Exaggerated Intelligence, Iranian Edition

Over and over again, we've heard blame cast on the Iranians for the explosive devices killing our servicemen in Iraq. Despite the fact that it was President Bush who lost 380 tons of nuclear-weapons grade C4 explosive in Iraq, we are subjected to a dishonest search for the source of these explosive attacks - a dishonest search with a politically convenient answer. Given how little HMX or RDX it takes to construct an Explosive Formed Projectile - the type of IED powerful enough to destroy a M1 Abrams, for god's sake - to cast about for a mysterious cause to this deadly effect goes beyond self-delusion into the realm of the phony. How can policy makers not remember that 380 tons of this stuff went missing when we left it unguarded for a few months after the invasion? Of course, they do remember, but it's just so embarrassing that it's better not to admit anything. Plus, as I said, forgetting this key piece of incompetence has the politically convenient consequence of allowing blame to be cast on the newest Tiny Hitler.

Reporting from the Washington Post lends support:

Since late August, British commandos in the deserts of far southeastern Iraq have been testing one of the most serious charges leveled by the United States against Iran: that Iran is secretly supplying weapons, parts, funding and training for attacks on U.S.-led forces in Iraq. . . . . There's just one thing.

"I suspect there's nothing out there," the commander, Lt. Col. David Labouchere, said last month, speaking at an overnight camp near the border. "And I intend to prove it."

Other senior British military leaders spoke as explicitly in interviews over the previous two months. Britain, whose forces have had responsibility for security in southeastern Iraq since the war began, has found nothing to support the Americans' contention that Iran is providing weapons and training in Iraq, several senior military officials said.

"I have not myself seen any evidence -- and I don't think any evidence exists -- of government-supported or instigated" armed support on Iran's part in Iraq, British Defense Secretary Des Browne said in an interview in Baghdad in late August.

So, as with the debate before Iraq there are the occasional voices of reason and fact speaking out against the tide of war-loving sentiment inside the Republican Party. Hopefully Her Majesty's Lt. Col. Labouchere will take his responsibility seriously. If he intends to "prove it," he must follow through if his warnings are ignored and speak out publicly and forcefully. At this point, though, after the universally recognized travesty that is the Iraq War, I doubt the voices of dissent will be as thoroughly marginalized. They should be sought out.