserting its sovereignty after the American troop withdrawal last month.

巴格达——据业内官员透露，伊拉克当局在最近几周拘捕了数百名外国承包商，其中包括许多为美国大使馆工作的美国人。这是在美军于上月撤离之后，伊拉克政府伸张主权的首轮重要标志之一。

The detentions have occurred largely at the airport in Baghdad and at checkpoints around the capital after the Iraqi authorities raised questions about the contractors’ documents, including visas, weapons permits and authorizations to drive certain routes. Although no formal charges have been filed, the detentions have lasted from a few hours to nearly three weeks.

拘捕大多发生在伊拉克当局对承包商所执的签证、执枪证、特定地段通行证等文书提出质疑之后，地点多在巴格达机场及首都周边的交通哨卡。尽管目前尚未有正式指控，拘留时间在几小时至接近三周之间。

The crackdown comes amid other moves by the Iraqi government to take over functions that had been performed by the United States military and to claim areas of the country it had controlled. In the final weeks of the military withdrawal, the son of Iraq’s prime minister began evicting Western companies and contractors from the heavily fortified Green Zone, which had been the heart of the United States military operation for much of the war.

本轮行动正逢伊拉克政府接掌曾由美军控制的区域及行使的职能。在美军撤离的最后几周，伊拉克总理之子开始从戒备森严的绿区驱逐西方公司与承包商。在伊战的大多数时间里，绿区曾作为美军的行动中枢。

Just after the last American troops left in December, the Iraqis stopped issuing and renewing many weapons licenses and other authorizations. The restrictions created a sequence of events in which contractors were being detained for having expired documents that the government would not renew.

美军刚于去年十二月撤离，伊拉克就停止发放、更新许多执枪证及其它证件，导致许多承包商因执过期证件被捕。

The Iraqi authorities have also imposed new limitations on visas. In some recent cases, contractors have been told they have 10 days to leave Iraq or face arrest in what some industry officials call a form of controlled harassment.

此外，伊拉克当局还对签证加以新的限制。例如最近一些承包商被告之在十日内离境，逾期则面临监禁，业内官员称之为＂有控骚扰＂。

Latif Rashid, a senior adviser to the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, and a former minister of water, said in an interview that the Iraqis’ deep mistrust of security contractors had led the government to strictly monitor them. “We have to apply our own rules now,” he said.

伊拉克总统高级顾问、前水利部长Latif Rashid在采访中表示，伊拉克人民对安全承包商的严重不信任，导致政府对他们严加管束，＂我们现在要实施自己的法律＂。

This month, Iraqi authorities kept scores of contractors penned up at Baghdad’s international airport for nearly a week until their visa disputes were resolved. Industry officials said more than 100 foreigners were detained; American officials acknowledged the detainments but would not put a number on them.

本月，伊拉克当局在伊拉克国际机场将多名承包商扣押近一个星期，直到他们的签证问题获得解决。业内官员称有超过百名外国人被捕，美国官员证实有人被捕但拒绝透露具体数字。

Private contractors are integral to postwar Iraq’s economic development and security, foreign businessmen and American officials say, but they remain a powerful symbol of American might, with some Iraqis accusing them of running roughshod over the country.

外国商人和美国官员称，私人承包商在伊拉克战后经济发展与防务中扮演着至关重要的角色，但他们同时又是美国强权的象征，此外一些伊拉克人指责承包商在伊境内无法无天。

An image of contractors as trigger-happy mercenaries who were above the law was seared into the minds of Iraqis after several violent episodes involving private sector workers, chief among them the 2007 shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square when military contractors for Blackwater killed 17 civilians.

在一系列涉及私人雇员的暴力事件之后，承包商们凌驾于在法律之上、胡乱开枪的雇佣军形象在伊拉克人心目中打下烙印，其中最重大的要数2007年黑水武装雇员在巴格达Nisour广场开枪打死17名平民。

Iraq’s oil sector alone, which accounts for more than 90 percent of the government’s budget, relies heavily on tens of thousands of foreign employees. The United States Embassy employs 5,000 contractors to protect its 11,000 employees and to train the Iraqi military to operate tanks, helicopters and weapons systems that the United States has sold them.

