Earthside Comments: Here we go again with a claim from the GOPentagon that bombs found in Iraq were made in Iran. Whether or not this is true is beside the point ... for instance, the third report here shows that almost everything the U.S. says about Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program is false. The real point is to slowly, but surely build a case for attacking Iran. Truth with these slugs in the White House has absolutely nothing to do with what they want to do ...
... As Michael Klare's analysis, linked to below, demonstrates to us.
Link: U.S. Says Raid in Iraq Supports Claim on Iran | New York Times
A raid on a Shiite weapons cache in the southern city of Hilla one week ago is providing what American officials call the best evidence yet that the deadliest roadside bombs in Iraq are manufactured in Iran, but critics contend that the forensic case remains circumstantial and inferential.
The new evidence includes infrared sensors, electronic triggering devices and information about plastic explosives used in bombs that the Americans say lead back to Iran. The explosive material, triggering devices, other components and the method of assembly all produce weapons with an Iranian signature that has never been found outside Iraq or southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah is believed to have used weapons supplied by Iran, the Americans say.
But critics assert that nearly all the bomb components could have been produced in Iraq or somewhere else in the region. Even if the evidence were to establish that Iran is the source, they add, that does not necessarily mean that the Iranian leadership is responsible. ...
Link: U.S. Forces in Iraq Say Found More Iran-Made Weapons | Reuters
The U.S. military showed on Monday what it said was further evidence of Iranian-made weapons being used by Iraqi militants, including explosives linked to sophisticated roadside bombs.
The weapons, which included mortar bombs and 122 mm rockets, were found during a raid by U.S. forces and Iraqi police on Saturday near the volatile city of Baquba, north of Baghdad. ...
... Military officials showed reporters in Baghdad 14 large rockets, 19 mortars and several bags of C4 plastic explosive they said were made in Iran since 2004. But they said there was no way to know if the Iranian government was involved in supplying them.
Other parts of the cache, which officers described as a bomb factory or supply depot capable of turning out scores of EFPs, were not directly linked to Iran and their origin was unclear.
U.S. officials said this month that the Quds Force, a unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, was supplying weapons to Shi'ite militia groups in Iraq. Tehran denies it fuels violence in Iraq.
"I don't think there is any way for us to know if it is tied to any government," Major Jeremy Siegrist said of the cache. ...
Link: U.N. Calls U.S. Data on Iran's Nuclear Aims Unreliable | Los Angles Times
Although international concern is growing about Iran's nuclear program and its regional ambitions, diplomats here say most U.S. intelligence shared with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency has proved inaccurate and none has led to significant discoveries inside Iran.
The officials said the CIA and other Western spy services had provided sensitive information to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency at least since 2002, when Iran's long-secret nuclear program was exposed. But none of the tips about supposed secret weapons sites provided clear evidence that the Islamic Republic was developing illicit weapons.
"Since 2002, pretty much all the intelligence that's come to us has proved to be wrong," a senior diplomat at the IAEA said. Another official here described the agency's intelligence stream as "very cold now" because "so little panned out."
The reliability of U.S. information and assessments on Iran is increasingly at issue as the Bush administration confronts the emerging regional power on several fronts: its expanding nuclear effort, its alleged support for insurgents in Iraq and its backing of Middle East militant groups. ...
Link: Talking Points for the Next War | Michael Klare/TomDispatch.com
Sometime this spring or summer, barring an unexpected turnaround by Tehran, President Bush is likely to go on national television and announce that he has ordered American ships and aircraft to strike at military targets inside Iran. We must still sit through several months of soap opera at the United Nations in New York and assorted foreign capitals before this comes to pass, and it is always possible that a diplomatic breakthrough will occur -- let it be so! -- but I am convinced that Bush has already decided an attack is his only option and the rest is a charade he must go through to satisfy his European allies. The proof of this, I believe, lies half-hidden in recent public statements of his, which, if pieced together, provide a casus belli, or formal list of justifications, for going to war.
Three of his statements, in particular, contained the essence of this justification: his January 10 televised speech on his plan for a troop "surge" in Iraq, his State of the Union Address of January 23, and his first televised press conference of the year on February 14. None of these was primarily focused on Iran, but the President used each of them to warn of the extraordinary dangers that country poses to the United States and to hint at severe U.S. reprisals if the Iranians did not desist from "harming U.S. troops." In each, moreover, he laid out various parts of the overall argument he will certainly use to justify an attack on Iran. String these together in one place and you can almost anticipate what Bush's speechwriters will concoct before he addresses the American people from the Oval Office sometime later this year. Think of them as talking points for the next war. ... MORE
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