Michael Ware-CONFIRMS Iranians Supplying Weapons To BUSH-BACKED Shiite Group In Iraq

[kpete]

CNN: Bush-Backed Shiite Group Receiving Weapons Shipments From Iran

......................

Yesterday, Kevin Drum speculated that Iran might be providing the SCIRI militia with weaponry. Drum wrote, “In other words, if we had to guess where the bombs were going, we might guess that SCIRI’s militia is getting a share of the action too.” There’s no need to guess any longer. CNN’s Michael Ware has confirmed that Iranians have been supplying weapons to SCIRI.
Watch it: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/12/sciri-iran/

In Dec. 2006, Bush met with the head of SCIRI — Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim — for the second time and applauded his “commitment to a unity government” and his “strong position against the murder of innocent life.”



Transcript:

WARE: But the newest thing, the most interesting thing, out of this briefing is an American senior defense official said that the Iraqi government confirmed that Iranian armed forces gave weapons to an Iraqi political faction. And these included mortars and sniper rifles, weapons that the government said, well, this political faction needs for protection. But the U.S. said these are not protective weapons; these are weapons for attacking — Wolf.

BLITZER: Were they specific which faction received these Iranian weapons? Were they the Mehdi army, for example, loyal to the anti-American radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who, as you know, his political forces are aligned with the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki?

WARE: That’s right. Muqtada’s forces are aligned with Maliki’s government. In fact, Muqtada and his militia put Maliki in power. And these defense officials today spoke openly about the provision of weapons to Muqtada’s Mehdi militia.

However, in this particular case, what they are talking about is this confirmation, by the government of Iraq, of the supply of weapons not to Muqtada’s faction, but to, arguably, the most powerful political faction within this government. That is the SCIRI political party.


http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/12/sciri-iran/

[Blue_In_AK]

1. I'm confused.

Is he saying our "enemy" is arming our "friends"? Could it be that our friends are not our friends after all, or is it that our enemy is not our enemy?

[magellan]

5. And our "friend" (Saudi Arabia) is funding our "enemies" (the Sunnis - 'al Qaeda in Iraq')

None of them are very friendly towards us and we ought to get the hell out.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Yeah, I remember that about the Arabs.

I agree, there's no place for the US in the Middle East. We just need to get the hell out of there, come home, and go all "Apollo Project" on developing alternative energy sources. Not that Big Oil will allow that, I suppose. What a mess.

[Jack Rabbit]

6. I don't blame you at all for being confused

Let's see, if I understood that right, the US is upset with Iran for supplying weapons to the militias supporting the US-backed Iraqi government. And that the US-backed prime minister can't stay in power without the support of an anti-American cleric.

Did I get that right?

It's all a bit Byzantine.

[KharmaTrain]

19. The More Confusing The Better

That's modus operendi of this regime. They don't want you to be able to figure out the finer points while they yell about the "big picture"...astroturfing a reaction through filling the information void with their own spin and lies. In complicity with the corporate media, the details get buried and sparse, adding to the confusion, while the big lie gets all the play as it's simple and said early and often.

Another Kpete catch...and that photo is as damning in my books as the Rummy-Saddam handshake...especially if this regime stupidly escalates this mess.

And then there's this gem from TPM about whose really "in charge"

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/012381.php

At a farewell reception at Blair House for the retiring chief of protocol, Don Ensenat, who was President Bush's Yale roommate, the president shook hands with Washington Life Magazine's Soroush Shehabi. "I'm the grandson of one of the late Shah's ministers," said Soroush, "and I simply want to say one U.S. bomb on Iran and the regime we all despise will remain in power for another 20 or 30 years and 70 million Iranians will become radicalized."
"I know," President Bush answered.

"But does Vice President Cheney know?" asked Soroush.

President Bush chuckled and walked away.

Byzantine is almost to simple to explain this mess now.

[frogcycle]

14. you state it exacly correctly

[lala_rawraw]

17. no...

he is saying that we are supplying the same faction... so how can we get upset if we are doing the same thing, right? it is confusing because the Bush admin is making it so confusing

[htuttle]

2. We are fighting our "allies" proxies, and allied with our "enemy's" proxies

There's a word for situations like this: Clusterfuck.

[Kagemusha]

3. And thus closing the circle and proving the naysayers right.

SCIRI is Iran's best buddy in Iraq, and if anyone's getting weapons straight from Iran, it's SCIRI.

