PDA

View Full Version : U.S. weighs divulging Iran-Iraq proof



BigBadBrian
02-11-2007, 07:16 AM
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is haunted by the history of intelligence blunders about Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction as the United States tries to document that Iran is providing lethal help to Iraqi fighters.


After weeks of preparation and revisions, U.S. officials are preparing to detail evidence supporting administration's claims of Iran's meddlesome and deadly activities. A briefing was scheduled Sunday in Baghdad.

The Iran dossier, some 200 pages thick in its classified form, was revised heavily after officials decided it was not ready for release as planned last month. What is made public probably would be short, and shorter on details than the administration recently had suggested.

No one who has seen the files has suggested the evidence is thin. But senior officials — gun-shy after the drubbing the administration took for the faulty intelligence leading to the 2003 Iraq invasion — were underwhelmed by the packaging.

Officials from several intelligence agencies scrutinized the presentation to make sure it was clear and that "we don't in any way jeopardize our sources and methods in making the presentation," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday.

National security adviser Stephen Hadley recently said some Iran material was overstated. Privately, officials say they want to avoid the kind of gaffe akin to former Secretary of State Colin Powell's case for war before the United Nations in 2003.

"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions," Powell said as he laid out unproven claims of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. "What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." It later turned out that Iraq did not have such weapons.

The evidence on Iran is intended to give backbone to the administration's claim that an emboldened Iran is playing a dangerous game across the Middle East: meddling in conflicts and planting terrorism beyond its borders while rushing to acquire nuclear know-how that could produce a bomb.

Government officials familiar with the dossier's documents and slides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the materials still were classified, said they make a compelling case about Iranian actions in Iraq.

Among the evidence the administration planned to present are weapons that were seized over time in U.S.-led raids on caches around Iraq, said one military official. Other evidence includes documents captured when U.S.-led forces raided an Iranian office Jan. 11 in Irbil, a city in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq about 220 miles north of Baghdad, this official said.

In that raid, the U.S. captured five Iranians. They included the operations chief and other members of Iran's elite Quds Force, which is accused of arming and training Iraqi militants. Tehran said it was a government liaison office and called for the release of the five, along with compensation for damages.

The dossier also details Iran's role in providing Iraqi fighters with the "explosively formed penetrator" devices that can pierce the armor of Abrams tanks with nearly molten-hot charges. One intelligence official said the U.S. is "fairly comfortable" that it knows with some precision the origin of those Iranian-made explosives.

While traveling in Europe on Friday, Gates said that serial numbers and markings on explosives used in Iraq provide "pretty good" evidence that Iran is providing either weapons or technology for militants there. Gates did not how the U.S. knows that, and officials in Washington declined comment.

A senior U.S. government official said Saturday that members of Congress were shown proof in December. "I'm convinced from what I've seen that the Iranians are supplying and are giving assistance to the people in Iraq who are killing American soldiers," said independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

The evidence in the dossier also includes what is known about Iranian efforts to train Iraqis in making bombs, using firearms and other military skills. But officials described internal disagreement about how closely Iranians can be linked to the training: Is there an Iranian in a classroom or some other setting showing Iraqis how to place and detonate roadside bombs?

That, the official said, is less clear.

Analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Office of the National Intelligence Director and elsewhere have been double- and triple-checking the information to ensure it is well supported.

Officials said that is particularly the case when the material comes from sources with agendas. For instance, groups such as the Mujahedeen Khalq, which advocates for the overthrow of Iran's rulers, have provided some useful information to the United States in the past, but officials said material from them and other similar sources must be handled carefully.

The vigorous fact-checking brings up a recurring problem: the precise nature of Iran's actions is often murky, but the intelligence must be solid. After mistakes on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, U.S. officials recognize there is skepticism about U.S. intelligence claims.

Link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070210/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iran_intelligence)

Nickdfresh
02-11-2007, 08:22 AM
What about proof that China, Saudi Arabia, and possibly Russia are assisting Sunni insurgents?

Is Bouche too much of a pussy to release that? Or is it that he just picks out politically convenient nations to attack?

LoungeMachine
02-11-2007, 09:43 AM
Too Bad Colin Powell can't present it this time.

