Avram's journal

I’m willing to believe that Iranian munitions are finding their way into the hands of insurgents in Iraq. It’s entirely plausible. I’m even willing to believe that the Iranian government might be deliberately arming Iraqi insurgents. Despite that, I think expanding the war into Iran would be an even bigger disaster than it is in Iraq.

But look, Telegraph, if you’re going to run an article about allegedly Iranian munitions found in Iraq, well, first it would help if the anonymous American “senior defense department officials” making this claim were actually personally stand by their claims. Second, you might want to accompany the article with a photo of an actual Iranian mortar round, and not one from Pakistan. Here’s a hint: Iranian munitions are labeled in Farsi, complete with Farsi numerals.

Same for you, Washington Post, and you, LA Times.

Update: Don’t take this one to the bank. Turns out that maybe some Iranian munitions manufacturers do use western writing on their bombs. (That’s from a .IR domain, so it probably really is Iranian, though note that in the image the text is in a different font and different location on the mortar than in the US-released photo. Also, the Iranian image has obviously been Photoshopped.)

The anonymous American “explosives expert” said that the mortar’s tail fin was distinctively Iranian. Said tail fin is not visible in the released photos.

Also, General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was not aware of the briefing, and is not standing by the claim that the Iranian government is supplying Iraqis with weapons.

What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called "the Salvador option"—and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is. "What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are," one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. "We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing." Last November’s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking "the back" of the insurgency—as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time—than in spreading it out.

Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current administration officials who dealt with Central America back then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Under Reagan, he was ambassador to Honduras.)

Following that model, one Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions. It remains unclear, however, whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called "snatch" operations, in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation. The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries, officials tell NEWSWEEK.

Abu Mujahed, worryingly for the analysts, fits into none of these easy categories. For a start, he was pro-American before the invasion. 'The only way to breathe under the old regime was to watch American films and listen to their music,' he said. He had been a Bon Jovi fan.

'It gave me a glimpse of a better life. When I heard that the Americans were coming to liberate Iraq I was very happy. I felt that I would be able to live well, travel and have freedom. I wanted to do more sport, get new appliances and a new car and develop my life. I thought the US would come here and our lives would be changed through 180 degrees.'

He spoke of how his faith in the US was shaken when, via a friend's illicitly imported satellite TV system, he saw 'barbaric, savage' pictures of civilian casualties of the fighting and bombing. The next blow came in the conflict's immediate aftermath, as looters ran unchecked through Baghdad.

'When I saw the American soldiers watching and doing nothing as people took everything, I began to suspect the US was not here to help us but to destroy us,' he said.

Abu Mujahed, whose real name is not known by The Observer, said: 'I thought it might be just the chaos of war but it got worse, not better.'

He was not alone and swiftly found that many in the Adhamiya neighbourhood of Baghdad shared his anger and disappointment. The time had come. 'We realised. We had to act.'

In a nationally televised address, President George W. Bush revealed that the blame for the Iraqi prison abuse scandal would be transferred from the U.S. to the new Iraqi government on June 30.

“Accepting blame for the prison abuse scandal is an important step in Iraq’s evolution towards democracy,” Mr. Bush said, adding that accountability for the scandal must go to the highest levels of Iraq’s yet-to-be-appointed government.

[...] Prior to the president’s announcement, Mr. Rumsfeld had been bracing himself for the release of the Abu Ghraib Golden Edition DVD, including never-before-seen footage and special tormenters’ narration.

AFP reports that a column of Sunni and Shia Iraqis bulled through a Fallujah checkpoint to bring relief supplies to the embattled town. It's like the classic Silver Surfer comics from the 1960s, when the Surfer, appalled by humanity's fractiousness, launched demonstration attacks in hopes that he would inspire Earth to unite against him. Cool, we're the Silver Surfer! But I guess now we know what the government spokesmen meant when they said we were committed to the territorial integrity of Iraq.

March 2003: Weapons of mass destruction.
June 2003: Weapons of mass destruction programs.
October 2003: Weapons of mass destruction-related programs.
January 2004: Weapons of mass destruction-related program activities.

What Bush said in London:

Peoples of the Middle East share a high civilization, a religion of personal responsibility, and a need for freedom as deep as our own. It is not realism to suppose that one-fifth of humanity is unsuited to liberty; it is pessimism and condescension, and we should have none of it.

What US soldiers are saying in Iraq:

"You have to understand the Arab mind," Capt. Todd Brown, a company commander with the Fourth Infantry Division, said as he stood outside the gates of Abu Hishma. "The only thing they understand is force — force, pride and saving face." [...]

"With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them," [Lt. Col. Nathan ] Sassaman said.