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Today's Must Read
Finally, some clarity.
The New York Times provides the history of U.S. concern over Iran's role in Iraq, reporting that in July, 2005, the U.S. sent a diplomatic protest to Iran over the use of allegedly Iranian-made explosives (EFPs) being used against coalition troops in Iraq by Shiite groups.
Somehow these concerns culminated in the U.S. military's infamous, anonymous EFP press briefing in mid-February.
It was a long road. But let's focus in on one thing. It's always been a credible allegation that Iran would in some fashion be supplying its Shiite proxies in the civil war, but let's set that aside. That's not the allegation that the U.S. made in that briefing and immediately thereafter. Rather, the administration clearly made a choice to focus on the evidence that Iranian manufactured weapons were being used in Iraq and stay silent on the crucial detail of who they were being used by. The briefing referred to Iranian support of generic "extremists," without specifying Sunni or Shiite.
The reason for this choice was clear: the vast majority of U.S. casualties come at the hands of Sunni insurgents, not Shiite. But suddenly Iran was elevated to being the major enemy there. Soon senior State Department officials were claiming that Iran is "the most disruptive, negative force in the Middle East." Move over, Al Qaeda.
But it's clear from the Times' piece that there was never any ambiguity -- on the part of the U.S. military, at least -- as to whom Iran might be supplying with weapons.
And that briefing? It wasn't for the purpose of galvanizing public support for a war against Iran, no. It was merely a tactical decision:
...in Baghdad, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., then the top American commander, approved plans to brief the news media on the E.F.P. issue — a reversal for military officials, who had been reluctant to highlight the effectiveness of the weapons for fear of encouraging their use.“Our intelligence analysts advised our leaders that the historical Quds Force pattern is to pull back when their operations are exposed, so MNF-I leadership decided to expose their operations to save American lives,” said Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the chief spokesman for Multinational Forces-Iraq, as the American-led command is known.
I guess we all just overreacted then?
Update: And while we're at it, it's worth mentioning again that the claim that Iran is the only possible supplier for EFPs in Iraq has been debunked.
Comments (25)
Mojotron3000 wrote on March 27, 2007 9:38 AM:Was that the press conference that gave birth to the short-lived "what's worse, that they knew, or they didn't know?" meme they tried to push? Surprised that hasn't been thrown back in their faces re: Gonzales
Anonymous wrote on March 27, 2007 9:42 AM:The second I heard Dumbya spout off about Quds, I knew this was poorly-crafted desinformation.
Even the delivery was weak.
Now back to the fired USA's...
Security Code:grip.
(thanks everybody...)
North wrote on March 27, 2007 10:08 AM:Hold on, let me play devil's advocate for a moment.
Supplying weapons to *any* militant group in Iraq isn't good, right? And we're not saying that Iran isn't doing that, we're saying they aren't the only ones doing it, and that they aren't giving them to the really bad groups, correct? But, since we think Iran might be responsive to diplomatic pressure, isn't raising a stink about it not that bad of an idea?
Gallows of Shame wrote on March 27, 2007 10:17 AM:" And we're not saying that Iran isn't doing that, we're saying they aren't the only ones doing it, and that they aren't giving them to the really bad groups"
I think you miss the point: the IED's come not from Iran, but rather from Saudi Arabia. That point was unstated.
Security Code:
FMArouet wrote on March 27, 2007 10:21 AM:ditch
The primitive drumbeat begins. Note today's reporting on planned U.S. naval exercises to "simulate" air operations in the Gulf.
Last night I posted at Raising Kaine an entry: "Will the Emperor Strike Back? A Worst-case Scenario, Domestic and Foreign."
If anyone is interested, here is the link:
http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7741
Buster wrote on March 27, 2007 10:22 AM:All hail the garage door opener! It opens the door to national liberation:
Three cheap, low-tech arms [AK47s, RPGs and EFPs] may be signaling the deathknell of foreign occupation as a strategy. Occupiers use high-tech weapons [tanks, helicopters, fighter planes, & aircraft carriers] to subjugate resource-rich countries like Iraq. Now, with garage door openers [and EFPs made in local machine shops], the Iraqis are defeating US tanks and helicopters.
Apparently the billions we spent on high-tech weaponry against the Soviets are useless against simple EFPs in Iraq.
t(h)om wrote on March 27, 2007 10:24 AM:But, didn't all the "made in Iran" stamps give them away?
smaugg wrote on March 27, 2007 10:26 AM:Absolutely - the majority of IEDs are probably made in country, but the Saudis are financing the Sunni insurgents. The more the uproar keeps up in Iraq, the better able the Saudis and Israelis (now THERE's strange bedfellows) are able to suppress their own dissidents. For bombmakers, being able to concentrate on manufacturing IEDs instead of having to scratch out subsistence increases the number of attacks.
