February 13, 2007
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February 13, 2007 |
Military offers evidence of Iran arming Iraqi militants Sees high-level Tehran role
John Donnelly and Farah Stockman
WASHINGTON -- US military officials in Baghdad, presenting long-awaited evidence that Iran has been providing weaponry to Iraqi militants, said yesterday that Iranian security forces linked to the "highest levels" of the Iranian government have been smuggling explosives into Iraq for at least the past two years. The officials , who refused to be identified at the press conference, said the Iranian-supplied munitions had killed more than 170 coalition troops and wounded more than 620 others. They said the weapons were brought into Iraq under the direction of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which reports to Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The officials said they found no concrete military links to Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "The supreme leader's side of the government is the side of the government that we are most concerned about, because they are the policy making side of the government," a US military analyst said in Baghdad. "The Quds Force basically takes directions from the supreme leader." Several independent analysts in Washington said yesterday the latest allegations did not indicate that the Bush administration was preparing for a military attack on Iran. Senior US officials have repeatedly said in recent months that there are no plans for such an attack, and the analysts said they still believed that is the case. "I think this new information is one more piece of evidence the administration will use to convince the world to put more economic pressure on Iran, but I don't think it's the first step toward a war with Iran," said Michael E. O'Hanlon , a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, a centrist Washington think-tank. Several foreign policy specialists said US and Iraqi military units will probably widen a hunt for Iranian forces inside Iraq, but would be reluctant to push the battle into Iran. Still, said O'Hanlon, hedging, "The fact that this is the Bush administration, the authors of the 'axis of evil' concept, makes you think they could be up to something more." Patrick Clawson , deputy director of research for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy , said he expected the US military would now more aggressively pursue Iranian forces inside Iraq. He said the Bush administration is faced with a delicate task of striking a balance in its response. He noted in particular that comments made Saturday by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who said at an international security conference in Germany that the United States was using an "almost uncontained hyper use of force" in the world. "The US has to balance out several competing different interests," Clawson said. "On one hand, if it opts for a more bellicose measure, you will see more comments like Mr. Putin's. . . . But if the perception in the region is that if Iran attacks American soldiers, and the US doesn't respond forcefully [in Iraq], there would be a lot of nervousness in Arab states" as well as in Israel, about Iran's use of military power.\ The US defense officials in Baghdad laid out rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, and an armor piercing explosive, known as "explosively formed penetrators," among other weapons they said had come from Iran through three border crossings with Iraq -- at Meran, Amarah, and near the southern city of Basra. They said they were releasing the information because "it's a force protection issue." Iranian officials immediately denounced the allegations as propaganda. The Bush administration has been steadily increasing the pressure on Iran in recent months, accusing Tehran of meddling in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip and of trying to develop a nuclear weapon. At a rally in Tehran yesterday, Ahmadinejad said Iran has a right to develop nuclear fuel and was not intending to build a nuclear weapon. The United Nations Security Council has set a Feb. 21 deadline for Iran to stop enriching uranium or face broader economic sanctions. European diplomats who have been working with the United States on sanctions have said they do not believe the Bush administration has decided to take military action against Iran. They said that Washington's increasing pressure on Iran could empower moderates there, and that military action would risk rallying the population behind extremists. The Bush administration has been compiling a dossier on Iranian interference in Iraq, but has twice delayed the presentation of that evidence because Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior officials did not believe the evidence was thorough enough to release to the public. But pieces of evidence have been released to reporters in recent days, including an assertion that serial numbers on explosive devices could be traced to Tehran. The allegations yesterday were the first time that US officials said senior Iranian officials were connected to the attacks. Trita Parsi , president of the National Iranian American Council, a Washington-based educational organization representing the Iranian American community and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, said "there is a tremendous amount of skepticism" about the US intelligence on Iran's activities in Iraq. "People fear this is about trying to expand the war into Iran or trying to pass blame onto Iran for the disaster in Iraq," he said. Several US specialists also have questioned why the Bush administration has placed such a high focus on the Iranian-supplied weapons in Iraq, since even by US estimates, they account for a small percentage of the total of US casualties. Kenneth Katzman , a Middle East researcher with Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress, said that Shi'ite militias were believed to be responsible for less than 10 percent of the total American deaths. He said most of the weapons Iran had been supplying the Shi'ite militias were believed to be for use against Sunnis. Shi'ite militias may be attacking US forces in retaliation for arrests of militia leaders, he said, but their attacks pale in comparison to the deaths inflicted by Sunni insurgents who are not believed to get assistance from Iran, he said. "The Shi'ite militias are not the key threat to US forces in Iraq, so the overall question is why is the US military making a huge issue of this?" he said. "I would say that it is part of broader strategy to contain Iran, to go after Iran's activities in Lebanon, in Iraq itself . . . . It is part of a broader picture." Globe wire services were used in this report. John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com.
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