NYT Falls for Bogus Iran Weapons Charges
Completely Implausible Numbers are Thrown Around
Repeat of Judy Miller Scandal
This NYT article depends on unnamed USG sources who alleged that 25 percent of US military deaths and woundings in Iraq in October-December of 2006 were from explosively formed penetrator bombs fashioned in Iran and given to Shiite militias:
' In the last three months of 2006, attacks using the weapons accounted for a significant portion of Americans killed and wounded in Iraq, though less than a quarter of the total, military officials say.'
This claim is one hundred percent wrong. Because 25 percent of US troops were not killed fighting Shiites in those three months. Day after day, the casualty reports specify al-Anbar Province or Diyala or Salahuddin or Babil, or Baghdad districts such as al-Dura, Ghaziliyah, Amiriyah, etc.--and the enemy fighting is clearly Sunni Arab guerrillas. And, Iran is not giving high tech weapons to Baathists and Salafi Shiite-killers. It is true that some casualties were in "East Baghdad" and that Baghdad is beginning to rival al-Anbar as a cemetery for US troops:
Robert Burns of AP observes,
"The increasingly urban nature of the war is reflected in the fact that a higher percentage of U.S. deaths have been in Baghdad lately. Over the course of the war through Feb. 6, at least 1,142 U.S. troops have died in Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency, according to an AP count. That compares with 713 in Baghdad. But since Dec. 28, 2006, there were more in Baghdad than in Anbar - 33 to 31."
Over all, only a fourth of US troops had been killed Baghdad (713 or 23.7 percent of about 3000) through the end of 2006. But US troops aren't fighting Shiites anyplace else-- Ninevah, Diyala, Salahuddin--these are all Sunni areas. For a fourth of US troops to be being killed or wounded by Shiite EFPs, all of the Baghdad deaths would have to be at the hands of Shiites!
The US military often does not announce exactly where in Baghdad a GI is killed and so I found it impossible to do a count of Sunni versus Shiite neighborhoods. But we know that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was running interference for the Mahdi Army last fall, and it seems unlikely to me that very many US troops died fighting Shiites in Baghdad. The math of Gordon's article does not add up at all if this were Shiite uses of Iran-provided EFPs.
So the unnamed sources at the Pentagon are reduced to implying that Iran is giving sophisticated bombs to its sworn enemies and the very groups that are killing its Shiite Iraqi allies every day. Get real!
Moreover, there is no evidence of Iranian intentions to kill US troops. If Iran was giving EFPs to anyone, it was to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its Badr Corps paramilitary, for future use. SCIRI is the main US ally in Iraq aside from the Kurds. I don't know of US troops killed by Badr, certainly not any time recently.
It is far more likely that corrupt arms merchants are selling and smuggling these things than that there is direct government- to- militia transfer. It is possible that small Badr Corps stockpiles were shared or sold. That wouldn't have been Iran's fault.
Some large proportion of US troops being killed in Iraq are being killed with bullets and weapons supplied by Washington to the Iraqi army, which are then sold by desperate or greedy Iraqi soldiers on the black market. This problem of US/Iraqi government arms getting into the hands of the Sunni Arab guerrillas is far more significant and pressing than whatever arms smugglers bring in from Iran.
We now know that Iran came to the US early in 2003 with a proposal to cooperate with Washington in overthrowing Saddam Hussein, and that VP Richard Bruce Cheney rebuffed it. The US could have had Iran on its side in Iraq!
The attempt to blame these US deaths on Iran is in my view a black psy-ops operation. The claim is framed as though this was a matter of direct Iranian government transfer to the deadliest guerrillas. In fact, the most fractious Shiites are the ones who hate Iran the most. If 25 percent of US troops are being killed and wounded by explosively formed projectiles, then someone should look into who is giving those EFPs to Sunni Arab guerrillas. It isn't Iran.
