Guess Who Iran Into
Strangely, there are people in this country and elsewhere who think we are bullying Iran, who talk about the threat of an unprovoked US attack on Iran, who can’t believe George Bush is manufacturing excuses for another war, this time with Iran.Â
And yet, as we look at the past 28 years of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, what we see is that we have been repeatedly bullied by Iran, and provoked by Iran, and Iran barely even bothers to hide what it is doing. Here’s the latest. Deadly armor-piercing explosives that kill Americans in Iraq, compliments of Iran:Â
BAGHDAD, Feb. 11 — Senior U.S. military officials in Iraq sought Sunday to link Iran to deadly armor-piercing explosives and other weapons that they said are being used to kill U.S. and Iraqi troops with increasing regularity.
During a long-awaited presentation, held in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, the officials displayed mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades and a powerful cylindrical bomb, capable of blasting through an armored Humvee, that they said were manufactured in Iran and supplied to Shiite militias in Iraq for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops.
“Iran is a significant contributor to attacks on coalition forces, and also supports violence against the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi people,” said a senior defense official, who was joined by a defense analyst and an explosives expert, both also from the military.
… The U.S. officials said weapons were smuggled into the country by the Quds Force, an elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that U.S. officials believe is under the control of Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The officials in Baghdad said that Iranians recently detained in Iraq by U.S. forces belong to the Quds Force.
This part is good:
An official at the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad called the U.S. accusations “fabricated” and “baseless.”
“We deny such charges. We ask those who are claiming such evidence: Show the documents in public,” said the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. “We cannot compensate for the American failure and fiasco in Iraq. . . . It is not our policy to be involved in any hostile operations against coalition forces here.”
OK. Then what about this:Â
The (US) officials provided further details on the case of two Iranians captured during a December raid on the compound of a leading Shiite politician, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and five Iranians seized in the raid of a liaison office in the northern city of Irbil in January.
The raid at Hakim’s compound netted Mohsen Chirazi, whom U.S. officials described as a high-ranking Quds Force operations chief, as well as documents with information about sniper rifles and mortars, the officials said. The senior defense official said that when U.S. officials discussed the allegations with Hakim’s representatives, their explanation was that “it is normal for different groups to acquire armaments for protection purposes.”
Following protests from Iraqi officials, the U.S. released Chirazi and the other Iranian captured with him. Hakim visited President Bush at the White House in December.
In the January raid of the Iranian liaison office, which provides consular services in Irbil, U.S. forces captured five Iranians. U.S. officials said they were Quds Force operatives who carried no passports and had fake identification cards. At the time of the raid they were trying to alter their appearance by shaving their heads — U.S. forces found a bag of hair — and they were flushing documents down a toilet, the officials said. Explosive residue was found on the hands of at least one of the Iranians, they said.
And this:
The weapons displayed for reporters on two tables on Sunday — rocket-propelled grenades, football-shaped mortar shells, the shaped explosive charge and about 40 tail fins of exploded mortar shells — showed specific signs of Iranian manufacture, the officials said. The mortar tail fins, for example, were made from a single fused piece of metal, while other countries make mortar shells that have removable parts, the explosives expert said.
Two rocket-propelled grenades, with the markings “P.G. 7-AT-1,” were said to be made exclusively in Iran.
I’m waiting for the usual suspects to line up to praise the Bush administration’s cautious and restrained approach:
The process of the briefing, delayed by more than two weeks, was unusual. President Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, said in a recent meeting with reporters that the original media presentation had overstated the evidence against Iran and needed to be toned down.
At the Green Zone briefing Sunday, the senior defense official said charts and graphs outlining the scope of attacks with shaped charges had been removed from the presentation by the intelligence community. “The reason we’re talking about this right now is the vast increase in the number of EFPs being found,” he said. The U.S. forces in Iraq “are not trying to hype this up to be more than it is.”
But I’m not holding my breath.
Gateway has Ahmadinejad with a hijab’d Diane Sawyer: “Death to America does not really mean Death to America.” Except when one of those armor-piercing roadside bombs goes off, when it does.Â
By the way, if Diane Sawyer has to follow Iranian Islamic Revolution dictates and wear a hijab to cover her shameful womanness when she meets with Ahmadinejad, does that mean Ahmadinejad, if he came to America, would have to follow our custom, blame everything on addiction and enter rehab, to cover his shameful murderous hatefulness?
Don Surber: “Right on Iraq, I turn to Iran.”
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:11 am on Monday, February 12, 2007
6 Responses to “Guess Who Iran Into”
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February 12th, 2007 at 1:22 am
Qods Force HQ in Former US Embassy in Tehran
Jules Crittenden: “…look at the past 28 years of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, what we see is that we have been repeatedly bullied by Iran, and provoked by Iran, and Iran barely even bothers to hide what it is doing.”
February 12th, 2007 at 2:38 am
Iranian bombs killing Americans in Iraq — Update 2
Iranian bombs killing Americans in Iraq (Updated, bumped), Iranian bombs killing Americans in Iraq — UpdateGuess Who Iran Into Jules Crittenden Strangely, there are people in this country and elsewhere who think we are bullying Iran, who talk about the
February 12th, 2007 at 4:34 am
Many in the media in this country, and in the West generally, has made it impossible to present the evidence without having to face a wall of disbelief and cynicism. For Westerners to believe the likes of Iran over our own, to the point where Iran confidently speaks out of both its faces at once, without ever being called on it, provides a weapon much more powerful than any nuke they may ever build.
February 12th, 2007 at 6:32 am
I have wondered what the Democrats will say if they actually win the White House? Will all this evidence of Iran’s meddling in Iraq and Lebanon and elsewhere just be discounted? Will they fire all these professional military and intelligence analysts and replace them with people who say what they want to hear?
When it comes to this kind of intel there has always been more continuity than the partisans like to admit to. The situation is what the situation is and just wishing the Iranians were harmless will not make them so and the facts will not change just because the Democrats don’t want to face them.
February 12th, 2007 at 10:32 am
[...] Jules Crittenden said: “Strangely, there are people in this country and elsewhere who think we are bullying Iran, who talk about the threat of an unprovoked US attack on Iran, who can’t believe George Bush is manufacturing excuses for another war, this time with Iran. “ [...]
February 12th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Web Reconnaissance for 02/12/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.