Finally! I've dropped numerous hints over the last few months of Iranian involvement in Iraq, but I never went into detail. Now, thankfully, this is the story that has informed my Iranian comments. I didn't want to spill too much of the beans because it's not cool to scoop your own magazine on a blog, but this is an important story. I wish I could say I contributed to it, but Mick is a hell of a reporter and this is his baby.
Iran's role in Iraq
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TIME magazine is running a story in which it purports to have evidence, gained as part of an investigative report, documenting widespread Iranian interference in Iraq both prior to and since the U.S.-led invasion. The report, breathless in terms of... Read More
This guy knew some stuff about this, but someone he knows beat him to it... http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2005/08/irans_role_in_i.php (this is a great site anyway, he calls it 3.0 because it's his third time living there. now he's in baghdad.) Fro Read More
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About me
Hi there! Thanks for stopping in. I'm Christopher Allbritton, former AP and New York Daily News reporter. In 2002, I went stumbling around Iraqi Kurdistan, the northern part of Iraq outside Saddam's direct control, looking for stories. (Some might call it "looking for trouble.") In March 2003, I made it back in time for the war, becoming the Web's first fully reader-funded journalist-blogger. With the support of thousands of readers, we raised almost $15,000. You can read my dispatches here. It was one of the moments in journalism when everything worked. It was a grand -- and successful -- experiment in independent journalism. In 2004, I moved to Iraq, where I would spend the next two years. It was a raucous, scary and exciting place with a lot of news going on. But I've since moved on to Beirut and the wider region. I now report for a variety of outlets.
That’s quite a story. But I wish they wouldn’t start out quoting Rumsfeld and U.S. military sources - they’re obviously in no position to be candid and there is the tendency to see boogiemen in the fog of war. The view from Iraqis on the ground is more compelling.
thank you for your work in the past, but, relying upon defense department sources is a tad naive at this point in the game. please cancel my subscription to your posts. come home safely.
And now the plot thickens. It’ll be interesting to see how the Bush administration is going to deal with fighting such action in Iran given it has limited resources and no international support. Further, given how lukewarm at best other countries in the region feel about the situation in Iraq, Bush and Co. face few options on a very dangerous path. An invasion of Iran would not only radicalize the Shia, but most likely destabilize Jordan, and put Syria on the defensive (no more border cooperation at all). Pakistan’s gov’t might also be destabilized. Let’s not even ponder what would go down in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or even moderate gov’t like Morroco. While this may be great reporting, it’s hardly news any of us should want to hear right now.
If you think an invasion of Iran is in the cards I think you are mistaken, but if they go ahead and nuke the place that will make the US a pariah in international circles, who would not condemn us. The Brits? Even they would have to step back. Still I put nothing past these clowns and it just gets worse daily as more and more secrets are coming out.
Still waiting the draft constitution, there is an urgent need to restore the power of the law, a law that no one is above it…Iraq had an interim constitution since 50 years, and they are working on the permanent constitution since two years…
PS. Failure is not an option neither for the Iraqis nor for the Americans…
Well, I’ve read the whole Time report. I don’t think there is much new in it : there are months that the followers of Moktada Sadr are intimidating women who don’t wear a veil, or are blowing up beauty salons and barber’s shops and liquor shops. After the US destroyed the whole state structures, the clerics were the only organized structure, so of course, they took hold of everything. If you read the blog of Zeyad “Healing Iraq”, he reports about all that pretty well. However Moktada Sadr isn’t purely sold to the Iranians, even if he receives money from them. The Iranians are probably supporting quite a lot of other Shiites groups, for instance the Badr brigades of the SCIRI, that’s not new, they were in Iran during Saddam’s regime already. Further, is it really a matter of surprise that the Iranians massed troops on their borders as the US invaded Iraq ? Given they were put on the axe of evil by Bush, they had reasons to watch their borders.
The link to Hezbollah also sounds curious : I don’t think that the well trained troops of Saddams who have endured the Iran/Iraq war need to learn with exterior elements how to make more powerfull bombs…
To sum it up : I’ve no doubts that Iranians are trying to turn the situation in their favor, after all, they have some reason to be warry of US goals. But the whole article looks as if the Pentagon was once more hyping a few elements in order to prepare the US to a new war or at least some attacks.
What with Iraqi Prime Minister Jaafari recently travelling to Teheran to put flowers on Ayatollah Khomeini’s grave, close relations between Iran and Iraq are something Chris and his chum at Time are going to have to get used to.
The Time article, as Christiane notes, looks like the same hogwash we got over Saddam’s non-existant weapons, helping set the agenda for another attack, this time on Iran.
Chris: All the infrmation comes from the same folks who brought you the war to stop WMD. Iran was their primary aim for a dozen years before any of this got started. leaked government documents, unnamed sources, ex Iranian agaents; come on…doesn’t that sound a tad familiar?
I hope Mick is heads up, it looks like he could end up being the next Judith Miller!
Stay safe,
Kim