Informed Comment : "The US military has released Muhsin Abd al-Hamid, the leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party. The IIP runs the provincial council in Anbar and is the only major Sunni Arab religious party that has generally been willing to cooperate with the Americans. Abd al-Hamid served on the American-appointed Interim Governing Council."

...

"Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and President Jalal Talabani complained bitterly about the US action and apparently were not consulted about the arrest. They pointed out that the US keeps saying it wants to involve the Sunni leadership, but that arrests like this one just drive away even the moderates. The initial reports also talked about US troops confiscating money. Basically they kicked down his door, rifled through his things, hooded him, and dragged him away. There was no arrest warrant, no consultation with the supposedly sovereign Iraqi government, and apparently no knowledge of who Abd al-Hamid really is.

Susan Hu is leading a good discussion of the SNAFU over at Daily Kos. I've been watching CNN for hours and there is nothing about this.

A keen observer of Iraq's legal and economic scene writes in with regard to whether the US military was legally justified in arresting Abd al-Hamid in the first place."

(Via Informed Comment.)