U.S. officials say they have found smoking-gun evidence of Iranian support for terrorists in Iraq: brand-new weapons fresh from Iranian factories. According to a senior defense official, coalition forces have recently seized Iranian-made weapons and munitions that bear manufacturing dates in 2006.
This suggests, say the sources, that the material is going directly from Iranian factories to Shia militias, rather than taking a roundabout path through the black market. “There is no way this could be done without (Iranian) government approval,” says a senior official.
Iranian-made munitions found in Iraq include advanced IEDs designed to pierce armor and anti-tank weapons. U.S. intelligence believes the weapons have been supplied to Iraq’s growing Shia militias from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is also believed to be training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran.
Put on your tin-foil hats, ladies and gentlemen. Here we have unnamed senior defense officials leaking information about smoking gun evidence that Iran is churning out shaped IED’s and other G.I. killing hardware and shipping it directly to Iraq. The timing, and anonymity, is delicious.
It doesn’t mean that it could not be true. Perhaps it is true. That would not be very surprising. I don’t like the idea of Iran directly facilitating the killing of American soldiers. But I think it is but one more object lesson on why we are in a no-win situation. Rather than teaching Iran a lesson, we ought to start learning some lessons of our own.
The right-wing is already taking this leak as a justification to strike Iran. Remember the source and remember the timing, but I can understand the desire to deter Iran from further actions of this type. The problem is that I do not think we can deter them. We need to stop digging. We need level heads.
And we should believe anything coming from a “senior Defense official” why?
Let’s see, we know Iraq bought yellow cake, had aluminum tubes that could only be used for “Nukler” weapons and Saddam had WMD’s. . .those worked out well for us.
These liars will say or leak anything to attempt to give a reason for their actions. They wouldn’t know the truth if they were forced to look at it.
I’m not buying it.
Took that sucker sign off my forehead a long time ago.
I’m curious to read their arguments, if only for a chuckle. I checked Malkin and LGF and found no mention of this story. Who is making the above quoted suggestion?
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/008603.php
Thanks
2006 is about over — I can’t believe manufactured goods from, say Feb 6, couldn’t go through the black market or through other countries and get to Iraq 10 or 11 months later via any number of routes. Blackmarket DVDs and so forth certainly don’t take nearly as long as that to reach their buyers. Why would weapons?
And then there’s the idea of “manufacturing dates”. I look at factory-made goods around here and don’t see any dates on them. They have various codes that might contain date info, but now the “senior defense officials” know what the codes on Iranian weapons mean? And why would Iran put accurate manufacturing dates on its weapons in the first place if they were planning to give them to Iraqi militias? Oh, I forgot, they’re just so stupid compared to the “senior defense officials” who have done such a bang-up job making Osama’s dreams come true.
So two strikes against this story’s credibility. And coming out of el diablo’s White House makes three.
And strangely enough it comes on the same day as warnings about terrorists potentially hacking financial websites.
Wapo 29 Oct 06:
Using the rather loose criteria for, and questionable reasoning, behind such a leap in judgment, one could just as easily posit that the US is supplying arms to the terrorists when these weapons reappear.
Look! Over here…
This garbage is really wearing thin.
From Moonofalabama.org
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2006/11/grapevine_talk.html
My take: Possible, but unlikely.
While the Navy presence in the gulf is higher than usual, one has to look at it in context. What is the scheduled rotation of the ships. Any attack would involve extending the carrier task forces out there indefinitely against three countries (Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan). Navy ships can’t stay out forever. Six-nine months maximum before they have to go in for repair and morale.
When we were planning to invade Iraq, the military built up it’s staging areas in Kuwait, stating that it was for Afghanistan (insert chuckle here). There is no increased staging that I am aware of.
There is also no increase in supply contracts, which would desperately be needed. Nor is there an increase in stop-loss, as we would need additional manpower (meant generic, not sexist) over there. Any attack (or air strike), could result in increased attacks (or open invasion) to our troops in Iraq. We would need an additional couple of hundred thousand to invade Iran or to protect the Iraqi border. We don’t have them. We can’t just call an air strike, kill a couple of thousand Iranians and just go on as if nothing happened.
Third. It’s bat $h!t crazy. There have been no high level military/DOD resignations (except for Rumsfeld), or leaks (not propaganda) which would be the case.
I see it as:
a) a weak bluff, to get Iran to cooperate on something behind the scenes.
b) setting the stage for an invasion when the next republican president comes into office.
c) an effort to shift blame away from Bush. The failure in Iraq is the responsibility of the Iraqi people, the democrats who kept Bush from slogging through and the Iranians for meddling in our (Bush’s) affairs.
d) the Entire administration and upper military eschelons are completely insane and they will do it.
I wonder if anybody over there is checking out the manufacturing dates on all the unimprovised explosive devices with a US stamp on them. There have been reports also of operations in Iran itself. Likewise I don`t doubt possible armaments from outside but if so it must not be something new. Why, just a few days ago Bush was blaming Al Queda again. Is it really possible that there`s still talk of hitting Iran? I just can`t believe that.
Gasp! You mean it is possible that our enemies might try to make our deadly quagmire an even worse hell.
I can’t imagine any empire but an evil empire pulling something like that.
Wait. We trained and supplied the Mujihadeen when the Soviets were bogged down in Afghanistan for ten years. Disregard. I guess this is what happens when you start pointless fucking wars.
First, is it still an IED (improvised explosive device) if it’s manufactured in some arms plant somewhere? Wouldn’t it be a mine at that point?
And second, remember the Germans dressed concentration camp prisoners in Polish uniforms to “prove” Poland invaded Germany to begin World War II.
You simply can’t trust these guys.