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Iranian weapons killing Americans in Iraq -- Update 8
(Multiple updates -- last update 2007.02.19.21:22.) Mysteries
Scott Johnson (Hat tip: Michelle)
Saturday's New York Times featured Scott Shane's page-one article about Iran's "mysterious" Quds Force. American intelligence agencies are scutinizing the Quds Force because of its apparent involvement in supplying sophisticated explosives to Iraqi insurgents. Quds operatives are in fact hard at work inside Iraq. The article's thesis -- that there is some doubt about the Iranian government's responsibility for the activities of the Quds Force -- hangs on this quote from Secretary Gates: “We know that the Quds Force is involved,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters on Thursday. “We know the Quds Force is a paramilitary arm of the I.R.G.C.,” he added, using the abbreviation for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“So we assume that the leadership of the I.R.G.C. knows about this,” Mr. Gates said. “Whether or not more senior political leaders in Iran know about it, we don’t know.”
Is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps an arm of the Iranian government? Are we aware of any freeleance activity ever undertaken by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps? It was certainly diplomatic of Secretary Gates to leave open the hypothetical possibility that the Quds Force is not an instrument of Iranian government policy, but the New York Times's hanging a story on the possibility left open by Secretary Gates is a laughable exercise in selective credulity. Kenneth Timmerman addresses the subject in a New York Post column today. ...
See previous:
*** Iran's Iraq Meddling: Hanging Tough Against Weasels
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
February 19, 2007 -- THERE'S a new myth being pumped by the anti-Bush crowd, that somehow the president is once again "hyping" intelligence to make the case for war.
This time it's Iran and the allegedly hyped intelligence concerns Iran's involvement in Iraq, as well as the administration's interpretation of Iran's motives and intentions.
The anti-Bush crowd is concerned that Bush's new, hard-headed approach to Iranian terrorists operating in Iraq is actually beginning to show results, and it is desperate to sabotage any political benefit the president might derive from this success.
"If the administration believes that any, any use of force against Iran is necessary, the president must come to Congress to seek that authority," Sen. Hil- lary Rodham Clinton huffed on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Wednesday.
The president's Jan. 10 speech announcing his new Iraq policy was followed by immediate action on the ground. That night, American and Iraqi forces raided an Iranian intelligence headquarters in the northern city of Irbil, nabbing six Iranians, including three top Revolutionary Guards commanders.
These and other Iranians captured over the past 18 months have yielded detailed intelligence on Iran's penetration of Iraq and its supply of a new type of armor-piercing, improvised, explosive device to Iraqi insurgents.
U.S. military briefers in Baghdad showed journalists some of the Iranian weapons and other intelligence material on Feb. 11. They revealed that the expeditionary forces of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, known as the Quds force, "trains extremists and insurgents in terrorist tactics and guerilla warfare" and "supports terrorism by providing advice, training and weapons to insurgents and terrorist groups."
Within days, this information was challenged, with journalists pummeling the president at a news conference with allegations that all of this was somehow a "rogue operation" that bore no relationship to the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
That's like saying that the 1,854 U.S. Marines on board the USS Boxer, now cruising in the Persian Gulf, have somehow appeared out of nowhere without the knowledge or approval of the U.S. government.
The Quds force is an integral part of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, and reports through the chain of command to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Its mission is terrorism. ...
*** The Covert War with Iran
by Herschel Smith
Syria and Iran could not tolerate an American success in Iraq, because it would fatally undermine the authority of the tyrants in Damascus and Tehran. Since the United States has taken too long to move on from Afghanistan to challenge the regimes of the terror masters, they had forged an alliance and would co-operate in sending terror squads against coalition armed forces, with the intention of repeating the Lebanese scenarios in the mid-Eighties (against the United States) and the late Nineties (against Israel) — Michael Ledeen, before the invasion of Iraq.
Michael Ledeen has given us compelling argument to see the war in the Middle East as running through Syria directly to Iran. The war. The Isreal-Hezballah war, and OIF … the war. It is all the same war, argues Ledeen. Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming. It has been well known for some time that Iran has provided training, funding, weapons and equipment for terrorists inside Iraq.
Iranians have been caught destroying oil pipelines in Iraq under orders from Iranian intelligence. IED technology has been developed in Iran, tested by Hezballah in the recent war with Israel, and shipped to Iraq, this IED technology having an unmistakable Iranian signature. In response to “the surge,” dozens of Iranian Intelligence officers were taking positions around Baghdad, in Salman Pak, Hilla and Kut, in preparation for an attack to drive out the remaining Sunni population from districts on the Rusafa side, east of Baghdad, in order to assume full control by Shi’ite political parties loyal to Iran.
Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, an accomplished terrorist, serves as an Iranian agent in the Iraqi Parliament. Moqtada al Sadr is apparently not the Iraqi patriot he has been made out to be, as it appears now that not only was he smuggled off to Iran, but the high level leaders of the Mahdi army were as well (see also here). It is old and tired, this argument on the question whether the insurgents are domestic or foreigners. Iran and Syria are behind much of the trouble in Iraq. The Iranian investment of human resources inside Iraq and as a safe haven for the Sadrists, Badr Brigade and other terrorists is as unmistakable as it is remarkable. Recently seized Iranian intelligence documents detail the mayhem Iran has planned and executed inside Iraq.
The activity of Iranian intelligence and the Quds forces and the flight of the Mahdi army leadership to Iran are not reflexive. It must be seen within the context of the broader war with Iran.
*** BBC: U.S. plans for attack on Iran revealed (again)
Allahpundit
Quite the bombshell they’ve got this afternoon. Not only is it uselessly vague, but this is at least the sixth time the plans have been “revealed”: the Daily Telegraph promised last-resort missile strikes last February, then Sy Hersh tossed tactical nukes into the mix for the New Yorker, then Raw Story promised a punishing carrier/B-2 campaign, then last month Reuters warned of a comprehensive attack against the Iranian air force, subs, missile batteries, etc., and then last week the Guardian fretted that targets had been selected and military assets put in place. I probably missed another half-dozen major media “revelations” between summer and winter of ‘06, but why bother digging them up? They all say the same thing: a sustained attack targeting not just the Iranian nuclear plants but the country’s major military targets and infrastructure. Which, logically, is the only kind of attack you could and should wage if you’re going to strike.
So here’s the Beeb blowing the lid off a story whose lid has been blown off again and again and again: ...
*** Report: US's 'Iran Attack Plans' Revealed!!!
Greg Tinti
Uh, apparently we have plans to bomb a lot shit if things go down. US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.
It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres.
The US insists it is not planning to attack, and is trying to persuade Tehran to stop uranium enrichment.
The UN has urged Iran to stop the programme or face economic sanctions.
But diplomatic sources have told the BBC that as a fallback plan, senior officials at Central Command in Florida have already selected their target sets inside Iran.
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies.
Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran.
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Jules C.: Six Attack Plans and a Hanging
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