United States officials in Baghdad were reported to be in possession of Iranian made weapons. In a brazen display of "intelligence", the Americans proudly showed off their Iranian-made weapons to reporters:
The BBC’s Jane Peel attended the briefing in Baghdad, at which all cameras and recording devices were banned.
Examples of the allegedly smuggled weapons were put on display, including EFPs, mortar shells and rocket propelled grenades which the US claims can be traced to Iran.
"The weapons had characteristics unique to being manufactured in Iran… Iran is the only country in the region that produces these weapons," an official said.
Someone call Michael Gordon.
At a briefing today in Baghdad, US officials accused Iran of arming al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Iraq:
The defense analyst said Iran was working through "multiple surrogates" — mainly "rogue elements" of the Shiite Mahdi Army — to smuggle the EFPs into Iraq. He said most of the components are entering the country at crossing points near Amarah, the Iranian border city of Meran and the Basra area of southern Iraq.
The US officials also neatly tied Iran into the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Kuwait and the trafficking in arms in Iraq:
Last week, U.S. officials said they were investigating allegations that Shiite lawmaker Jamal Jaafar Mohammed was a main conduit for Iranian weapons entering the country. Mohammed has believed to have fled to Iran.
The "evidence" against Iran and the Mahdi Army continues to pile up. But there is something fishy here.
The Bush Administration claims that Iranians caught in recent raids buttress clams of Iranian involvement. The targets of American ire appear to be Iran and the Mahdi Army. However, the Iranians were captured in Kurdish held Erbil and in Abdul Aziz al-Hakim’s compound in Baghdad. In both instances, the Iranians were working with American allies in Iraq – the Kurds and the SCIRI. In the Erbil case, Kurdish leaders protested the American operation and in the curious case of the raid on al-Hakim’s compound, pressure from SCIRI forced the US to release their prize.
Now we come to Mr. Jamal Jaafar Mohammed. Most reports of his involvement in the 1983 bombing gloss over his political affiliation. Mr. Mohammed was at the time of the bombing a member of SCIRI, the same group that is now an ally of Mr. Bush, and is currently a member of the Badr Organization, which is the current incarnation of the military wing of SCIRI:
An engineering graduate from Basra University in southern Iraq, he was active in the Shiite opposition to Saddam and was affiliated with the political and military wing of the Badr Brigade. He served as a top commander in the militia in the 1980s.
The brigade was organized and trained by the Iranians to fight against Iraq in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war and was led by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, a key political figure here. Shiite officials say the Badr Brigade gave up its weapons and was transformed into a political movement after Saddam’s regime collapsed in 2003.
Mohammed ran for parliament on the Badr ticket. The organization is part of the Shiite alliance that also includes al-Maliki. Mohammed served as a political adviser to al-Maliki’s predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
I should also note that the attack on the American and French embassies in Kuwait in 1983 were conducted by the Dawa Party and the SCIRI, which are both now our allies in Iraq. The Dawa Party is also conveniently the party that helped set up Hezbollah in Lebanon:
There are at least five such groups here, known as Al Fajr, Jihad, Jundullah, Hizbullah and Harisullah.
According to Shiite political sources, they are linked with the Iraqi Shiite underground organization Ad Dawa, which has been working to set up Iranian-style Islamic republics in Iraq and other Persian Gulf countries.
It is possible, the analysts and diplomats said, that the pro-Iranian groups have abducted Americans to exchange them for the 22 Dawa members who have been tried and convicted in Kuwait for the bombing Dec. 12 of the American and French embassies.
The Bush Administration has indeed made a fine bed with terrorists in Iraq.
There is very little doubt that Iran is supporting the Shia factions and the Kurds in Iraq. However, the factions Iran is supporting are the same factions that the Bush Administration is supporting. The Shia faction that gets the least support from Iran, and that is ideologically the least aligned with Iran is the Mahdi Army. Yet, the Administration’s plan, as laid out in the Hadley memo, appears to be to isolate the Mahdi Army and empower the very factions, Dawa and SCIRI, that Iran has been helping.
The Bush Administration is spinning a story about Iran that is full of contradictions. The Bush Administration cannot claim to target Iran for arming the same groups that the United States itself is arming, without addressing its own behavior and alliances in Iraq. It has been clear from the start that the United States has put in power terrorists and thugs (Dawa and SCIRI) in Iraq. To support its drumbeat to war against Iran, it cannot now cry foul without addressing its own hypocrisy in Iraq. To the extent that they have both sponsored the same actors in Iraq, the Bush Administration and Iran have been allies.
So, when the Bush Administration claims that some Iranian arms have been found in the hands of Shia militia in Iraq, I am unimpressed. The United States has, over the last four years, armed the Shia militias to the teeth by equipping the SCIRI and Badr Brigade controlled Iraqi Interior Ministry. In the contest of arms shipments to Iraqi Shia militias, the United States wins the arms race hands down. Having armed, equipped and trained a party to a civil war, the Bush Administration has been the driving force of instability in Iraq. When the Bush Administration accuses Iran of fomenting sectarian violence in Iraq, it ignores the elephant in the room, that is, the United States.