占伊拉克政府预算九成以上的石油业严重依赖于数万名外国雇员。美国使馆还聘请了五千名承包商，用以保护馆内一万一千名员工，并训练伊拉克部队使用购自美国的坦克、直升机及其它武器系统。

The United States had been providing much of the accreditation for contractors to work in Iraq. But after the military withdrawal, contractors had to deal with a Iraqi bureaucracy at a time when the government was engulfed in a political crisis and Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, fearing a coup, was moving tanks into the Green Zone.

美国曾负责为大多数在伊工作的承包商发放证件，但美军撤离之后，承包商们不得不与正处于政治危机中的伊拉克官僚机构打交道——伊拉克总理Nuri Kamal al-Maliki因害怕政变，曾调集坦克入驻绿区。

The delays for visa approvals have disrupted the daily movement of supplies and personnel around Iraq, prompting formal protests from dozens of companies operating in Iraq. And they have raised deeper questions about how the Maliki government intends to treat foreign workers and how willing foreign companies will be to invest here.

延迟发放签证破坏了人员与物资在伊境内的日常运转，导致数十家驻伊公司提出正式抗议；并引发了更深层次的问题，即Maliki政府打算如何对待外国员工以及外国公司今后在伊投资的意愿。

“While private organizations are often able to resolve low-level disputes and irregularities, this issue is beyond our ability to resolve,” the International Stability Operations Association, a Washington-based group that represents more than 50 companies and aid organizations that work in conflict, post-conflict and disaster relief zones, said in a letter on Sunday to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

周日，总部设在华盛顿、代表50多家在冲突与救灾地区活动的公司与组织的＂国际稳定行动联合会＂致信国务卿希拉里：＂虽然私人组织有能力解决一些低端争议与违规行为，但这一问题已经超出我们的能力范围。＂

Doug Brooks, president of the organization, said in a telephone interview that the number of civilian contractors who have been detained was in the “low hundreds.” He added in an e-mail on Sunday, “Everyone is impacted, but the roots have more to do with political infighting than any hostility to the U.S.”

该组织主席Doug Brooks在电话采访中表示，被拘留的平民承包商人数为＂小几百＂。他在一份电子邮件中补充说明：＂大家都受到了影响，但其根源在于政治內斗而非针对美国的敌意。＂

As Iraqi and American officials were negotiating last summer to keep American troops in Iraq into 2012, the Iraqis refused to grant American troops immunity from Iraqi law, in large part because of violent episodes like the one in Nisour Square. Although the contractors working for the embassy are doing many of the same jobs American troops had, including training, logistics, maintenance and private security, they are not protected from Iraqi law.

去年夏天，美伊两国官员在讨论将美军驻留期延长至2012年时，伊拉克曾拒绝授予美军豁免权，其主要原因就是诸如发生在Nisour广场的暴力事件。虽然大使馆聘用的承包商所做的工作与美军原来的大体相同，例如训练、后勤、维护、私人安全等，但承包商却要受到伊拉克法律管辖。

Mr. Rashid, the adviser to Mr. Talabani, said Iraqis are fed up with foreign contractors. “The Iraqi public is not happy with security contractors. They caused a lot of pain,” he said. “There is a general bad feeling towards the security contractors among the Iraqis and that has created bad feelings towards them all.”

伊拉克总统顾问Rashid称，伊拉克人已经厌倦了外国承包商，＂伊拉克人民不满这些安全承包商，他们带来很多痛苦，伊拉克人民普遍对他们没有好感。＂

Mr. Rashid said that traveling to the United States to work was no different. “Every time I go to the airport in New York they open my suitcase three times,” he said. “How long does it take to get an American visa?”

总统顾问Rashid还称到美国工作也同样麻烦，＂我每次飞抵纽约他们都要三次打开我的行李，另外，申请一个美国签证要等多久？＂

An adviser to Mr. Maliki said that as part of the current agreement between the United States and Iraq, no Americans should be in the country without the permission of the Iraqi government. “Iraq always welcomes foreigners into the country, but they have to come through legally and in a way that respects that Iraq now has sovereignty and control over its land,” said the adviser, Ali Moussawi.

