Bush administration officials have been hinting for weeks that they had quite a presentation to show reporters about Iranian meddling in the war in Iraq, and would provide proof just as soon as they could find some. I mean, as soon as they nailed down the details. Yes, that’s it.
Yesterday, reporters in Iraq finally received the briefing they’d been waiting for. It was less than persuasive.
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.
You’ll notice, of course, that we don’t know which “senior defense official” said this, because the briefers refused to be identified. One of the officials was not only anonymous inasmuch as not giving his name, he was also anonymous to the reporters themselves, who had no idea who he was.
As Kevin Drum put it, “Golly. I wonder why no one wanted their name publicly attached to this stuff? I mean, it’s ironclad, right? A slam dunk, so to speak. It’s certainly puzzling that they’re being so shy about taking credit for their work, isn’t it?”
What’s more, today’s news accounts are admittedly thin. Reporters were shown a PowerPoint presentation including photographs of the weapons allegedly coming from Iran, but military officials “did not allow media representatives to record, photograph or videotape the briefing or the materials on display.” How solid is the intelligence? It’s hard to say — none of the officials at the briefing came from the CIA.
I’m convinced. How about you?
At this point, do we know where the Iranian weapons are going? Well, there’s this.
The officials provided further details on the case of the two Iranians captured during the December raid in the compound of one of Iraq’s leading Shiite politicians, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
….[The raid] uncovered weapons inventory documents with information about sniper rifles and mortars, the officials said. When U.S. officials discussed the allegations with Hakim’s representatives, their explanation was that “it is normal for different groups to acquire armaments for protection purposes,” the senior defense official said.
That’s good to know, except, as Kevin noted, it doesn’t help the political situation at all — “[J]ust a couple of months ago Hakim was in the Oval Office for a chat and George Bush was calling him one of Iraq’s ‘distinguished leaders’ and praising ‘His Eminence’s strong position against the murder of innocent life.'”
And in the meantime, Iran stands accused of aiding the Shiite militias, but who’s helping the Sunnis? Paul Krugman had some thoughts on the subject.
Are there people in Iran providing aid to factions in Iraq, factions that sometimes kill Americans as well as other Iraqis? Yes, probably. But you can say the same about Saudi Arabia, which is believed to be a major source of financial support for Sunni insurgents — and Sunnis, not Iranian-backed Shiites, are still responsible for most American combat deaths.
The Bush administration, however, with its close personal and financial ties to the Saudis, has always downplayed Saudi connections to America’s enemies. Iran, on the other hand, which had no connection to 9/11, and was actually quite helpful to the United States in the months after the terrorist attack, somehow found itself linked with its bitter enemy Saddam Hussein as part of the “axis of evil.”
Well, at a minimum, we at least know what the administration claims to have with regards to a case against Iran, right? Wrong. The WaPo article explained that an Iraqi official said the U.S. military’s briefing was just part of the anti-Iranian intelligence. The administration just isn’t prepared to present the rest yet.
In other words, there’s more vague and anonymous briefings with proof we can’t see to look forward to. I can hardly wait.