Target
Tehran: Washington Sets Stage For A New Confrontation
By Patrick Cockburn
13 February 2007
The
Independent
The United States is moving closer
to war with Iran by accusing the "highest levels" of the Iranian
government of supplying sophisticated roadside bombs that have killed
170 US troops and wounded 620.
The allegations against Iran
are similar in tone and credibility to those made four years ago by
the US government about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction
in order to justify the invasion of 2003.
Senior US defence officials
in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they believed the
bombs were manufactured in Iran and smuggled across the border to Shia
militants in Iraq. The weapons, identified as "explosively formed
penetrators" (EFPs) are said to be capable of destroying an Abrams
tank.
The officials speaking in
Baghdad used aggressive rhetoric suggesting that Washington wants to
ratchet up its confrontation with Tehran. It has not ruled out using
armed force and has sent a second carrier task force to the Gulf.
"We assess that these
activities are coming from senior levels of the Iranian government,"
said an official in Baghdad, charging that the explosive devices come
from the al-Quds Brigade and noting that it answers to Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader. This is the first time the US has openly
accused the Iranian government of being involved in sending weapons
that kill Americans to Iraq.
The allegations by senior
but unnamed US officials in Baghdad and Washington are bizarre. The
US has been fighting a Sunni insurgency in Iraq since 2003 that is deeply
hostile to Iran.
The insurgent groups have
repeatedly denounced the democratically elected Iraqi government as
pawns of Iran. It is unlikely that the Sunni guerrillas have received
significant quantities of military equipment from Tehran. Some 1,190
US soldiers have been killed by so-called improvised explosive devices
(IEDs) in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But most of them
consist of heavy artillery shells (often 120mm or 155mm) taken from
the arsenals of the former regime and detonated by blasting caps wired
to a small battery. The current is switched on either by a command wire
or a simple device such as the remote control used for children's toys
or to open garage doors.
Such bombs were used by guerrillas
during the Irish war of independence in 1919-21 against British patrols
and convoys. They were commonly used in the Second World War, when "shaped
charges", similar in purpose to the EFPs of which the US is now
complaining, were employed by all armies. The very name - explosive
formed penetrators - may have been chosen to imply that a menacing new
weapon has been developed.
At the end of last year the
Baker-Hamilton report, written by a bipartisan commission of Republicans
and Democrats, suggested opening talks with Iran and Syria to resolve
the Iraq crisis. Instead, President Bush has taken a precisely opposite
line, blaming Iran and Syria for US losses in Iraq.
In the past month Washington
has arrested five Iranian officials in a long-established office in
Arbil, the Kurdish capital. An Iranian diplomat was kidnapped in Baghdad,
allegedly by members of an Iraqi military unit under US influence. President
George Bush had earlier said that Iranians deemed to be targeting US
forces could be killed, which seemed to be opening the door to assassinations.
The statements from Washington
give the impression that the US has been at war with Shia militias for
the past three-and-a-half years while almost all the fighting has been
with the Sunni insurgents. These are often led by highly trained former
officers and men from Saddam Hussein's elite military and intelligence
units. During the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1988, the Iraqi leader,
backed by the US and the Soviet Union, was able to obtain training in
advanced weapons for his forces.
The US stance on the military
capabilities of Iraqis today is the exact opposite of its position in
four years ago. Then President Bush and Tony Blair claimed that Iraqis
were technically advanced enough to produce long-range missiles and
to be close to producing a nuclear device. Washington is now saying
that Iraqis are too backward to produce an effective roadside bomb and
must seek Iranian help.
The White House may have
decided that, in the run up to the 2008 presidential election, it would
be much to its political advantage in the US to divert attention from
its failure in Iraq by blaming Iran for being the hidden hand supporting
its opponents.
It is likely that Shia militias
have received weapons and money from Iran and possible that the Sunni
insurgents have received some aid. But most Iraqi men possess weapons.
Many millions of them received military training under Saddam Hussein.
His well-supplied arsenals were all looted after his fall. No specialist
on Iraq believes that Iran has ever been a serious promoter of the Sunni
insurgency.
The evidence against Iran
is even more insubstantial than the faked or mistaken evidence for Iraqi
WMDs disseminated by the US and Britain in 2002 and 2003. The allegations
appear to be full of exaggerations. Few Abrams tanks have been destroyed.
It implies the Shias have been at war with the US while in fact they
are controlled by parties which make up the Iraqi government.
© 2006 Independent News
and Media Limited
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