Nickdfresh
02-11-2007, 10:25 AM
U.S. Keeps Pressure on Iran But Decreases Saber Rattling

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/10/AR2007021001275.html) Staff Writer
Sunday, February 11, 2007; A18

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates insisted again Friday that, despite persistent reports to the contrary circulating in Washington and around the world, the United States is not planning military action against Iran.

"I don't know how many times the president, Secretary Rice and I have had to repeat that we have no intention of attacking Iran," an exasperated Gates told reporters at a NATO meeting in Spain. In fact, he said, the administration has consciously tried to "tone down" its rhetoric on the subject.

Similar statements in recent weeks by President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and others follow a high-level policy assessment in January that U.S. and multilateral pressure on Tehran, to the surprise of many in the administration, might be showing signs of progress.

Officials highlighted growing internal public and political criticism of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as the reemergence, after months of public silence, of Tehran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani. Larijani arrived in Munich yesterday for talks with European Union officials.

As a result, new talking points distributed to senior policymakers in the administration directed them to actively play down any suggestion of war planning.

Such demurrals are not meant to suggest that the administration will stop pressing Iran on several fronts or that it expects Iranian behavior to change soon. Warnings of new sanctions if Tehran does not suspend its nuclear enrichment program, the dispatch of a second carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf, presidential authorization to treat Iranian intelligence and paramilitary operatives in Iraq as "enemy combatants," and encouragement of Sunni Arab states to take a united stand against Iranian aggression are all designed to convince Tehran that "we have options" and are prepared to use them, a senior administration official said.

"We're a power, too," is the message to Tehran, the official said. "Your power is not unlimited. You can't go anywhere and do anything you want."

The changed rhetoric also stems from a growing foreign policy "maturity" within the administration, according to foreign diplomats and senior officials who agreed to discuss the issue on the condition of anonymity. They described a new attitude, born of the administration's awareness that the Iraq war has left it with a wide credibility gap at home and abroad and the realization that military action against Iran would strain U.S. capabilities, undercut other goals and possibly explode into a regional conflagration. Internal discussion has also focused on the likelihood that an attack could destroy whatever political plurality exists in Iran by uniting even those opposed to Ahmadinejad in a wave of anti-U.S. nationalism.

"It's very important that we proceed carefully, patiently and with some skill," said Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, who by all accounts is playing a lead role in formulating Iran policy. "We believe that diplomacy can succeed. We're focused on that. We're not focused on a military conflict with Iran."

Some senior administration officials still relish the notion of a direct confrontation. One ambassador in Washington said he was taken aback when John Hannah, Vice President Cheney's national security adviser, said during a recent meeting that the administration considers 2007 "the year of Iran" and indicated that a U.S. attack was a real possibility. Hannah declined to be interviewed for this article.

However, sources described agreement among the Bush administration and leading governments in Europe and the Middle East -- including those in Britain, France, Germany and Saudi Arabia -- over consistent but measured pressure on Tehran. They said close consultations, a stark contrast to deep divisions over the U.S. invasion of Iraq, have become self-reinforcing for Washington and its allies.

Upcoming events are likely to test U.S. patience. The Tehran government has promised a "significant" nuclear announcement today, following a 10-day celebration of the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. Among the possibilities, U.S. officials and experts believe, is a declaration that Iran has moved from experimental to industrial-scale enrichment. Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is purely for peaceful energy purposes, while the West has accused Tehran of secretly trying to build an atomic weapon.

Later this month, the U.N. Security Council will convene to judge Iranian compliance with a unanimous December resolution giving the nation until Feb. 21 to suspend all enrichment and reprocessing activities. Anticipating a negative finding, the administration is readying a new resolution to increase Iran's isolation. Among other measures, officials are considering charging Iran with violating U.N. resolutions that prohibit member countries from harboring or assisting known terrorists. Tehran has refused to hand over a number of senior al-Qaeda operatives it has claimed to be holding under "house arrest" for years.

This week, the administration plans to publicly present evidence of an Iranian role in supplying lethal weaponry to Shiite militias in Iraq. The weapons, including a sophisticated, armor-piercing explosive device, have been used almost exclusively against U.S. forces in Iraq and are considered responsible for numerous military deaths over the past two years. Gates said on Friday that Iran has been conclusively linked to the weapons through serial numbers and other markings on the bombs.

