My guess is the Feds think these guys were part of a conspiracy to
> acquire Tracfones to use in Iraq.
> Does anyone know whether Tracfone offers service in Iraq -- or is it
> fairly easy to load an "image" from an Iraqi cell provider onto them?
Well, if they did think that either the "terrorists" were stupid or the Feds were stupid since TracFone won't work anywhere other than in North America and only works where there's a compatible network none of which are in Iraq or anywhere else in the Middle East, Asia or Europe for that matter.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What you say is true, however the phones could be used to make anonymous calls between 'terrorists' here in the USA easily enough. So if 'sleeper cell A' needs to coordinate its activities with 'sleeper cell B' or if either one of them need to report to or get more instructions from terrorists in Iraq, that would make the TracFones rather ideal, wouldn't it? PAT}