The Iran-U.S. PR battle is in full swing.
With word that the U.S. plans to offer public proof of Iran’s hostile role in Iraq sometime this week, Iran’s ambassador to Iraq suddenly agreed to an interview with The New York Times. Call it pre-emption:
[Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qumi] ridiculed the evidence that the American military has said it collected, including maps of Baghdad delineating Sunni, Shiite and mixed neighborhoods — the kind of maps, American officials have said, that would be useful for militias engaged in ethnic slaughter. Mr. Qumi said the maps were so common and easily obtainable that they proved nothing.He declined to say whether he believed the maps bore sectarian markings or address other pieces of evidence the Americans said they had found, like manifests of weapons and material relating to the technology of sophisticated roadside bombs. But that is not why the Iranians were in the compound, he said.
And Qumi had something else up his sleeve for the U.S. — following quickly on the Bush administration’s confirmation Friday of their new strategy of “kill or capture” for Iranian agents in Iraq —: news that Iran planned to open a national bank in Iraq, “in effect creating a new Iranian financial institution right under the Americans’ noses,” and that Iran had made offers of “military assistance” to Iraq.
All this was news to the U.S., it seemed, who would not respond to Qumi’s statements until they’d made their way through “official routes.”