Finally, it is obvious that if Iran did not exist, US troops would still be being blown up in large numbers. Sunni guerrillas in al-Anbar and West Baghdad are responsible for most of the deaths. The Bush administration's talent for blaming everyone but itself for its own screw-ups is on clear display here.
For more skepticism, see this column at Huffington;
and Glenn Greenwald
and
Think Progress .
posted by Juan Cole @ 2/11/2007 06:40:00 AM
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29 Comments:
From this article, it is pretty obvious that any half-decent light engineering shop could turn out a respectable Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP). After all it consists of a short length of oil pipe (widely found in Iraq), a formed sheet of copper, some explosive and a detonator. I would even hazard a guess that the explosive could be part of the missing 380 tons of RDX.
If the Americans want to blame someone for introducing the EFP to terrorists in Iraq, they should remove the n from Iran as it is likely that the IRA were responsible.
Professor Cole,
As someone who has spent time in Iraq, I have to say this is not a 'black' operation.
To begin with you haven't accurately characterised the statistics: the claim was under a quarter of casualties, not a quarter. And it was killed *and wounded*, not just killed. Each EFP attack tends to kill one or two people, but wound everyone else in the smaller vehicles - so it could easily add up to under a quarter of casualties.
In terms of where the fighting is taking place, that is not the point – when IEDs are used, there isn’t any fighting, which is the entire point of using an IED rather than engaging in a small-arms ambush. And the IED attacks are on the fringes of Sadr City and other areas. The Shia guerrillas don’t lay many inside Sadr City because the US isn’t patrolling there, and it would be too obvious who was conducting the attacks.
The Iranians are not supporting Ba’athist or Salafi groups. But your claim that they would only be supporting SCIRI and Badr doesn’t take into account the situation on the group. The Revolutionary Guards will support anyone who will help them, and so a number of Shia militias are now in contact with the IRGC. The IRGC does this precisely because Badr isn’t involved in hostilities against the coalition, and so it seeks alternative proxies.
Your claim that the Sadrists wouldn’t accept help from Iran because of their nationalism has logic – but falls down in the face of the reality. Many people have signed up to Sadr’s banner aren’t true Sadrists, but criminals or other Shia who are seeking to fight coalition forces under whichever banner suits them best. When Sadr fought in 2004, he seemed to be that person. Now he’s politically engaged, they have continued to attack. And yes, many members of the Jaish al-Mahdi *would* consider themselves Sadrists. But they are being pragmatic – they make dislike Iran, but they dislike occupying forces even more. The enemy of their enemy becomes their friend, and thus they will form a marriage of convenience with Iranian intelligence to achieve their near-term goals.
The situation in the north may be confused – but surely it is clearer in the south? There are virtually no jihadists, foreign fighters or Sunni insurgents to speak of. Pretty much 100% of coalition casualties have been caused by Shia guerrillas there (from a range including, but not exclusive to the Jaish al-Mahdi). Of the fatalities, around 90% have been caused by EFP-type devices – and they have twice been found in caches near the border, as well as in raids on militia locations (the photos have been on the Ministry of Defence Website).
We are right to be wary of why this information is being put in the public domain now and whether it forms part of a media offensive against Iran. But that shouldn’t lead us to make faulty analysis of the situation itself.
Robert Gates recently remarked casually about the Iranian source of the penetrator bombs as though he had only third-hand knowledge, perhaps through AEI or National Review. Journalists are so charmed by his gentle demeanor that they do not press him to clarify or substantiate. His evasion is more effective than Rumsfeld's intimidation. The reason US authorities do not want to reveal more about the Iranian "signature" of any devices is that this would require showing that a great share of weapons used by insurgents come from other countries too, paid for with embezzled funds, that some have been pilfered from US sources. Small weapons, like narcotics, defy interdiction, and appear wherever there is money and demand.
The NYT will go down in history as the most overrated and damaging media. In George Bush's own words: "There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again." Oh but, with war-mongers like Dubya and a paranoid, subservient media, you can get fooled a hundred times.
