A Different Drummer

So after months of innuendo and suggestion that Iran is backing the Iraqi insurgency, and more than a year of fearmongering about Iran's nuclear program, the US has finally actually put some cards on the table, and shown to the world conclusive evidence of Iranian meddling in Iraq.

Having learned the lesson from 2003, where almost no evidence of Iraqi WMD was presented, and the evidence that was presented turning out to be fake, the US government has decided to take a far more open, transparent course this time round.

Well....kind of. The Washington Post on yesterdays briefing by US officials to the media:

"The officials said they would speak only on the condition of anonymity, so the explosives expert and the analyst, who would normally not speak to the news media, could provide information directly. The analyst's exact title and full name were not revealed to reporters. The officials released a PowerPoint presentation including photographs of the weaponry, but did not allow media representatives to record, photograph or videotape the briefing or the materials on display."

Ummm....OK then.

The WaPo continues:

"With so much official U.S. buildup about the purported evidence of Iranian influence in Iraq, the briefing was also notable for what was not said or shown. The officials offered no evidence to substantiate allegations that the "highest levels" of the Iranian government had sanctioned support for attacks against U.S. troops. Also, the military briefers were not joined by U.S. diplomats or representatives of the CIA or the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Although the administration has made many assertions about Iran's nuclear program, its role in Iraq and its ties to groups on the State Department's terrorism list, the U.S. government has never publicly offered evidence proving the allegations. The briefing was the first time during the Bush administration that officials had sought to make a public intelligence case against Iran."

For me, the most hilarious bit is this: They are saying that the precise machining of the parts and the high quality metals used in the "shaped, concave lid" of the explosive means it must have come from Iran, because it is apparently too complicated to have been made in Iraq. It's hilarious to hear the same US administration who three years ago were telling the world that Iraq had a WMD capacity that represented a grave threat to the whole world, now saying that Iraq basically can't manufacture a concave piece of high grade metal.

Read more about this in the New York Times or Washington Post, and you see just how lame and absurd this really is. But does it really matter? They could have paraded a bucket of KFC to the media and we'd still be bombing Iran in 6 months time....