Odierno & Hill met with IRGC Quds General Suleimani

The Economist reports that General Raymond Odierno and Ambassador Christopher Hill, the United States’ two most senior officials in Iraq, met with Brigadier General Qassem Suleimani, who commands the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, to discuss Iraqi politics:

".... The White House has called him a terrorist. A UN Security Council resolution singles him out as a suitable target of sanctions. So why—if a report leaked to The Economist proves correct—would he recently have had a chat with General Raymond Odierno and Ambassador Christopher Hill, America’s two most senior officials in Baghdad?

The answer is that regional diplomacy requires Iran’s involvement if a stable Iraq is to have a chance of emerging after the election due in January. General Suleimani has great influence in Iraq through a web of politicians and insurgents. It was he who brokered a peace deal last year after Iraq’s security forces fought against the Mahdi Army militia loyal to a Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, who has spent most of the past two years in Iran. With American combat troops due to leave Iraq next year, American officials reluctantly, it seems, turned to General Suleimani. General Odierno and Mr Hill, who deny the event, are said to have met him in the office of Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, who has known the Quds Force commander for decades. “It’s a complicated world,” says an American official".

UPDATE: The Economist has pulled the story. The meeting did not happen. The Economist story has received authoritative denials and has since been pulled. This post was based on their story -Nader Uskowi