Juan,
This is a great refutation of Bush's anti-Iranian spin. You already said this a while ago. But it's always useful reapeating it. Bush and Cheney seems to go by the infamous statement of Goebbels, that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes truth in the end.
Pepe Escobar, the talented journalist writing for Asian Time Online, is back with a series of highly interesting analysis on the situation in both Iraq and Iran. The last four are well worth the reading. In The State of (Dis)union he offers a very fine analysis of Al'Sadr's first interview issued by the Italian newspaper "La Republica"; in The Axis of Fear is Born" he analysis how the Bush/Cheney tandem is trying to push the US into a new war with Iran. In A Massacre and a New Civil War he tries to make sense of all what transpired from the "Najaf massacre" and evaluates its meaning in front of the upcoming surge of troops. Finally, the last one issued to-day and entitled Slouching toward D-Day he comments on the coming surge and the effect it will have on both Iraq and Iran. He bet that the surge will fail, that then Iran will be proclaimed guilty of it and the path will be cleared to an attack on Iran. Scarry, very scarry, but well informed. I'm still hoping that the Congress will prevent Bush/Cheney to get to that end.
It utterly amazes me how the government and people are so willingly able to continually blame someone or something else. There is no responsibility being taken for any mistakes and absolutely no corrective actions being taken place when there is an admitted mistake. Instead, there seems to be the same reaction, in the same direction to say see we were correct but we already admitted it was wrong. Mind boggling to say the least and I’m sure there are many more people, groups and countries that we can point the finger out. So let’s keep pointing away.
BlogCruiser
Looking for new ideas and members in this political simulation game.
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/U_S_A_Ellis-Isle/
Sophisticated bombs? From what I just read on Wikipedia, these things are made from commonly available water or oil pipe. One end of the pipe is closed off by a concave metal disk known as the liner, which seems to be what may be manufactured in Iran. I suspect that these lids are made for a different purpose and adapted to this military use. The technology seems to be in the deployment and the use of electronics and strategic timing for detonation.
Dr. Cole,
I believe your arguments about the number of casualties attributable to various groups is incorrectly mixing two numbers. The quote from the NYT article is only referring to the last three months of 2006 when it implies that nearly one quarter of the American casualties can be attributed to this new type of IED. You then cite the number of Baghdad casualties from the AP article, but these numbers are referring to the entire period of the U.S. occupation, not the last three months of 2006. Because these numbers do not refer to the same time period, I believe you are incorrect in your assertion that all of the Baghdad casualties would have to be attributable to Shiite groups for the NYT story to be correct.
I believe the AP article you link to provides some support for your general argument, that the assertion in the NYT article cannot be independently verified. However, it also claims that "the upward trend [in American casualties] began in August, the same month that U.S. and Iraqi forces started the second phase of a Baghdad security crackdown..." I believe this provides limited support to the NYT assertion that the increasing American casualties could be attributed to Shiite organizations.
I feel the NYT and Michael Gordon have not yet met their journalistic responsibility of independently verifying the claims of the defense department officials, and I certainly hope they offer a follow-up article specifically analyzing where American casualties occurred over that three month period and whether it is at all feasible that one quarter of them can be attributed to Shiite groups. Your arguments in this post, however, do not convince me that this claim is baseless.
Given the U.S. assessment of the effect that Iran's supposed support has had to date, it makes you wonder how terrible the Iranians could make it for the U.S. if it actually began overtly supporting the resistance.
The only way to stop the Bush/Cheney Administration from attacking Iran is impeachment. Two more years is too long to hold them off.
Good job on this post Juan.
This is getting to be a real threat to the US, these black-ops aimed at fomenting war.
I find it ridiculous that these neo-cons, the biggest proponents of the Iranian leadership in Iraq (aka the Iraqi government) are making these claims.
It would be a good idea to continually reference the fact that the UK has had to repeatedly apologize for doing the same thing.
