Amy Goodman: Why is the WH Pretending That Saudi Insurgents in Iraq Are Iranian?

[babylonsister]

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/57391

Why Is the White House Pretending That Saudi Insurgents in Iraq Are Iranian?

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. Posted July 20, 2007.

Nearly half of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops in Iraq have come from Saudi Arabia -- an inconvenient truth for the White House papered over with the lie that Iran is the chief instigator.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting nearly half of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops in Iraq have come from Saudi Arabia – one of Washington's closest allies in the Middle East. U.S. officials have so far refused to publicly criticize Saudi Arabia's role in Iraq, focusing instead on Iran. Democracy Now! spoke with an L.A. Times correspondent in Iraq, Ned Parker, and Toby Jones, a former Persian Gulf analyst with the International Crisis Group and history professor at Rutgers University.

Amy Goodman: We go now to Iraq to speak with Ned Parker, staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He joins us from Baghdad. Ned Parker recently wrote a widely read article on how Sunni militants from Saudi Arabia make up half the foreign fighters in Iraq. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Ned Parker. We saw over and over again on the Senate floor, as ultimately the attempt to pass the resolution that would begin withdrawal of troops from Iraq was defeated, we saw Iran raised and the idea that in Iraq US soldiers were fighting off Iranian insurgents, and that was part of what the battle in Iraq was all about, taking on Iran. You found that, in fact, there are more Saudi than Iranian foreign fighters in Iraq. How do you know this?

Ned Parker: Well, I mean, the Iranian issue is complicated, to say the least. And I don't -- it's from America's, US military's own numbers about foreign fighters in Iraq, that there are more Saudis fighting in Iraq than Iranians. I mean, that said, the Iranian element, there's no doubt that the Iranians are involved in Iraq, and if they are backing Shia militias, the military believes that this is with full government backing.

The Saudi issue is more complicated, because it's not really clear what the Saudi government is really doing. Are they actively involved in sending these Saudi fighters to Iraq, or are they just sort of letting it happen as a way to pressure the Shia government there? So, and then, Saudis are the United States's allies , so there's all that at play.

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[liberal N proud]

1. Same reason the 9/11 hijackers were from Iraq

Propaganda to sell the story the regime wants the public to believe

[Botany]

2. When the truth is ugly ..... sell the lie.

Saudi money & people ran the 9/11 attacks
U.A.E. banks funded it (9/11)
Paki Military intel helped plan it (9/11)

So our problems in Iraq must be Iran's fault.

[niceypoo]

3. This has been known for years

Why did it take so long for democrats to begin talking about it? They should have been screaming this from the rooftops in 03.

Having said that, It will be interesting to see how the democrats handle the barrage of lies that will come from the whitehouse and republican party to obfuscate this fact. Will they lie down and be mowed over by the GOP lie machine, as in the past, or will they adamantly hold up the truth?

[flyarm]

4. k&r