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Still no evidence to back Bush-Cheney claims on Iran
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by Maura Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Feb. 3, 2007
Bush administration officials acknowledged Friday that they had yet to compile evidence strong enough to back up publicly their claims that Iran is fomenting violence against U.S. troops in Iraq.
Administration officials have long complained that Iran was supplying Shiite Muslim militants with lethal explosives and other materiel used to kill U.S. military personnel. But despite several pledges to make the evidence public, the administration has twice postponed the release -- most recently, a briefing by military officials scheduled for last Tuesday in Baghdad.
"The truth is, quite frankly, we thought the briefing overstated, and we sent it back to get it narrowed and focused on the facts," national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley said Friday.
The acknowledgment comes amid shifting administration messages on Iran. After several weeks of saber rattling that included a stiff warning by President Bush and the dispatch of two aircraft carrier strike groups to the Persian Gulf, near Iran, the administration has insisted in recent days that it does not want to escalate tensions or to invade Iran.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates seemed to concede Friday that U.S. officials can't say for sure whether the Iranian government is involved in assisting the attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq.
"I don't know that we know the answer to that question," Gates said.
Earlier this week, U.S. officials acknowledged that they were uncertain about the strength of their evidence and were reluctant to issue potentially questionable data in the wake of the intelligence failures and erroneous assessments that preceded the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
In particular, officials worried about a repetition of former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's February 2003 U.N. appearance to present the U.S. case against Iraq. In that speech, Powell cited evidence that was later discredited.
In rejecting the case compiled against Iran, senior U.S. officials, including Hadley, Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, confirmed Friday that they were concerned about possible inaccuracies.
"I and Secretary Rice and the national security advisor want to make sure that the briefing that is provided is absolutely accurate and is dominated by facts -- serial numbers, technology and so on," Gates told reporters at the Pentagon.
Another reason for the delay, as is often the case when releasing intelligence, was that officials were concerned about inadvertently helping adversaries identify the agents or sources that provided the intelligence, Hadley said.
Hadley also said that the administration sought to delay the release of evidence until after a key intelligence report on Iraq was unveiled, so that Americans could place the evidence in the context of the broader conflict.
That report, called a National Intelligence Estimate, was issued Friday, concluding that Iraq was deteriorating and faces a bleak future that U.S. efforts may do little to avert.
However, the report tends to downplay the role of Iran and Syria, another target of U.S. criticism, in fomenting sectarian violence, while acknowledging that Iranian involvement "intensifies" the conflict.
"The involvement of these outside actors is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq's internal sectarian dynamics," says the report, compiled by experts from the nation's 16 intelligence agencies.
Few doubt that Iran is working to increase its influence inside Iraq, but many of its beneficiaries have been political groups that also are allied with the United States.
So far, the U.S. government has provided scant evidence that the government of Iran is directly supporting militant Shiite groups.
U.S. military leaders in Iraq have said they have evidence that Iran is behind the supply network of explosives. Military officials have blamed Iran for the increasing casualties caused by the use of "shaped charge" explosive devices that can penetrate armored vehicles.
"What we are trying to do is … counter what the Iranians are doing to our soldiers, their involvement in activities, particularly these explosively formed projectiles that are killing our troops, and we are trying to get them to stop their nuclear enrichment," Gates said.
U.S. officials detained five Iranians in a raid in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil last month, accusing them of planning attacks on Americans.
Gates also acknowledged Friday that there was "a lot of speculation" about involvement by Iranians in the abduction and killings of five U.S. servicemen in Karbala last month. But he refused to say whether an investigation had turned up any evidence that Iranians took part.
"I would just tell you flatly that the investigation is still going on, and the information that I've seen is ambiguous," Gates said. "It's not clear yet."
In a major speech on Iraq last month, Bush accused Iran of "providing material support for attacks on American troops" and vowed to "seek out and destroy" weapon transport networks.
Since then, Air Force officials have said they are planning new missions that could include flights along the Iran-Iraq border aimed at disrupting weapons shipments.
Iranian officials challenged the Americans to produce evidence of their charges, and Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, pledged last week to do so.
The increasingly harsh words from the Bush administration stoked fears of a possible U.S. attack on Iran. In recent days, the White House and top U.S. officials have sought to counter the concern. Gates became the latest administration official to offer such reassurances.
"The president has made clear, the secretary of State has made clear, I've made clear … we are not planning for a war with Iran," Gates said Friday.
