The death announcement of charges against Iran may be premature.
From the LA Times:
BAGHDAD -- In the latest attempt to link the deadliest form of roadside bombs in Iraq to components manufactured in Iran, U.S. Army officers today displayed plastic explosives they said were made in Iran and recovered during a raid Saturday in violence-racked Diyala province.
An Army explosives expert said the C-4 plastic explosives were used to make lethal bombs that the military calls EFPs -- explosively formed projectiles. The explosives were found alongside enough bomb-making materials to build 150 EFPs capable of penetrating heavily armored vehicles, according to the expert, Maj. Martin Weber.
Mortars and rockets found in the same cache also were manufactured in Iran, Weber said.
The Department of Defense is not releasing the true cost in human lives. According to ABC's 'To Iraq and Back' by Bob Woodruff, who suffered his own brush with death, 205,000 men and women are coming home with serious injuries, not 23,000 has had been reported. This estimate is according to Veterans Affairs.
Bob Woodruff is continuing with this report over the next several months on ABC.
Posted by Judith at February 27, 2007 08:00 PMAs I posted over a week ago, these "discoverys" of materials that could only be supplied by Iran keep turning up in the machine shops in Iraq where they are being manufactured. Damned Iranians dressed like Iraqi machinists, no doubt. And it's damned precise technology that takes advanced techniques. So advanced that the French Resistance built these exact same devices in basements to use against the German tanks. Sacrebleu! No way the Iraqis could ever replicate the things the insurgents...I mean resistance fighters...used in France.
Mortars and rockets found in the same cache also were manufactured in Iran, Weber said.
Ooooh! More 'pitchers' of Iranian stuff. Or, as the guy said, "You know, those Iranian munitions looked exactly like pictures from the Army ordinance manuals."
Posted by phidipides at February 27, 2007 08:09 PMWe're playing right into Karl Rove's hands. So what if this stuff was manufactured in Iran. Has any war been initiated before based on the origin of occupation resistance weapons? This is surreal. I imagine the Sunni AK-47's were manufactured in Poland or somewhere similar. Do we bomb Poland? The Stingers we furnished the mujahadin in Afghanistan to evict the Russians were US-made--did Russia bomb the US? If the occupation resistance doesn't manufacture all its own weapons do we bomb every country they buy the stuff from? Or only Iran?
We need a congressional statement that the problem is not the origin of occupation resistance weapons, it's the occupation. Here we go: It's not the surge, it's not the supposed lack of troop training--it's the occupation, stupid.
Posted by Don Bacon at February 27, 2007 08:46 PM
So if it's true that the Sunnis are behind most of the US casualties, as some report, why would the Iranian Shiites be supplying the Sunnis with weapons?
And if the Iraqi Shiites are being supplied by the Iranian Shiites, why have we installed them to head up the new Iraqi government?
It's just so ... so confusing.
News flash: Chalabi is going to end up running Iraq.
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Posted by harrison at February 27, 2007 09:12 PMJudith, It's a wonderful story about Bob Woodruff's recovery. I'm grateful that he will be reporting on Veteran issues.
But by God, every troop should be given the kind of treatment and care that he received.
Steve: This nonsense started on the Sunday Morning talk show circuit on Feb 12.....the original Pentagon Powerpoint presentation was amateur at best with the ordinance marked in English not Farsi.....just comical....but according to script it has been programmed into our simpler set and is another ratchet in the wrench...and then this comes out...go figure!!
Posted by Goyo at February 27, 2007 10:31 PMJust followed Goyo's link. I'm not hopeful, but I'm doing my best to hope it does turn out to be the start of some real diplomacy and the Dick and the neo-cons don't wreck it before it starts.
Posted by Brian Bell at February 27, 2007 10:45 PMToo late, the damage to the masses who only saw and programmed into their brains the headline Iran+weapons+kill+US troops...Remember it's not if it truthful it's how many times it gets repeated or suggested like that that counts.
Fwiw, I bet there are weapons made from Iran in that country knowing the ties to the religious groups thjat bind them...the issue is, whether the top of the gov't is actually supplying them directly and that is the evidence that is lacking
And I'm with you Brian on one count I agree...wait til Cheneyco gets back from his Trip to ??? country Tour...he and his neocon pals surely won't let anything productive come from that. Or perhaps it could be the ...see we tried diplomacy, it failed...let's get our war on. You know, just like they let inspectors go to Iraq but they weren't finished and were pulled out weeks before they said they completed inspections...so Bush spun it, see even inspectors were being fooled and tricked by Hussein, as well as Inspectors weren't allowed into Iraq by Hussein ...we heard both of those out of the mouth of the Bushco propaganda machine...even though the truth was Bushco pulled them out because they knew their were no wmd's in Iraq and he didn't want that out to the public.
Posted by emal at February 28, 2007 04:40 AM"It's The Occupation, Stupid."
Don Bacon @ February 27, 2007 08:46 PM
"...it's how many times it gets repeated or suggested like that that counts."
emal @ February 28, 2007 04:40 AM
Freewayblogging, anyone?