Remember the lie that the Revolutionary Guard was supplying "insurgents" with IEDs, when in fact that were coming from the IRA (who, somewhat ironically, got it from MI5)?
http://intl-news.blogspot.com/2006/03/fbi-and-mi5-operatives-supplied-bomb.html
Most people have already forgotten about this, but it's important to remind them, especially considering the garbage that being spewed about Iran's involvement in killing Americans, these days.
How the American public doesn't wake up to the fact that the Iraqi government, the "heroes" of Iraq (says Bush) are the Iranians, and their agents, I will never understand.
While Professor Cole does not come right out and say this, it should be clear by now that a good deal of the Iraq Sunni resistance funding is coming from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other regional Sunni sources. What these countries have in common is their ostensible status as "Allies in the GWOT". The irony of this is apparently lost on just about everyone in the MSM, and certainly on the NYT, whose policies increasingly appear to be phoned in directly from the White House and Tel Aviv. Frankly, the willful ignorance displayed by so many in the U.S. establishment no longer shocks me. What does surprise me is that a lot more resistance was shown by the enemies of fascism during the collapse of the Weimar Republic than I'm seeing during the rise of fascism in the United States. But all of this does answer the question many of us used to ask in school: "How could reasonable, educated and cultured people allow such a thing to happen?" Now we know. I have never been more disgusted at being a U.S. citizen than I am today.
Response:
The black psyops campaign has succeeded if we are even talking about Iran instead of talking about the forces that kill and wound 98 percent of US troops, which are all in the Sunni Arab world. This is what the magicians call indirection.
I have not mixed two numbers. Even if Baghdad came to rival al-Anbar as a site for US deaths, it would still only account for a third of the whole and you can't get to 25% killed by Shiite guerrillas that way. The other two thirds are in solidly Sunni Arab regions where the US is *allied* to the Shiites, as in Diyala or the 'triangle of death' (northern Babil).
And, the AP article only signalled the increase in Baghdad from a fourth to a third at the *end* of December.
The article says 'under a fourth' which makes 'just about a fourth' the benchmark. If it was alleging '2 percent' then I could consider the claim. 25 percent is an obvious lie by the unnamed source.
The Iranians are not giving sophisticated bombs to Mahmud al-Hasani al-Sarkhi or the Marsh Arabs. What I said is that if they are giving anybody anything, they are giving things to the Badr Corps and the Kurdish Peshmerga. Could some of that get sold off to or smuggled to the Mahdi Army? Sure. But even the Mahdi Army is not responsible for more than a small fraction of US casualties.
The argument that the statistic can be made whole via the consideration of wounded rather than killed makes no sense. 97 percent of the roadside bombs are going off in Sunni-controlled areas. There just is no way to justify this ridiculous allegation. And the underlying purpose of all this disinformation is to build a case for war with Iran.
If you want to play Charlie Brown to Cheney's Lucy, be my guest.
News about the political death of the neocons are exaggerated yet again
Technically, hitting a moving lightly armored target like humvee is not particularly difficult. Basically, guerillas who do not have heavy weapons like ground and air based artillery, have two ways to accomplish this task.
First, they can use RPGs which are easily available on the black market, not particularly expensive and relatively easy to operate, although certainly need basic military training.
The second way to destroy a vehicle like this is by using a mine or IED. The explosive device can be activated either automatically by a motion sensor or manually, using the remote control.
Now let us have a look at the scheme published in the NYT from 02/10/2007. Make no mistake, this fantasy is nothing short of absurd. The unfortunate reader is supposed to believe that Iranians invented from scratch some shapeshifting "deadly weapons" which turn into armor penetrating units while in flight! These mysterious weapons are also supposed to find their way to the car cruising along the highway.
Those familiar with IWMD scam instantly recognize the style of this PR operation. No sane military professional or engineer could ever think about such "weapons" seriously, the idea is certainly conceived by the same neoconservative ideologues with purely humanitarian education who gave the world IWMD.
