Into peace, armed for war
It was a visit that set eyes popping in a nation consistently ranked as the world’s most peaceful.
U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence arrived in Iceland on Wednesday, with military jets and armed personnel.
The size and standards of the vice-president’s security detail also required adjustments. The guards protecting Pence got back up from a police force that only allows elite “Viking SWAT” members to carry guns.
Icelandic authorities gave U.S. personnel special permission to carry firearms. Bomb-sniffing dogs were cleared to enter the country because of a strict quarantine for imported animals.
Pence was the first U.S. vice-president to visit Iceland, a country of just 350,000 people, since George H.W. Bush came to Reykjavik in 1983. The vice-president was scheduled to be in town for a total of only seven hours.
“The scale of Pence’s visit, not least the security arrangements, are greater than ever seen in Iceland before,” said RUV, the country’s national broadcasting service.
The Reykjavik Metropolitan Police requested backup from police stations in neighbouring towns and villages to meet U.S. manpower standards.
“This is incredibly expensive,” Police Chief Asgeir Asgeirsson told the Morgunbladid daily newspaper.
But Helgi Hafsteinsson, an employee at a gas station in Keflavik, welcomed the heavy traffic caused by Pence’s visit. “It is great for business,” he said.
Before Pence’s arrival, U.S. Secret Service personnel spent weeks scouting locations. Icelandic President Gudni Th. Johannesson travels unaccompanied on private errands and is often spotted in a geothermal bath popular with locals.
All the moving parts required for the vice-president’s safety tied up transportation in the capital. Police closed off main roads to accommodate the convoy that drove from the airport to Reykjavik. Drivers lamented the traffic on social media. Satirical newspaper Frettirnar mocked that “Americans intended to give every Reykjavik citizen a paralyzing drug during Pence’s visit.”
Helicopters hovered over the government building where Pence met with Icelandic officials as snipers perched on neighbouring rooftops.
It was initially reported that Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir would not be in town during Pence’s visit, sparking applause from critics of the administration who saw the move as a deliberate snub (Jakobsdottir said it was not, and wound up meeting him on Wednesday.) When Pence, a Conservative Christian and an opponent of same-sex marriage, arrived on the island, he was met with a flurry of rainbow flags, an oft-used symbol of LGBTQ pride.