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Weapon Smuggling: Intelligence vs. Evidence
The U.S. officer said Iran was working through surrogates — mainly "rogue elements" of the Shiite Mahdi Army — to smuggle the EFPs into Iraq. He said most of the components are entering Iraq near Amarah, the Iranian border city of Meran, and the Basra area of southern Iraq.
U.S. officer: Iran sends Iraq bomb parts, Feb. 11, 2007
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"I suspect there’s nothing out there," the commander, Lt. Col. David Labouchere, said last month, speaking at an overnight camp near the border. "And I intend to prove it."
Other senior British military leaders spoke as explicitly in interviews over the previous two months. Britain, whose forces have had responsibility for security in southeastern Iraq since the war began, has found nothing to support the Americans’ contention that Iran is providing weapons and training in Iraq, several senior military officials said.
"I have not myself seen any evidence — and I don’t think any evidence
exists — of government-supported or instigated" armed support on
Iran’s part in Iraq, British Defense Secretary Des Browne said in an
interview in Baghdad in late August.
"It’s a question of intelligence versus evidence," Labouchere’s
commander, Brig. James Everard of Britain’s 20th Armored Brigade, said
last month at his base in the southern region’s capital, Basra. "One
hears word of mouth, but one has to see it with one’s own eyes. These
are serious consequences, aren’t they?"
British Find No Evidence Of Arms Traffic From Iran, Oct. 4, 2006
Update:
The AFP story is a bit more detailed and cautious than the AP story linked above: Iranian bombs have killed 170 Iraq coalition troops: US
The accusers are anonymous and the evidence was NOT shown to the reporters but handed out as pictures on a CD. Why do this and not show the real stuff? Photoshop anyone?
Three coalition officials met reporters to point the
finger at the Al-Qods Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps,
part of Tehran’s elite forces accused of links with foreign militants.
…
The men spoke on condition of anonymity for their security and cameras
and recording devices were barred from the briefing, where an array of
mortar shells and booby traps were laid out for inspection.
Reporters were issued with a disc containing photographs of alleged
Iranian weapons seized in Iraq — a Misagh-1 ground-to-air missile,
EFPs and mortar shells — showing manufacturing dates in late 2006.
While that farce is going on, governments both here at “home” and in Israel are fracturing, though arguably not fast enough where it counts.
First, Pat Lang informs us that the rpt. on OSP ginning up pre-war intel wouldn’t have been released w/out SecDef Gates approval, indicating that he’s dragging his feet on this new proposed maladventure. Conflict developing
Gates is widely quoted as believing that everyone should calm down about Iran, and that the evidence of Iranian intractability has been overstated.
A book of “evidence” of Iranian malfeasance has been prepared for public release as part of the “information operation” (propaganda). Those who have seen it (including Gates) think it is “weak.”
For Gates to “drag his feet” in the midst of “the Year of Iran” (attributed to John Hannah – the VP’s Middle East man) is a major problem for the Cheney/Bush Administration’s goals in regard to Iran.
It will not be politically possible for Bush to fire Gates. He will have to live with having chosen him. How far will the drift toward disagreement over this proceed?
Now we read in a Haaretz editorial that the conflict is far more advanced in Israel – it’s a regular chucklefest over there.
No commission of inquiry is needed in order to realize that the fact that the prime and defense ministers are not speaking to each other is a clear and present danger to national security. This grave situation has continued since the war in Lebanon ended, but the public is not fully aware of its gravity. All the conciliatory statements emanating from both ministers’ offices are false, as are the smiles they exchange in front of the cameras. The state is not being governed, and there is no coordination between Ehud Olmert and Amir Peretz on the most vital issues.
Just yesterday, a scandalous letter that Peretz sent to Olmert, which demanded that construction work on the Temple Mount be stopped, was publicized. Instead of this sensitive matter being discussed privately and seriously, things are evidently being done without coordination, and the defense minister simply responds to events.
…
…The work on the Temple Mount, as well as the operations along the Lebanese border, are both matters with the potential to spark a major conflagration, so it would have been reasonable to assume that the decisions were made knowledgeably and judiciously. But the current Israeli government has neither knowledge nor judgment, only politicians hunkering down within their own camps and among their own cronies, and it seems that grudges and vengeance have become substitutes for a national agenda. A clear and present danger
Last wk., in an art. I can’t link since I forgot to clip the URL & can’t bring it up on google (Bush vs. Olmert by Aluf Benn in Haaretz) Benn reported that Bu$hCo forbade Israeli negotiations w/Syria.
But Olmert has a problem: Bush is not allowing him to talk to Assad. American officials who are asked about a revival of the Syrian channel respond by reading out the long list of crimes committed by Damascus, including its support for terror from Gaza to Baghdad. If the choice is between pursuing the ideological war against terror and a realistic policy that would preserve Olmert’s government, Bush prefers the ideology.
Finally, Gabriel Kolko, in a Must Read article clarifies the war going on between Israeli elites. Most have realized that Am. ME policies are suicidal for Israel, but Olmert insists upon kowtowing to Idiot-in-Chief.
Serious Israeli strategists overwhelmingly believe, to cite Reuven Pedatzur in Ha’aretz last November, that “mutual assured deterrence can be forged, with a high degree of success, between Israel and Iran.” Israeli strategic thinking is highly realistic. Early this February a study released at a conference by the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University predicted that Iran would behave rationally with nuclear weapons and “that the elimination of Israel is not considered to be an essential national interest” for it. Iran “will act logically, evaluating the price and risks involved.” A preemptive attack on Iran nuclear research sites would “be a strategic mistake,” Pedatzur warned the conference, and the use of tactical nuclear weapons against them sheer folly. “Our best option is open nuclear deterrence.”
Israeli experts have come to the realization that American policy in the Middle East is not merely an immense failure but also a decisive inhibition to Israel reorienting its foreign policy to confront the realities of the region that the Jews have chosen to live in. The U.S. has ousted the Taliban from Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein from Iraq and created an overwhelming Iranian presence. In Palestine, its campaign for democracy has brought Hamas to power. Troop escalation in Iraq is deemed futile. “It’s a total misreading of reality,” one Israeli expert is quoted when discussing America’s role in the region. Israeli interests are no longer being served. American policies have failed, and Israel has given a carte blanche to a strategy that leaves it more isolated than ever.
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But Olmert has explicitly said that the Bush administration opposes a negotiated peace with Syria. Therefore, he is opposed to it also. Olmert’s contradiction is that he wants to remain closely allied to the U.S., whatever its policies, yet he is now one of the most unpopular prime ministers in Israel’s history and in power only because of Sharon’s stroke. Israel is a crucial pillar of American policy in the entire region, but this policy is failing. An alliance with America is Olmert’s recipe for political defeat when the inevitable election is called. That is his problem.Three’s a Crowd: Israel, Iran, and the Bush Administration
Posted by: jj | Feb 12 2007 9:15 utc | 25
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