In fact, if we read the recent GU article on OSP, Feith and their role in the creation the bogus Hussein / Al-Queda link, it just does not look serious. Yes, it is quietly admitted that huge propaganda hype on this link was based on "inappropriately collected" intelligence. The problem is, the language of the article is still convoluted, for example, the term "fabrication" is substituted by "inappropriate intelligence work". Most importantly, D.Feith is not called what he is - a neoconservative Republican, and the simple idea of neoconservative association with Israel is dismissed as a "conspiracy theory".
All this suggests that although there is a clear shift in the neoconservative strategy, its basics are still the same, just radical export of "democratic" revolution is replaced by the incremental escalation of the crisis.
Best PR mOney Can't Buy!
Australian PM's Obama-Bashing Prompts Firestorm
Juan's got it (surprise,surprise). The claim just doesn't pass the smell test for any number of reasons most of which Juan has summarized nicely. The ISG makes the same point as does the Council of Foreign Relations "After the Surge (pp.19-20 - 31-32pdf)
"...a significant portion of Americans killed and wounded in Iraq, though less than a quarter of the total..."
This sounds intentionally vague to me. Michael Gordon is a name I will remember. Is he Judy Miller's replacement?
BBC is now reporting that, according to "defense officals", EFPs have killed more than 170 U.S. troops since June 2004. By my count, 170 American deaths since then would be something less than 8%.
Pelicano's comparison with the collapse of Weimar is apt. Let's recall that its Constitution was never formally annulled by Hitler, who ruled under Hindenburg's emergency decree.
This prompts two thoughts. One is that the US resistance is less because the roots of the current American authoritarianism, which is not really fascism, are much deeper and more fundamental to the American character than Nazism was to Germany. The US was founded on the twin pillars of genocide and slavery and has never wandered far from these principles in 400 years. It's constitutional liberties are an important adornment, but in crisis the old standbys trump.
The tremendous guilt engendered by America's fundamental betrayal of its self-asserted identity as the light of the nations has always made Americans extremely fearful of their victims, ever since Southern plantation owners lived in dread of slave revolts and the whole nation lived in fear of the Indians whom they robbed.
Americans also pride themselves on being God's chosen, even if this is somewhat secularized in some cases, but not at all in many.
Their Bibles, in a passage quite familiar to many of them (Rev 13:10) state the fundamental creed of the Christian faith as, "Whoever leads into captivity, to captivity he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, he must be killed by it." This is so fundamental that the most secular sum it up in the true saying, "Whatever goes around comes around." But their shining city on a hill has always lived by the dictum that their life depends on killing the Indians or whoever else they fear and want to rob, and that their freedom depends on enslaving the balcks, and now the citizens of other nations under compliant puppet regimes.
To live so falsely, especially for Christians, must generate a tremendous hysteria and eagerness to be lied to in order to hide from reality.
I wrote in September 2001 to al-Quds al-Arabi that the US would turn into a brutal garrison state that would nuke the world unless it were successfully opposed and defeated. Nothing in over 5 years, unfortunately, has proven me wrong, although like some others I have done my small best.
This leads me to my second point, Bonhoeffer's statemnt on returning to Germany in 1939 that German Christians would have to choose between wishing for the defeat of their country so that Christian civilization might be saved or wishing for its success at the cost of civilization.
We too now face that choice.
I think it entirely possible Iranian made explosive devices are being used in Iraq. Weapons are fungible. And weapons traders are more often motivated by short term economic benefits rather than true belief in a cause. You may find it implausible that Sunni's are using weapons made in Shiite workshops to kill GI's and Shiite's but it may be merely ironic.
Maybe the owners of these workshops are nothing more than crass War profitteers.
"Some large proportion of US troops being killed in Iraq are being killed with bullets and weapons supplied by Washington to the Iraqi army, which are then sold by desperate or greedy Iraqi soldiers on the black market. This problem of US/Iraqi government arms getting into the hands of the Sunni Arab guerrillas is far more significant and pressing than whatever arms smugglers bring in from Iran."
Does this mean that we can go to war against ourselves now?
As far as I know, the missing 380 tons of RDX is still unused.
