washingtonpost.com
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 officials said they would speak only on the condition of anonymity, so the explosives expert and the analyst, who would normally not speak to the news media, could provide information directly. The analyst's exact title and full name were not revealed to reporters. The officials released a PowerPoint presentation including photographs of the weaponry, but did not allow media representatives to record, photograph or videotape the briefing or the materials on display.
An official at the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad called the U.S. accusations "fabricated" and "baseless."
Anonymous sources often turn out to be intellegence developed dissinformation. The Dems in Congress will have none of the report.
Forbes.com
Explosives seem to be flowing into Iraq from Iran, but does it stem from a deliberate government policy or rogue elements within the Iranian government? asked Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said that ultimately Iran wants a stable Iraq and that the United States needs to engage in diplomacy. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said the administration could be laying the groundwork for an attack on Iran and that "I'm worried about that. That's how we got into the mess in Iraq," by relying on what Dodd called "doctored information." Senate Intelligence Committee member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said "the administration is engaged in a drumbeat with Iran that is much like the drumbeat that they did with Iraq. We're going to insist on accountability."
Despite Congressional skepticism, the NY Times is selling the Iranian connection as different than the WMD data.
If anyone is getting Iranian arms, it's Sadr's Mahdi Army. Perhaps some of them are planting road side bombs, but with Iraqi forces heavily infultrated by Shia militias, why would they kill their own? Juan Cole at Informed Comment shares his skepticism.
Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that the Iraqi government distanced itself on Sunday from US charges against Iran. Maryam al-Rayyis, National Affairs Adviser to PM Nuri al-Maliki, said that Iraq has deep respect for Iran and other neighbors. She said that the Iraqi constitution prohibits Iraq from being an arena of contestation between other countries.
The same report says that Nassar al-Rubaie, a parliamentarian of the Sadr Movement led by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, insisted in an interview that his bloc has never received any support from Iran and he is sanguine that it is not included in the American allegations. (In fact, Pentagon briefers specifically mentioned the Mahdi Army, though they appeared to allow that it was splinter groups from it that set these roadside bombs that killed US troops.)
Almost all roadside bombs in Iraq are set by Sunni Arab guerrillas who deeply dislike Shiites and hate Iran.
But then more retired military officials are leaking Bush Administration plans for an attack on Iran, a neocon plan six years in the making.
Vanity Fair
1) Retired Defense Intelligence official Patrick Lang told Unger that Bush has ordered StratCom " the military command responsible for "nuclear weapons, missile defense and protection against weapons of mass destruction" to draw up plans for a "massive strike against Iran." Lang noted that the shift away from Central Command "to StratCom indicates they are talking about a really punishing air-force and naval air attack [on Iran]."
2) Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi said, "I've heard from sources at the Pentagon that their impression is that the White House has made a decision that war is going to happen.
Meanwhile, political pressure on Iran, may actually be having an effect. Signs of dissent are growing more common.
Los Angeles Times
Iran's leadership is facing mounting public unease and the seeds of mutiny in parliament over the combative nature of its nuclear diplomacy.
For the first time since Iran resumed its uranium enrichment program, there is broad, open criticism of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's defiance of the Bush administration and United Nations Security Council, and warnings have emerged that the public may not be prepared to support the Islamic regime through a war.
The criticism and public wariness come at a time when the Bush administration has moved additional ships to the Persian Gulf and Washington and Israel have refused to rule out a preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.
The mounting dissent does not appear to have chipped away at Iran's determination to maintain an active nuclear program, say politicians, diplomats and political analysts here. But they say it opens the door to a face-saving compromise and signals that a broad range of Iranians hope to avoid an all-out confrontation.
"If [Ahmadinejad] wants to start a new war, from where does he think he's going to produce the army?" asked Mohammed Atrianfar, a well-known political commentator allied with former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has been working behind the scenes in recent weeks to ease the tension.
In a bizarre twist, AlterNet speculates the supposed planned attack on Karbala last month blamed on Iran was in fact a mercenary group hired by Bush Administration.
Investigators were stumped at how the attackers, who wore American-style uniforms, secured forged US identity cards and American-style M-4 rifles, and used stun grenades like those used only by US forces. They are also confounded at the way the attackers' convoy of S.U.V.'s gave the impression that it was American and slipped through Iraqi checkpoints. Wednesday's article in the Times cites a theory that "a Western mercenary group" may have been involved. In the past the US government used the CIA to covertly overthrow governments, such as Iran's in 1953 and Chile's in 1973. Could mercenaries now be doing the Bush administration's dirty work?
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