U.S. Briefing on Iran Discredits the Official Line (GARETH PORTER)

[laststeamtrain]

U.S. Briefing on Iran Discredits the Official Line
Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Feb 13 (IPS) - The first major effort by the George W. Bush administration to substantiate its case that the Iranian government has been providing weapons to Iraqi Shiites who oppose the occupation undermines the administration's political line by showing that it has been unable to find any real evidence of an Iranian government role.

Contradicting recent claims by both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defence Robert Gates that U.S. intelligence had proof of Iranian government responsibility for the supply of such weapons, the unnamed officials who briefed the media Sunday admitted that the claim is merely "an inference" rather than based on a trail of evidence.

Although it was clearly not the intention, moreover, the briefing revealed for the first time that the Iranians and Iraqis detained by U.S. forces in recent months did not provide any evidence implicating either the Iranian government or the Islamic Revolutionary Guards in the acquisition of armour-piercing explosive devices and other weapons by Iraqi Shiite groups.

<snip>

By insisting that the Iranian government was involved, the Bush administration has conjured up the image of a smuggling operation so vast that it could not occur without official sanction. In fact, as Knights points out, the number of EFPs exploded monthly has remained at about 100, which clearly would not require high level connivance to maintain a flow of imports.

<snip>

In fact, the slide reveals that the smuggling is handled by what it calls "Iraqi extremist group members", not by the Qods Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The oral presentation accompanying the power point indicated that the smuggling had been carried out by "paid Iraqis", without specifying who was paying them, according to the New York Times report.

<more>

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36547

[rodeodance]

1. 'conjured up'---------and now ready for more deaths

[indepat]

2. The entire official line of this administration from the git-go has been conjured up

:)