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This article greatly overestemates the "military" of Iceland. The Icelandic Crisis Response Unit is not recognised as a military force. "The Special Opertaions Task Force" is not an counter-terrorism team but is the only police force in Iceland that carries firearms. It was established as a response to the increasing number of violent crimes and armed criminals. There for being most compareible to american SWAT forces. The NATO base on Miðnesheiði was until September 30 2006, US soil, meaning that there never were any active armed forces in Iceland. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.220.94.230 (talk • contribs) 22:28, 28 February 2007
- The ICRU is a military unit. The Special Operations Unit of the National Commissioner is a National internal anti and counter terrorism team. The rest of the Icelandic Police do not carry guns regularly but are regularly trained in the use of handguns and rifles and have more than enough weapons (of various ages) to arm every single commissioned policeman with a firearm. The Special Operations Unit is certainly not compareable with the average SWAT in america, though the SWAT teams in some places, such as Los Angeles are probably trained to similar levels of competency. The NATO base on Miðnesheiði was never considered US soil, neither de facto nor de jure. This may have been the case with some US bases in foreign countries, but did not apply to Iceland which simply designated areas for defence installations and maintaned and excercised its right to arrest and punish foreign servicemen whereever they comitted a crime against Iceland or Icelanders, inside the defence areas or outside. This also held true if Icelanders comitted crime inside the defence areas against Icelanders or foreign country or troops. The only special grants allowed to the US and NATO forces was to stay out of their own internal justice, if the crime didn't involve Iceland in any way except the fact of it happening inside Icelandic territory. In addition to that, the military forces of NATO and US often excercised outside designated military areas and flew within Icelandic airspace and sailed within Icelandic territorial waters, and still do. The fact however remains, that Iceland itself has no standing army. That does not mean that Iceland, which is an independent country, has no "military" forces. -Kjallakr 14:15, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
