Lie to me

Juan Cole responds to the recent administration claims of Iranian support of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq:

Anna Badkhen of the San Francisco Chronicle, who has reported from southern Iraq, examines the claims by US officials that Iran is sending bombs to Iraq to be used in the Sunni guerrilla insurgency.

The claim, by Rumsfeld and others, is so ridiculous that the proper response is to fall down laughing and to get off some kicks amidst the hilarity.

The problem is that this is no laughing matter; it is deadly serious.

Quoting from the referenced article (emphasis mine):

Rumsfeld called the smuggling "a problem for the coalition forces ... a problem for the international community, and ultimately ... a problem for Iran. "

British military commanders in Iraq and Iraqi officials are skeptical of the claims. Royal Marines Maj. Gen. Jim Dutton, commander of multinational forces in southeastern Iraq, said there was no proof that the weapons came from Iran, adding that there was "a lot of speculation" and "not many facts" about Iranian involvement with the insurgency.

Iraq's interior minister, Bayan Jabr, said the reports were "very much exaggerated," and Iran's defense minister, Ali Shamkhani, last week denied his country's "alleged involvement in bomb explosions."

Other experts point out that it is unlikely that Iran would be fueling an insurgency that is led primarily by Sunnis -- traditional opponents of Shiites -- and also one that is killing numerous Iraqi Shiites as well as U. S. and Iraqi security forces.

After listening to the CNN special, 'Dead Wrong:' Inside an Intelligence Meltdown on XM radio last night driving home from Boston, I can only say that the parallels are striking. The administration is once again, "fixing the facts around the policy". We are being marketed pure speculation as fact. Today's claims of the administration are no more believable than Cheney's statement of fact on MTP in the lead-up to the war in Iraq: "we know with certainty that Iraq has reconstituted its nuclear program".

To say that the administration learned anything from the numerous "investigations" into the failed intelligence, and its supposed mistakes in the lead-up to the war in Iraq given this latest line of BS eminating from the highest eschelons of the Bush administration, would require one to believe that they actually made any mistakes.

Unfortunately, they carried out their plan with precision.