And, I am fuzzy on all the details, but I have heard that the IRA bombs were developed by the Brits as part of an underground infiltration of the IRA - thinking that by helping develop the weapons, they would be one step ahead here - and then found out in 2004 that they were being used against UK troops.
How the technology got from IRA to Iraq, I don't know.
Well, I know the claims being made are just war pimping at it's US media best (NPR joined in today, with no qualifiers) - but, if we were to accept all this at face value, it would mean that the Shi'ites are also bombing the US/UK troops - which means nearly the entire population of Iraq is after us. So, why are we there bringing them "freedom and democracy" if they want to kill us? Such a logical question..
The article says 'under a fourth' which makes 'just about a fourth' the benchmark. If it was alleging '2 percent' then I could consider the claim. 25 percent is an obvious lie by the unnamed source.
Yes, but I believe you are overlooking a typical Bush Administration tactic... The fact that they said "under a fourth" means that they can never be held to saying that it was 25%, when it wasn't. If it is 2% and they want to misrepresent the facts to skew toward their own policy, than they could misleadingly say that it was less than a quarter, thereby implying that it was actually close to a quarter, without ACTUALLY making that claim.
Juan, I suspect two specific kinds of doubletalk are involved in these recent US assertions, built around the phrases "supplied by Iran" and "killed by weapons supplied to Shiite militias."
First, even according to the allusive and imprecise Times article, the evidence for connection of these weapons to the Iranian government is circumstantial at best, and based on the idea that the weapons themselves are "from Iran", that they were supplied to "Shiite militias" and that some of these militias' members have received training in Iran. But wars are full of all sorts of illicit arms running, and usually see unauthorized combattants coming from various corners. I think we need to see more direct evidence tying these combattaants and weapons to the Iranian government itself, not just individuals and groups inside Iran.
But we also need to know who these alleged fighters and weapons are going to, and that brings us to the second brand of doubletalk. Suppose Iranians are supplying weapons to Shiite militias to be used againt, oh let's say, murderous, truck-bombing Sunni insurgents - the very same people the US is allegedly fighting in Iraq. But suppose some of those weapons are stolen or sold into the black market by arms-runners and other profiteers. This is obviously a problem on all sides: it has been reported, for example, that a significant percentage of the weapons used by insurgents are sold to them by Iraqi forces looking to make a buck. Perhaps we will have a US press conference soon at which we are told that many casualties are caused by "weapons provided to coalition forces."
So maybe a reporter should ask if these weapons were supplied by the Iranian government for the purpose of being used on US or coalition troops, or if weapons supplied to militias affiliated with the Iraqi government - i.e. our side in the war - are making their way to insurgents.
My understanding has been that whatever number of Iranian fighters are present in Iran, that number is dwarfed by the number of Saudi and North Africans fighters present there. And interestingly enough, the Saudi and North African fighters are actually fighting for the side that is killing American soldiers.
It is a remarkable irony that Iran is probably the country in the Middle East that is the most supportive of the Iraqi government, the very government the White House supposedly wants to win this war. But leave it to George Bush not to be able to remember which side of the war he is on.
From MSN:
"“We know more than we can show,” said one of the senior officials, when pressed for tangible evidence that the EFPs were made in Iran."
Most quotes are from anonymous tipsters as well. Remember how they knew the precise locations of Saddam's WMD caches but just couldn't tell us?
I wouldn't trust these warmongers to clean latrines, much less make decisions relating to national security and warmaking.
I don't think we need concern ourselves with analyzing percentages and other irrelevant points.
The bottom line is quite clear: the Bush Administration is composed of liars and they are lying again.
Nothing more needs be said.
Bush intends to attack Iran and that's it.
And there is no one who is going to stop him.
By the way, everybody is mentioning the SECOND aircraft carrier - the Stennis - going to the Gulf.