Thanks for putting this info together, Mash. You link the dots!
BTW, have you seen this?:
http://americantorture.com/
“This blog provides a venue for discussions about the American use of torture, as well as a place for experts and non-experts alike to post thoughts and reactions to political events in the United States and elsewhere. If you would like to be a featured blogger for americantorture.com, email us.”
I thought you’d like to know…
Cheers
I was overwhelmed with the urge this morning to find a beautifully illustrated edition of THE LITTLE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF and have Amazon send a copy to the White House for me. What do you think — if millions of people each had a copy sent to him…. Do you think he’d get the point?
I think you’re missing the point, Mash. Bush has no problem with Iran arming our new thug friends; his beef is with QUALITY. How are we supposed to keep a civil war going when bombs are constantly failing to kill the infidel Sunni or imperialist occupier, simply because of shoddy Iranian workmanship? It’s a disgrace. Our troops, and innocent Iraqi citizens, deserve to have their bodies ripped apart by ONLY THE BEST!
Aunty, thanks for the link. I had not seen it before and have now started to read it.
There is also a group blog that was started by Avila of DKos and others which is also very good:
http://www.neverinournames.com/
Rivkeleh, good idea. Then he can put it right next to his copy of The Pet Goat. I think like the goat he is destroying everything in his path. Perhaps he is hoping to redeem himself by catching Osama at the end.
Mandrake, I hear the Ayatollah’s quality control department is kind of weak. Though his products are affordable, the rumor is their customer service sucks – they make you wait on hold for hours while listening to the Ayatollah’s speeches. :-c
Thanks for this Mash. FYI, here (.pdf) is a very good summary of exactly what in the way of evidence was presented by the administration to link Iran to Iraq, and why it fell well short of the standard required to do anything more than speculate.
Plus it’s written by Milan Rai, which is always good.
LOL Mash…
Thank you for calling the Iranian Revolutionary Council. Your call is very important to us, and is being monitored for quality and political control purposes. To obtain your free “crush the infidel” home insurgency kit, please press “1.” To obtain American flags suitable for kindling, press “2.” To order our exclusive “candy & flowers shower” fragmentation explosives, press “3.” For a copy of our exclusive calendar, which raises money for jihad around the world, press “4” and tell the operator whether you are interested in the “Persian Poontang” or “Farsi Foxes” edition. Remember, before you entertain your 100 virgins in heaven, it helps to know where everything is. Order NOW!” :d
Mash,
Perhaps it is best to never forget that the Bush admin put in power the Dawa and the SCIRI in direct response to the horrific attacks of 9/11.
Am I right or am I right?
Fundamentalist Sunnis attacked the USA on 9/11.
In order to prevent another 9/11, the Bush admin deposed Saddam Hussein.
The result of that deposing is the enthroning of the Dawa and the SCIRI in Iraq.
In other words: After having been brutally attacked on 9/11, the Bush admin forced the reins of power into the hands of men from Al-Dawa and the SCIRI whose hands have been stained with American blood since the 1980s.
Tens of thousands, if not hundred of thousands, of people have been maimed, tortured, killed at the cost of about $450 billion!!
[-(
just when i think it can’t get any worse, he opens his mouth and the b.s. spills out and ruins my cheerios.
the liitle truth monster really wants to come out of that closet, but cheney’s on-guard and is still considered armed and dangerous.
where do we turn for the truth? even my trusted cooper and ware at cnn have been moved back on the bus to make room for even more anna nicole smith updates.
tony snow is getting snappy, nancy grace just can’t believe the trauma being caused to a 5mo bahamian resident, and even rosey hasn’t offended anyone famous or infamous this week!
can we find the roots of the truth in the new 10-volume proposed budget? or maybe it’s been hidden in pelosi’s jet to be sprung when hillary and obama wear the same pantsuit…
help me, mash, please. even my psychic has been debunkt. i’m switching to apple jacks!
442
Bush Hosting New Radical Shiite Prime Minister Of Iraq This Week
June 24, 2005
by David T. Pyne, Esq.
[snip]
The recent fundamentalist Shiite takeover of the Iraqi government means that the United States will likely be faced with what will prove to be an increasingly hostile regime in Baghdad. This new regime can be expected to cooperate with US forces only to the extent to which it can preserve and extend its own power and eradicate the secular Sunni-led national resistance movement to the new Islamist-led government. The next step in the ongoing Islamic revolution in Iraq will be the writing of a new, permanent constitution for Iraq which on its face grants rights to the Iraqi people, but much like the UN Charter and old Soviet Constitution of 1976 will almost assuredly provide for exceptions for the government to take away those same rights thus negating them completely. This constitution will allow Iraq to be governed as a de-facto theocracy much like Iran where despite democratic trappings, real power will be wielded by the Ayatollahs though in Iraq this would likely be behind the scenes rather than as part of a formal constitutional hierarchy as is the case in Iran. The final step will be for the fundamentalist Shiites to sweep the permanent elections in December after which I predict that their political opponents will be swept from the government and within months of taking power will demand a rapid US military withdrawal from Iraq unless the presence of US forces continues to suit their purposes in helping to suppress all secular, largely Sunni-led opposition to their rule.