伊拉克总理顾问Ali Moussawi说，根据目前的美伊协议，美国人未获伊拉克政府批准不得入境。他说：＂伊拉克欢迎外国人，但他们必须合法入境并尊重伊拉克已对本国拥有主权与控制的事实。＂

Last month, two Americans, a Fijian and 12 Iraqis employed by Triple Canopy, a private security company, were detained for 18 days after their 10-vehicle convoy from Kalsu, south of Baghdad, to Taji, north of the capital, was stopped for what Iraqi officials said was improper paperwork.

上个月，受雇于私人安全公司Triple Canopy的两名美国人、一名斐济人和
十二名伊拉克人被伊拉克官方以证照不全拦截并关押十八天。

One of the Americans, Alex Antiohos, 32, a former Army Green Beret medic from North Babylon, N.Y., who served in the Iraq war, said in a telephone interview Sunday that he and his colleagues were kept at an Iraqi army camp, fed insect-infested plates of rice and fish, forced to sleep in a former jail, and though not physically mistreated were verbally threatened by an Iraqi general who visited them periodically. “At times, I feared for my safety,” Mr. Antiohos said.

其中一名美国人、曾在伊战中服役的Alex Antiohos在周日的电话采访中表示：他们被关押在一个伊拉克军营里，靠爬满虫子的米饭与鱼肉度日，被迫睡在过去的监狱里，虽然没有受到肉体虐待，但一位不时探视的伊拉克将军对他们进行口头威胁。他说：＂有时，我为我的安全担忧。＂

In a statement, Triple Canopy, which denied any problems with documents, said that during the detention period, company officials were in contact with employees by cellphone, and brought them food, blankets, clothing, medical supplies and cellphone batteries. All were released unharmed on Dec. 27.

安全公司Triple Canopy在一份声明中表示，他们的证照没有任何问题，在关押过程中，公司官员通过手机与雇员们保持联系，并给他们送去食物、毯子、衣物、药品和手机电池。所有人员在十二月二十七日安全获释。

The detention drew the ire of Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican who heads the House Homeland Security Committee. His office was contacted by Mr. Antiohos’s wife on Dec. 19 seeking help to get the employees released. Mr. King criticized the United States Embassy in Baghdad for failing to help release the contractors caught in a drama that he said might have resulted in part from rival Iraqi ministries’ battling for political primacy.

这次拘捕让纽约共和党人、众议员Peter T. King极为光火，他掌管着众议院国土安全委员会。十二月十九日，Antiohos的妻子向King的办公室求救。King批评美国驻伊使馆未能解救被捕承包商，他说这些雇员被圈入了一场或由伊拉克国内政治斗争引发的闹剧。

“They could have been held as power plays by one Iraq department against another, but what adds to the problem is that it does not appear that the State Department is doing anything near what they could be doing,” Mr. King said in a telephone interview.

King在电话采访中称：＂他们或许是作为伊拉克部门内斗的筹码而被捕，但美国国务院根本没有尽力而为。＂

The United States Embassy in Baghdad, as well as senior State Department and military officials, say that no Americans are currently being detained, and they insist the detentions and visa delays are more the result of bureaucratic inexperience than malevolent intentions.

美国驻伊使馆及国务院与军方高级官员指出，目前没有美国人被扣押，他们坚称拘捕与签证延误大多出于官员缺乏经验，而非不良意图。

“The embassy has pushed for consistency and transparency in the government of Iraq’s immigration and customs procedures and urged American citizens to review their travel documents to ensure that they comply with Iraqi requirements to help avoid such incidents,” an Embassy spokesman said in a statement.

使馆发言人在一份声明中指出：＂使馆已敦促伊拉克政府在入境与海关手续上保持一致与透明；并呼吁美国公民检查旅行证件，确保它们符合伊拉克的要求，以避免此类事件。＂

One senior American military official said that the current disconnect between the Iraqis and the contractors was “primarily an adjustment of our standard operating procedures as we adapt our people and they adapt their security forces to the new situation.”

美国军方一位高级官员表示，当前伊拉克人与承包商之间的失调主要是一个标准行动程序的调整过程，双方都在适应新的局势。＂