Like the above poster, back to the implicit obstruction of justice by the US Attorney firings . . .
Anonymous wrote on March 27, 2007 10:26 AM:“Our intelligence analysts advised our leaders that the historical Quds Force pattern is to pull back when their operations are exposed, so MNF-I leadership decided to expose their operations to save American lives,” said Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the chief spokesman for Multinational Forces-Iraq, as the American-led command is known.
jeffgee wrote on March 27, 2007 10:33 AM:It's interesting that this information is buried so far down in the story.
Cheney has been meeting with Saudi monarchs about how to deal with Iran's increasing influence in the region, so it's not hard to see how Iran gets blamed for Iraq's instability.
JRS wrote on March 27, 2007 10:43 AM:Never mind that most of the 9/11 hijackers, the "al Qaeda types" were Sunnis from Saudi Arabia, not Shia from Iran.
In this war, truth has been a casualty since before the beginning.
I saw the Michael Gordon byline and immediately walked away. Can't say I have much confidence in his reporting anymore.
bobh wrote on March 27, 2007 11:47 AM:"All hail the garage door opener! It opens the door to national liberation:
Three cheap, low-tech arms [AK47s, RPGs and EFPs] may be signaling the deathknell of foreign occupation as a strategy. Occupiers use high-tech weapons [tanks, helicopters, fighter planes, & aircraft carriers] to subjugate resource-rich countries like Iraq. Now, with garage door openers [and EFPs made in local machine shops], the Iraqis are defeating US tanks and helicopters.
Apparently the billions we spent on high-tech weaponry against the Soviets are useless against simple EFPs in Iraq."
Clovis wrote on March 27, 2007 11:59 AM:Actually we could occupy any nation IF we were willing to do what was needed to keep it...i.e. kill anyone and their families to keep the populace cowed. Thats NOT what were doing in iraq, hence, theyre free to roam. In the Phillipines our troops dug trenches filled them with pigs and pig intestine and dumped still living islamic fighters into them then buried them. This type of death terrified the populace. Thus America put down islamic uprising in the Phillipines about a century ago. You have to be willing to do it.
Why is it that back in January (I can't remember what month it was, honestly, but it was sometime after the election and Congress was in the hands of the "toublesome oversighters")Dick Cheney met with the Saudi King (there were pictures of him kissing the Prince, the King, etc, etc)and then all this blaming the Iranians came about? Didn't the Suadis tell Cheney that the US WOULD NOT GET OUT OF IRAQ anytime soon, that it was disadvantageous to Saudia Arabia for the US to leave? If anyone has a link to such reports I would appreciate knowing. I like that the Saudis are legislating our foreign policy for us.
Carl from L.A. wrote on March 27, 2007 12:13 PM:Let us not forget that a country from halfway around the world invaded Iran's next door neighbor and created a cesspool of chaos and violence on their border.
As far as I am concerned, no matter what we think of the current Iranian government, they have a total right to respond to this situation in any way they think will be in their self interest, and the Bush administration has seen to it that we are in no position to complain in any way.
DF wrote on March 27, 2007 12:21 PM:15 of 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi. The Saudi dictatorship allows a culture of anti-western hate to flourish as a way of placating extremists and keeping their own illegitimate power. So why do Bush and Cheny pucker up every time a Saudi prince passes by? Simple, the Saudis will only accept dollars for their oil. Money talks, the rest is just noise.
Anonymous wrote on March 27, 2007 12:42 PM:I was just marveling at the fluf on the morning shows. I've been watching abc, cbs, but mainly nbc and while our soldiers die they put on puff pieces. They even had a segment on 4 successful women and the mother of them said she'd be just as proud if they wore a United States military uniform. How sweet to target other's children. Her's of course didn't. Isn't that just like a Republicon? Once again. If this war is SO important to Republicon's how come they aren't forcing their children to fight in this war? They can. They won't.
Ritchie wrote on March 27, 2007 1:15 PM:If I'm remembering correctly, in the movie Syriana, which came out in 2006, there's a short scene where two jihadists are looking at some American made weapons. One is a type of stinger missle, but the other appears to be some sort of shaped charge weapon for blowing holes in tanks. That movie was based on a book, wasn't it? A novel, which is fiction, right? Which means it wasn't true. Or have I got that wrong? Is there a weapons expert here who could say something about that?