Now, is the US arguing that SCIRI is secretly assassinating US soldiers? Or do they think Iraqis are too universally stupid that they can't get or make their own shaped charges without Iran's help?

[kenny blankenship]

4. Waitaminit...is Bush the SCIRI #2 man? Or is al-Hakim the GOP #3 man?

Maybe a Global Hawk can sort this out.

[patrice]

8. Doesn't that just about blow the top off of it?

But then, I've been wondering that almost from the start.

Doesn't anything matter anymore?

[durtee librul]

9. Wouldn't that be sumptin

if all those weapons with serial numbers could be traced back to Ronnie Raygun's era when he exchanged guns for hostages? Hmmmmmm......

[shance]

10. Perhaps I'm confused, but is this just more 'blame the Iranians' propaganda?

There is really little way in my opinion to trust anything originating from corporatized media any more. They have too much of a connection and relationship with the White House.

[lala_rawraw]

18. yes and no

the Iranians are indeed providing support for some of the Shia factions, as are we. but they are not responsible for the insurgency and its resources, which are largely home grown and are using old Baath weapons systems or the ones supplied by Pakistan, etc.

[Little Star]

11. Here is a twist on those explosives...

Was reading Booman today and came across this...
If you use the link they have a picture of the mortar rounds to compare.
Good article. Makes you wonder what the heck is going on.
http://www2.boomantribune.com/story/2007/2/12/8822/67192


Iranian Mortar Rounds Found in Iraq?
by Steven D
Mon Feb 12th, 2007 at 08:08:22 AM EST

The Telegraph (UK) is reporting that 81 mm mortar shells of Iranian manufacture were captured by Iraqi police January 13, 2007. A photograph of one of the the shells is shown with the markings "81 MM" and "3-2006" on it. snip~

What's wrong about this picture? Several things. The absence of dating using the Iranian calendar for one thing. The use of the Roman alphabet for the markings on the shell, rather than the use of Farsi, for another. You see, in the past, Iranian armaments that have been captured or found had markings on them which were printed in Farsi (which uses a form of the Arabic alphabet) snip~

Isn't that odd? Iranian armaments, including mortar shells, have markings in the Farsi language on them when discovered in the Sudan in 1997, but Iranian arms alleged to have killed 170 US soldiers in Iraq have no Farsi markings on them when captured in 2007. Even odder, most US troop deaths (by far) have occurred in the Sunni areas of Iraq (e.g., Anbar province, around Tikrit, West Baghdad), but these Iranian arms are supposedly being delivered to Shi'a militias. What could possibly explain this seemingly counterintuitive inconsistency? It couldn't possibly be a disinformation campaign by the Pentagon (like the one employed by the US Military in the run-up to the Iraq invasion) targeted at generating support for a military strike against Iran among the American public, could it? snip~

[confludemocrat]

21. Thanks for that. But I'm sure there is a good explanation for it

NOT!

big propaganda blitz today, especially

[Little Star]

22. Maybe Colin Powell can explain it!

Ya know ....He did so well at the UN on WMD. :sarcasm:

[magellan]

23. originalpckelly started a thread last night about the same discrepancies

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x185719

[KoKo]

24. Good points....well stated. I guess the Bushies will say that the

Iranians have decided not to use Farci feeling that using it would be a dead giveaway for their involvement. They always manage to concoct a lie for any situation.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. Uh huh.

When's he going to find the WMDs?

[TransitJohn]

13. This fucking war is so convoluted

it's all an obvious cash grab. Any guesses where the Iranians got the weapons to give to the Sunnis?

[ourbluenation]

16. I thought the Iranians are giving weapons to the shiites and the saudi's are providing the sunni's.

as I said this morning....F.U.B.A.R.

[bigtree]

15. phew!

man.

[confludemocrat]

20. So because we f'ed up this occupation, we need to start another war to fix it

if true, and the U.S. failed to keep Iranians out of the picture (Bush said we had enough troops to "do the job" before he said we needed more troops to "do the job"), the situation is irredeemable now because of that failure among other failures

if we have supported the chief beneficiaries of Iran's alleged activities and it has led to more violence and blood then we have compounded the failures

but we are supposed to follow these allegations into a line of reasoning that leads to war with Iran when tossed in with other lines of BS

can anyone name a situation that is more fucked up than this one (outside of the Vietnam war of course)