Archived from original publication
U.S. has no evidence to
back up Iran accusations
by Alexandra Zavis and Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times
Jan. 23, 2007
BAQUBAH, IRAQ -- If there is anywhere Iran could easily stir up trouble in Iraq, it would be in Diyala, a rugged province along the border between the two nations.
The combination of Sunni Arab militants believed to be affiliated with Al Qaeda and Shiite Muslim militiamen with ties to Iran has fueled waves of sectarian and political violence here. The province is bisected by long-traveled routes leading from Iran to Baghdad and Shiite holy cities farther south in Iraq.
But even here, evidence of Iranian involvement in Iraq's troubles is limited. U.S. troops have found mortars and antitank mines with Iranian markings dated 2006, said U.S. Army Col. David W. Sutherland, who oversees the province. But there has been little sign of more advanced weaponry crossing the border, and no Iranian agents have been found.
In his speech this month outlining the new U.S. strategy in Iraq, President Bush promised to "seek out and destroy" Iranian networks that he said were providing "advanced weaponry and training to our enemies." He is expected to strike a similar note in tonight's State of the Union speech.
For all the aggressive rhetoric, however, the Bush administration has provided scant evidence to support these claims. Nor have reporters traveling with U.S. troops seen extensive signs of Iranian involvement. During a recent sweep through a stronghold of Sunni insurgents here, a single Iranian machine gun turned up among dozens of arms caches U.S. troops uncovered. British officials have similarly accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs, but say they have not found Iranian-made weapons in areas they patrol.
The lack of publicly disclosed evidence has led to questions about whether the administration is overstating its case. Some suggest Bush and his aides are pointing to Iran to deflect blame for U.S. setbacks in Iraq. Others suggest they are laying the foundation for a military strike against Iran.
Before invading Iraq, the administration warned repeatedly that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Those statements proved wrong. The administration's charges about Iran sound uncomfortably familiar to some. "To be quite honest, I'm a little concerned that it's Iraq again," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said last week, referring to the administration's comments on Iran.
The accusations of Iranian meddling "illustrate what may be one of our greatest problems," said Anthony Cordesman, a former Defense Department official and military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"We are still making arguments from authority without detail and explanation. We're making them in an America and in a world where we really don't have anything like the credibility we've had in the past."
Few doubt that Iran is seeking to extend its influence in Iraq. But the groups in Iraq that have received the most Iranian support are not those that have led attacks against U.S. forces. Instead, they are nominal U.S. allies.
The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the two largest parties in parliament, is believed to be the biggest beneficiary of Iranian help. The Shiite group was based in Iran during Hussein's reign, and Iran's Revolutionary Guard trained and equipped its Badr Brigade militia.
But the Supreme Council also has strong U.S. connections. Bush played host to the head of the party, Abdelaziz Hakim, at the White House in December, and administration officials have frequently cited Adel Abdul Mehdi, another party leader, as a person they would like to see as Iraq's prime minister.
The Islamic Dawa Party of Iraq's current prime minister, Nouri Maliki, also has strong ties to Iran.
Some U.S. officials have also suggested that Iran, a Shiite theocracy, has provided aid to the Sunni insurgents, who have led most of the attacks against U.S. forces. Private analysts and other U.S. officials doubt that. Evidence is stronger that the Iranians are supporting a Shiite group that has attacked U.S. forces, the Al Mahdi militia, which is loyal to radical cleric Muqtada Sadr.
Top U.S. intelligence officials have been making increasingly confident assertions about Iran.
"I've come to a much darker interpretation of Iranian actions in the past 12 to 18 months," CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said in recent congressional testimony. Previously, Tehran's priority was to maneuver for a stable Iraq dominated by its Shiite majority, but that attitude has changed, he said.
"There is a clear line of evidence that points out the Iranians want to punish the United States, hurt the United States in Iraq, tie down the United States in Iraq," he said.
One high-ranking intelligence official in Washington acknowledged a lack of "fidelity" in the intelligence on Iran's activities, saying reports are sometimes unclear because it is difficult to track weapons and personnel that might be flowing across the long and porous border.
But U.S. forces have picked up specially shaped charges used to make roadside bombs capable of penetrating advanced armor, he said, with markings that could be traced to Iran and dates that were recent. The markings have been found on the devices themselves or the crates in which they were smuggled into the country, he said.
"Two years ago we were debating whether this was really happening," the official said. "Now the debate is over."
U.S. officials have declined to provide documentation of seized Iranian ordnance despite repeated requests. The U.S. military often releases photographs of other weapons finds.
British government officials, including Prime Minister Tony Blair, have also accused Iran of supplying advanced explosive devices to Iraq.
