Iran in Iraq, Cont'd

There's more on this increasingly bizarre briefing about IEDs in Iraq which "definitely" came from Iran. First of all, it's shocking to note that, despite all this intelligence about enemy weaponry, the military is still not protecting their troops from what they know to be the problem.

The Army is working to fill a shortfall in Iraq of thousands of advanced Humvee armor kits designed to reduce U.S. troop deaths from roadside bombs -- including a rising threat from particularly lethal weapons linked to Iran and known as "explosively formed penetrators" (EFP) -- that are now inflicting 70 percent of the American casualties in the country, according to U.S. military and civilian officials.

The additional protection is needed for thousands of U.S. reinforcement troops flowing into Baghdad, where these devastating weapons -- used primarily by Shiite fighters -- are particularly prevalent, the officials said.

Nobody in this government can ever use the phrase "support the troops" anymore. It's moratorium time. They're hell-bent on blaming specific devices, supposedly Iranian devices, for all the casualties (actually just a fraction), but then refuse to protect troops from those devices. It makes me sick.

So does this entire "deep-background," unverifiable briefing. One of the anonymous briefers has been outed as the official spokesman of the Multi-National Force in Iraq. Yet he will not publicly stand behind the briefing. Neither will The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Indeed it's hard to find anyone willing to swallow the US assertions whole. Here's the very credible Juan Cole reporting a take on the math:

On the Iran weapons story, Al McKee writes:

"Here is my take on the US Killed In Action (KIA) statistics for 4th quarter 06:

Total US KIAs (hostile action) were 265.
Of those, Anbar 112,
Baghdad 107,
Salah al-Din 18,
Diyala 15,
Tamim [Kirkuk] 10,
Ninawa [Mosul] 3.

As you say, one can leave Anbar and the other four provinces to the north out of the equation as they are predominantly Sunni, at least in most areas where US troops are operating.

Of the Baghdad total of 107,
KIAs reported at Taji were 17,

so subtracting that from Baghdad Province yields 90 for the City itself.

The US statement was that less than a quarter of the total US casualties were as a result of these Iranian EFPs.

That equates to roughly 60 of the 265 total. Therefore 2/3 of the Baghdad city US KIAs (60/90) were caused by these Iran-produced EFPs, the implication being that they are all attacks by Shia militia.

But, we don't hear anything like 2/3rds of attacks in Baghdad are by Shia militia. Indeed, this issue continues to be very strange.

How about this as a hypothetical partial explanation. They are produced in Iran, shipped to the Badr Brigade in Iraq who stockpile them for later use. Lots of them then end up on the ubiquitous Iraqi arms black market, and most of them then end up with Sunni insurgents in Baghdad. For some reason (maybe less financial means or a result of competing factions) they don't get to Sunnis in Anbar (The Marines have reported no sign of EFPs in Anbar). I don't konw if this makes any sense, but very little does in this matter."

It strains credulity that the Iranians would be arming Sunnis to kill Shi'a. And the Shiite militia are in no way responsible for 25% of all US troop casualties in the last quarter. It makes no sense. The US wants us to believe that the Mahdi Army is getting all these shipments, but of course SCIRI is far more allied with Iran, a fact which is complicated by the other fact that Abdulaziz al-Hakim met with the President a couple months ago and was praised as someone with a “strong position against the murder of innocent life.”

Meanwhile, the focus on these EFPs neglects the fact that good old-fashioned suicide bombs are the source of most of the violence in Iraq. This one was particularly brazen: in the middle of a government-imposed 15-minute silence to honor the anniversary of the bombing of the Golden Dome Mosque in Samarra, this explosion rang out.

You can look at the PowerPoint presentation on the Iranian ordnance in Iraq for yourself and draw your own conclusions. Me, I think it's garbage. And it's just another cog in the plan during "The Year of Iran".

Hopefully, everyone's figured out that it's not 2002 anymore.