Word: iraq
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...Disagreeing with most of his nation, he supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq, augmenting the effort with 500 Danish troops. Shortly before the war began in 2003, a protester attacked him in the Danish Parliament, pouring red paint over the Prime Minister and shouting "You have blood on your hands." The troops have since returned, though Denmark still has 700 fighters under NATO command in Afghanistan...
Later that summer, after the U.S.-led coalition toppled Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the Iranians came up with another offer: they would trade their Arab captives, including Saad, for members of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian terrorist group that was given sanctuary by Saddam. "It was a straightforward swap: your terrorists for ours," says a Western intelligence official familiar with Tehran's offer. The official says the offer included assurances that the MEK operatives would not be tortured and that international human-rights organizations would have access to them. "They said...
...Administration would have none of it. "The Americans just couldn't bring themselves to trust the Iranians, even though they had been pretty straight in their dealings over al-Qaeda and the Taliban," says the official. Instead, the U.S. decided to protect the MEK, even over the objections of Iraq's elected government. (Read "Bin Laden's Son Loses Political-Asylum Bid in Spain...
...with the U.S. military presence in Iraq beginning to draw down, the government in Baghdad has made it clear that it will evict the MEK, though not to Iran. (Iraqi troops forced their way into the MEK's camp north of Baghdad on July 28.) Given the decline of the MEK's fortunes in Iraq, Tehran seems to have decided in late 2008 that the al-Qaeda commanders under house arrest had lost their value as bargaining chips. Several of them, including Saad bin Laden, appear to have been taken to the border with Pakistan and released. For Saad, however...
...pictures of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on LIFE.com...