But initial plans to lay out a broad case of Iranian involvement in Iraq were shelved two weeks ago. Sources said policymakers acknowledged that they risked a repeat of the now-discredited weapons of mass destruction charges used to justify the Iraq invasion and wanted to avoid any embellishing. "We're not saying the Iranians pulled the trigger," one administration official said. "They provided the technology."

That expanded presentation would have appeared to contradict a new National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Iran, despite the attacks against U.S. forces, is not a significant factor in the sectarian violence in Baghdad.

Over the past two years, the administration has pursued different tracks to stymie increasingly bold Iranian activities. In March 2005, the United States signed on to an unsuccessful effort by Britain, France and Germany to begin negotiations with Iran over its nuclear enrichment activities. Although the administration offered early last year to open bilateral talks on Iraq between the United States and Iranian ambassadors in Baghdad, it subsequently "pulled the plug" on the initiative, one official said, after the Iraqi government objected and Iran tried to expand a planned session to include all outstanding issues between the two countries.

The administration warned Iran against efforts to block oil-shipment lanes in the Persian Gulf. It publicly accused Iran of helping to instigate last summer's war between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah and of trying, through its support for Hezbollah, to overthrow the elected government in Beirut. It also escalated its allegations of Iranian interference in Iraq.

It was not until a series of high-level policy meetings last fall, which included the president, that the various tracks began to meld into a coordinated effort. "There was not a presidential directive," said a senior official who participated in the process, "but there was a very active interagency discussion. We talked about measures to take, and sequencing."

U.S. officials decided to push for a new U.N. Security Council resolution imposing a 60-day deadline for Iran to suspend nuclear activities or risk sanctions, and imposed unilateral restrictions on Iranian banks. They repeated the U.S. refusal to hold bilateral talks on the nuclear issue until Iran's program was ended.

Bush authorized U.S. military forces to capture and kill, if necessary, identified Iranian intelligence and paramilitary operatives in Iraq, and increased covert intelligence activities against Iranian-backed forces in Lebanon. A second carrier battle group was sent to the Persian Gulf region, while officials emphasized that it had no "offensive" mission against Iran. Cheney flew to Riyadh to consult with Saudi King Abdullah.

At the same time, the administration tried to increase its appeal to an Iranian public that it determined was increasingly disenchanted with Ahmadinejad. The State Department launched, for the first time since relations were severed in 1979, a series of educational and professional exchanges with Iran.

In December, a group of Iranian physicians and medical academics came to the United States for a three-week public health program. Last month, 20 American athletes and coaches from USA Wrestling were greeted with a standing ovation when they competed in the Takhti Cup in Bandar Abbas, Iran. A reciprocal trip by Iranian wrestlers is planned for spring, along with a visit by Iranian disaster-relief professionals.

As different elements of the policy were pulled together, the administration found that its European and Arab partners thought it had adopted the right approach and appeared to strengthen their own resolve to pressure Iran. Last month's decision to dial back the war rhetoric came in response to concerns at home and abroad that the administration's saber rattling was drowning out its more finely calibrated strategy.

"We truly believe this combination can succeed," a senior official said. "We're not saying that it will."

hideyoursheep
02-11-2007, 10:51 AM
Originally posted by Nickdfresh
What about proof that China, Saudi Arabia, and possibly Russia are assisting Sunni insurgents?

Is Bouche too much of a pussy to release that? Or is it that he just picks out politically convenient nations to attack?

They capture some Iranians and get on the bullhorn.What about ALL the Saudis,Syrians and others we've been capturing for years? what an ASS!!

hideyoursheep
02-11-2007, 10:53 AM
Originally posted by LoungeMachine
Too Bad Colin Powell can't present it this time.

Fresh out of credible employees.And you know WHY he resigned.

hideyoursheep
02-11-2007, 11:12 AM
Originally posted by Nickdfresh
[b]...officials are considering charging Iran with violating U.N. resolutions that prohibit member countries from harboring or assisting known terrorists. Tehran has refused to hand over a number of senior al-Qaeda operatives it has claimed to be holding under "house arrest" for years.

*double take*

WTF? Now no one but the US can capture Al-Qaida?They're probably praying to Allah for a US waterboarding!