Books Alive wrote on March 27, 2007 2:04 PM:Ritchie:
Syriana is based on Robert Baer's first two non-fiction books, per Wikipedia:
>>Baer's books "See No Evil" and "Sleeping with the Devil" were the basis for the 2005 Academy Award winning Warner Brothers motion picture Syriana. The film's character Bob Barnes (played by George Clooney) is loosely based on Baer.<<
Both books are worth reading. Baer's latest is a novel, "Blow the House Down."
sybelia wrote on March 27, 2007 2:13 PM:Please sign Gen. Wes Clark's petition to stop bush's PNAC planned war on Iran.
http://www.stopiranwar.com/
http://securingamerica.com/
.....The Danger of Silence
What will war with Iran be like and how will it impact the troops in Iraq?
Silence.
That is what worries me. With every passing day that the administration won't talk to Iran, we come closer to an Iranian nuclear weapon, and the time at which the decision must be made whether or not the administration will use its military option...
nitpicker wrote on March 27, 2007 2:32 PM:“Our intelligence analysts advised our leaders that the historical Quds Force pattern is to pull back when their operations are exposed, so MNF-I leadership decided to expose their operations to save American lives,” said Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV...
Yeah, I think I'm going to have to see some analysts point to instances where that "pattern" is evident. I'm not buying it for a second.
Ninbus wrote on March 27, 2007 2:34 PM:I saw the Michael Gordon byline and immediately walked away. Can't say I have much confidence in his reporting anymore.
____________________________________
To: JRS
Me, too. In fact, I sent MG a nasty email early today. Today's article was the same POS reporting he did earlier - no cited sources ("some administration officials", "some Democrats in Congress"), that sort of thing. I was so angry at his last propaganda piece that I wrote to (and was published in) the NY Times Public Editor section.
MG is a great disappointment to me. Has been ever since he teamed up with that consummate Washingtonian media whore, Judith Miller.
OxyCon wrote on March 27, 2007 4:10 PM:I shot that bit of malarkey down the day the story hit the airwaves over at Thinkprogress.org.
Mark F. wrote on March 27, 2007 7:14 PM:I had never read any stories about Shiites using IEDs against our troops. It was always the Sunnis and al Queda using those tactics. That's why I sniffed that lie out as soon as I read it.
Also, I pointed out that the photographs of the supposed Iranian weapons looked like they were created for the purpose of propagandizing the American public since the date stamp was ridiculously large and in a format that would be easily understood by the public seeing them. Weapons never have such a huge date stamp on them and the date is always in military format.
The most amazing thing to me is that the administration seems clearly to have not anticipated this when they removed Saddam Hussein. What were they expecting--that Iran would not take advantage of their new-found power in the region? My God, these people are stupid.
Marnie wrote on March 27, 2007 7:30 PM:“It's always been a credible allegation that Iran would in some fashion be supplying its Shiite proxies in the civil war, but let's set that aside.”
Please, let’s not.
Accepting that statement as true, then it is a virtual certainty that the Commander-in-Cheep has known all along, and planned all along that, sooner or later, he would get to attack Iran. Once again on the premise of chasing WMD.
If that is the case then the entirety of the invasion, civilian slaughter, destruction of homes, hospitals, schools, etc., in Iraq were a premeditated excuse, based on lies, to allow Americans to die in such large numbers that the Commander-in-Cheep could justify an assault on Iran. Is that why he has been so willing to let this atrocity drag on and on? Predict that it will take years to conclude. Keep the war’s expense listed as an emergency funded drain on our budget for years to come?
It is absolutely consistent and predictable, when you remember how facile our “He looks so good in a flight suit” President was in moving the military from Afghanistan, onto Iraq, Iran’s immediate neighbor, with a long shared border. It goes a long way toward explaining why we have spent billions on permanent military bases and facilities in Iraq, rather than help rebuild Iraq, or better yet stop the Taliban who grow ever stronger in Afghanistan and around the world.
buckheaddad wrote on March 27, 2007 9:00 PM:While stationed in Vietnam on "temporary duty" for Lyndon, I could not figure out why we needed to build concrete 10,000 ft. runways, when we were just to be there temporarily, and our PSP runways were doing just fine.
Of course, Bobby McNamara (the god-father of "Rummie") sworn there was no shortage of "iron-bombs" (because he'd sold them all to Germany at $3.00 each, only to be hastily repurchased at $26.oo each), and all our support was to TEACH THE VIETNAMESE HOW TO STABILIZE THEIR CURRENT REGIME.
Just MORE OF THE SAME . . . . .
buckheaddad