Well, the long-delayed other shoe has finally dropped. The U.S. government has for months been promising "slam-dunk" evidence that the Islamic Republic of Iran is providing weapons to militias attacking American troops in Iraq, a causus belli that would at least justify whacking Iranian targets in Iraq, if not direct strikes against Iran. Either way, it's sure to do only two things: start a much larger war and unify the Iranian people around their leaders.
Ray McGovern has done an excellent job of casting aside the distraction of the Bush administration's case against Iran and looking at the potential nuclear standoff in his call for Congressional action today at TomPaine. But he does not address the substance of the latest round. The Bush administration has repeatedly delayed a public presentation of this evidence, reportedly after the intelligence community demanded the report be "scrubbed" of hyperbole and exageration. This is the precise parallel to the possibly illegal manipulation of intelligence produced by Dougles Feith's office in the runup to war with Iraq in 2003—and discredited by the Pentagon last week. Finally, on February 11, major papers across the Unites States reported on a briefing given to reporters in Baghdad by three government sources, who insisted on anonymity. They detailed the supply of the new "IED", the "EFP" or "explosively formed penetrator," allegedly made solely by Iran and used exclusively by Iranian-supplied militant groups in Lebanon and Iraq. They are allegedly the most deadly weapon facing U.S. forces on the Iraqi battlefield. You can see some of the props presented to reporters yourself here.
Charges of this seriousness require serious scrutiny. While some questions were raised by the mainstream accounts of this briefing, they were deliberately crippled by the terms of the briefing: complete anonymity and
No TV cameras or tapes were allowed in, and journalists’ cell phones were taken away before they entered the briefing room.
But many questions remain. The case made by the administration focuses on Iran supplying "rogue" elements of vocally anti-American Moqtada al-Sadr's Jaish al-Mahdi. But the briefing seemed to acknowledge that Iranian diplomats and security officials had been "caught red-handed" only in the company of U.S. allies such as a proto-consulate in Kurdistan and in the offices of SCIRI leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, a supporter of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and honored guest at the White House.
As many have pointed out, the idea that Iranian weapons are flooding a region where a vicious war was fought for eight years by Iran, including Iranian-backed proxy groups inside Iraq, and where many of the groups in power resided and were even formed in exile in Iran, doesn't prove much.
Furthermore, repeated claims that EFPs are made exclusively by Iran seem to rest on the say-so of officials who refuse to be publicly identified and by some weapons markings which suggest that the ones shown to American reporters were made in Iran.
"We have no evidence that this has ever been done in Iraq," said one of the briefers, referring to EFPs. That's less than convincing, to me.
Eason Jordan, the former head of CNN's Baghdad bureau and current main reporter over at IraqSlogger, among many others has already excoriated the use of anonymous sourcing in this briefing after the criminal run-up to the Iraq War.
After weeks, if not months, of US official planning to present a damning "dossier" of incriminating evidence against Iran, and after this same U.S. administration presented us with lopsided, erroneous information about the capability and evil intentions of the Saddam Hussein regime, the best the U.S. government can give us today is incendiary evidence presented at a Baghdad news conference by three U.S. officials who refuse to be quoted by name?
That's disgraceful and unacceptable.
The American people deserve straight talk from identified U.S. officials.
The pump was primed for stirring up cause for war against Iran by a fairly vile article that ran February 9 in The New York Times, by Mark Gordon. It was he who, along with Judith Miller, authored much of the discredited reporting in the Times leading up to the invasion of Iraq. A completely anonymously-sourced article alleges that EFPs are the most dangerous weapon facing U.S. soldiers in Iraq. However, U.S. official statistics note that the devices, which have been recorded in use since mid-2004, have accounted for less than five percent of U.S. deaths in Iraq up through 2006. Moreover, the proportion of U.S. soldier deaths in all-Sunni provinces such as Anbar was up in 2006 compared to 2005. Glenn Greenwald tears apart the article and the way Gordon is again acting as a microphone for those within the Bush administration who want war here.
Greenwald also provides a link to longtime White House correspondent Dan Froomkin's list of the essential rules for the media in these times, which include (but are not limited to):
Don’t assume anything administration officials tell you is true. In fact, you are probably better off assuming anything they tell you is a lie. ...
War is so serious that even proving the existence of a casus belli isn’t enough. Make officials prove to the public that going to war will make things better. ...
Watch out for false denials. In the case of Iran, when administration officials say “nobody is talking about invading Iran,” point out that the much more likely scenario is bombing Iran, and that their answer is therefore a dodge. ...
And much else worthwhile to pay attention to.
Meanwhile Newsweek has a cover story this week that sums up much important information about the last several years of Iran/U.S. relations, including how the Bush administration has repeatedly deliberately and casually blown off Iranian attempts at cooperation. Among their scoops? A third carrier group is heading to the Gulf, and George Bush only included Iran in the original “axis of evil” speech to make it seem like he wasn’t too focused on Iraq. Dafna Linzer zeroes in on one aspect of that cooperation for The Washington Post, describing how Iran is detaining al-Qaida suspects. Ewen MacAskill of The Guardian has an analysis of the military positioning for an attack on Iran that could happen this spring, John Dean writes of the constitutional power of Congress to stop this madness from continuing and Kim Murphy in the L.A. Times writes of the increasingly desperate position of Iranian reformists, who are begging the United States to back off from its militant stance, as it only strengthens a regime that was, weeks ago, beginning to lose popularity.
Does any of this seem familiar? Can we stop this nightmare from happening all over again?
--Ethan Heitner |
Monday, February 12, 2007 9:02 AM