They appear to have missed the THIRD one - the USS Reagan - which left the West Coast in late January and is headed into the Pacific. 40 F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet fighter jets from four squadrons are going with it. Its ultimate destination is unknown, but was described as the "Western Pacific Ocean". It is likely being sent to the Indian Ocean as backup for the two Persian Gulf carriers, the Enterprise and the Stennis. The Eisenhower is nearby near the coast of Africa.
The Reagan, as well as the Eisenhower, could run anti-Iran operations from their locations quite nicely - and nobody has noticed that. (The Eisenhower would be at rather a disadvantage in terms of attacking Iran - but would be well-placed to engage Hizballah if Hizballah attacked Israel subsequent to a US attack on Iran.)
Certainly both carriers, the Reagan and the Eisenhower, could be maneuvered closer to Iran if needed within a few weeks of an initial air campaign on Iran.
It's on for this year, if not the next ninety days.
My guess is that Iran will not meet the UN February 21st deadline to suspend enrichment. This will be followed by a few weeks or months of additional rhetoric and more fabricated "evidence" of Iranians "killing US soldiers", "sponsoring terrorism in Iraq and Lebanon", and the like. Then there will be an "ultimatum" from the US to Iran to suspend enrichment and "provably" suspend "support to Iraqi insurgents".
Then Bush will attack Iran, Israel will attack Hizballah and Lebanon (and possibly Syria) and the Middle East War will be on.
Iran will retaliate by raining missiles down on the Green Zone and US bases in Iraq and the UAE. They will further use Shia militia and infiltrated Iranian Revolutionary Guards to cut US-Kuwait supply lines. Thirty to sixty days later, US troops in Iraq will be out of water, food, fuel and ammo, and be forced to evacuate the country, even as Iran's industrial infrastructure is destroyed by US aerial bombardments.
Scores of thousands of Iranian and Iraqi civilians will be killed by US airstrikes in both Iraq and Iran.
Hundreds and possibly thousands of US soldiers will die as Iraq explodes and Iran send units in limited cross-border incursions, possibly following US incursions into Iran to "stop Iranian infiltrators".
The supposed "air war" will mutate into a ground war, with Iran applying the tactics and weapons that Hizballah used so effectively against the Israelis last summer.
Over the next ten years, Iran and Syria and Hixballah and other groups will bleed the US and Israel dry militarily, economically and geopolitically.
The "Iranian mortar shells" have Western lettering and numerals:
http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2007/02/they-expect-you-to-believe-this.html
Since the Brits use 81MM mortar shells of this type, the fakers probably took a couple shells from a UK munitions stockpile, removed the UK markings and "rebranded" it, then claimed to have "found" it in the hands of insurgents.
Other than an observation and acknowledgment what difference does it really make? It's not a significant enough reason to attack Iran which is why it is being presented and everyone knows this. The DOD could be showing us weapons and armament from several countries. What difference does it make? The Persian Gulf is filled with our attack fleet and we all know why. Pre-Iraq intel taught us well and we don't believe anything except this administration has already decided to attack Iran unless we come up with a way to stop them. The rest is smoke and mirrors and if journalists want to demean themselves by providing for the propaganda then this is how we will view their reputations.
Mr. Cole,
There is a long history in the Middle East of weapons trade between various sorts of enemies, sectarian, religious, and national. When I was in Lebanon in 74-75, it was well known that Yasir Arafat's Fatah was gun-rich but cash-poor, and sold its weapons to anyone willing to pay the price, including to such nominal and now-forgotten sectarian "enemies" as the PFLP. Fatah also supplied the hash-army of the Bekka Valley, which at that time outnumbered Lebanon's "official" army at least two to one. So it's conceivable that although the Iraqi Shiites may be the recipients of Iranian IED-largess, they may have sold some of their Iranian goodies the HUGELY open Iraqi arms market. It's so open that when I was there as early as Nov-Dec 2003, the troops stationed outside of Sadr City had a name for the (then) thriving downtown open market: "Home Depot." Why? "Because you can get anything you want there," one sergeant explained to me.
Lucian K. Truscott IV
Thanks for your nice post!
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