Blair said a year ago that the weapons bore the hallmarks of Iran or Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon. But British officers stationed in Iraq at the time said they had seized no such weapons in the districts for which they had responsibility.
"We do have intelligence which suggests that weapons and ammunition are being smuggled in from Iran," Maj. David Gell, a spokesman for British forces in Basra, said last week. "We don't always manage to find any."
U.S. military officials in Diyala have had the same experience. No munitions or personnel have been seized at the border, officers said.
Sutherland, the U.S. colonel who oversees Diyala, believes that Tehran is prepared to work with any group, Shiite or Sunni, that can tie up U.S. forces. But State Department and intelligence officials have privately expressed doubts that Iranians are helping Sunnis.
Sunni insurgents in Diyala don't appear to need outside suppliers. They exploit massive weapons stashes containing materiel dating back to the Iran-Iraq war, when Hussein had a major military base in the area. U.S. military officials say they have found the type of shaped charges they attribute to Iran and Hezbollah in majority-Shiite parts of the province.
Outside military analysts have questioned how many of these sorts of weapons actually come from Iran. The technology used to make them is simple and widely known in the Middle East, they note. Iran is a likely source for some of the more sophisticated devices, but other countries could also be pitching in.
"A lot of rather sophisticated weapons have actually been released by Syria," said Peter Felstead, editor of the London-based Jane's Defense Weekly.
Others note that smugglers could be bringing weapons across the border from Iran without government approval.
A second high-ranking U.S. intelligence official in Washington acknowledged that only a "small percentage" of explosions in Iraq could be linked to shaped charges coming from Iran.
"But in terms of American casualties, they are significant," he said, because they are much more lethal than standard roadside bombs.
A senior U.S. military intelligence official said coalition forces in Iraq had also found shaped charges "in the presence of Iranians captured in the country." He declined to elaborate but noted that U.S. operatives who raided an Iranian office in the Iraqi city of Irbil this month captured documents and computer drives he called a "treasure trove" on Iran's "networks, supply lines, sourcing and funding."
Five Iranians were taken into custody in the raid, prompting angry protests from the Iraqi government.
U.S. intelligence officials emphasized that Iran intentionally stops short of steps that would be seen as direct provocation and provide justification for a military response. For example, Iran has refrained from supplying Shiite militias with surface-to-air missiles and other weaponry that was part of Hezbollah's arsenal in its fight with Israel last summer, they said.
A high-ranking U.S. intelligence official called it a "careful calibration" that probably reflected disagreements within the Islamic regime. "I don't doubt that Iranian national security council meetings are very contentious," the official said.
Archived from original publication
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Commentary by Helen & Harry Highwater:
The Bush-Cheney administration has told us that Iran presents some clear and present danger to America -- while every source un-connected to the White House says that just ain't true.
We're supposed to trust Bush and Cheney, after they've told us nothing but lies for six years?
After they've told us that anyone who leaks a CIA agent's identity would be fired from this administration?
After they've told us they had no advance warning of a terrorist plot against America in the summer of 2001?
After they've told us that nobody anticipated the breech of the levees in New Orleans?
After they've told us that Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11 (alternating with lies that nobody ever said that)?
After they've told us that "the smoking gun could come in the form of a mushroom cloud"?
After they've told us that Donald Rumsfeld was doing a fine job?
After they've told us America was winning in Iraq, making great progress in Iraq, and that the bad news from Iraq is all the fault of negative media?
After they've told us that the prisoners on Guantanamo aren't prisoners, that they've been treated well, that "We do not engage in torture"?
After they've told us that the US has disrupted numerous terrorist plots against America, but every time they mention anything specific, it's a lie?
After they've told us that seemingly every Muslim captured or killed is the number three man in al Qaeda?
After they've told us that reporting the news when they break the law imperils national security?
After they've told us that warrantless monitoring of your every phone call, email, and bank transaction has something to do with an alleged war on terror?
After they've told us that Social Security is nearing a meltdown?
After they've told us that the Clean Air Act cleans the air?
After they've told us that "Leave No Child Behind" has accomplished something worthwhile?
And now we're supposed to ignore all the evidence and simply trust Bush and Cheney, as they march America into yet another war, yet another quagmire?
Do they take us for fools?
And is that -- taking us for fools -- going to be the one thing Bush and Cheney are right about?
Helen & Harry
How many times must a man look up
before he can see the sky ?
How many ears must one man have
before he can hear people cry ?
How many deaths will it take
till he knows that
too many people have died ?
The answer, my friend,
is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
Bob Dylan
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