Los Angeles Times - Scant evidence found of Iran-Iraq arms link

THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ: THE IRAN FACTOR

Scant evidence found of Iran-Iraq arms link

U.S. warnings of advanced weaponry crossing the border are overstated,
critics say.

By Alexandra Zavis and Greg Miller
Times Staff Writers
January 23, 2007

BAQUBAH, IRAQ -- If there is anywhere Iran could easily stir up
trouble in Iraq, it would be in Diyala, a rugged province along the
border between the two nations.

The combination of Sunni Arab militants believed to be affiliated with
Al Qaeda and Shiite Muslim militiamen with ties to Iran has fueled
waves of sectarian and political violence here. The province is
bisected by long-traveled routes leading from Iran to Baghdad and
Shiite holy cities farther south in Iraq.

But even here, evidence of Iranian involvement in Iraq's troubles is
limited. U.S. troops have found mortars and antitank mines with
Iranian markings dated 2006, said U.S. Army Col. David W. Sutherland,
who oversees the province. But there has been little sign of more
advanced weaponry crossing the border, and no Iranian agents have been
found.

In his speech this month outlining the new U.S. strategy in Iraq,
President Bush promised to "seek out and destroy" Iranian networks
that he said were providing "advanced weaponry and training to our
enemies." He is expected to strike a similar note in tonight's State
of the Union speech.

For all the aggressive rhetoric, however, the Bush administration has
provided scant evidence to support these claims. Nor have reporters
traveling with U.S. troops seen extensive signs of Iranian
involvement. During a recent sweep through a stronghold of Sunni
insurgents here, a single Iranian machine gun turned up among dozens
of arms caches U.S. troops uncovered. British officials have similarly
accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs, but say they have not found
Iranian-made weapons in areas they patrol.

The lack of publicly disclosed evidence has led to questions about
whether the administration is overstating its case. Some suggest Bush
and his aides are pointing to Iran to deflect blame for U.S. setbacks
in Iraq. Others suggest they are laying the foundation for a military
strike against Iran.

Before invading Iraq, the administration warned repeatedly that Saddam
Hussein was developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Those
statements proved wrong. The administration's charges about Iran sound
uncomfortably familiar to some. "To be quite honest, I'm a little
concerned that it's Iraq again," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, head of
the Senate Intelligence Committee, said last week, referring to the
administration's comments on Iran.

*

Lowered credibility

The accusations of Iranian meddling "illustrate what may be one of our
greatest problems," said Anthony Cordesman, a former Defense
Department official and military expert at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies in Washington.

"We are still making arguments from authority without detail and
explanation. We're making them in an America and in a world where we
really don't have anything like the credibility we've had in the
past."

Few doubt that Iran is seeking to extend its influence in Iraq. But
the groups in Iraq that have received the most Iranian support are not
those that have led attacks against U.S. forces. Instead, they are
nominal U.S. allies.

The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the two
largest parties in parliament, is believed to be the biggest
beneficiary of Iranian help. The Shiite group was based in Iran during
Hussein's reign, and Iran's Revolutionary Guard trained and equipped
its Badr Brigade militia.

But the Supreme Council also has strong U.S. connections. Bush played
host to the head of the party, Abdelaziz Hakim, at the White House in
December, and administration officials have frequently cited Adel
Abdul Mehdi, another party leader, as a person they would like to see
as Iraq's prime minister.

The Islamic Dawa Party of Iraq's current prime minister, Nouri Maliki,
also has strong ties to Iran.
Some U.S. officials have also suggested that Iran, a Shiite theocracy,
has provided aid to the Sunni insurgents, who have led most of the
attacks against U.S. forces. Private analysts and other U.S. officials
doubt that. Evidence is stronger that the Iranians are supporting a
Shiite group that has attacked U.S. forces, the Al Mahdi militia,
which is loyal to radical cleric Muqtada Sadr.

Top U.S. intelligence officials have been making increasingly
confident assertions about Iran.

"I've come to a much darker interpretation of Iranian actions in the
past 12 to 18 months," CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said in recent
congressional testimony. Previously, Tehran's priority was to maneuver
for a stable Iraq dominated by its Shiite majority, but that attitude
has changed, he said.

"There is a clear line of evidence that points out the Iranians want
to punish the United States, hurt the United States in Iraq, tie down
the United States in Iraq," he said.

One high-ranking intelligence official in Washington acknowledged a
lack of "fidelity" in the intelligence on Iran's activities, saying
reports are sometimes unclear because it is difficult to track weapons
and personnel that might be flowing across the long and porous border.
But U.S. forces have picked up specially shaped charges used to make
roadside bombs capable of penetrating advanced armor, he said, with
markings that could be traced to Iran and dates that were recent. The
markings have been found on the devices themselves or the crates in
which they were smuggled into the country, he said.

"Two years ago we were debating whether this was really happening,"
the official said. "Now the debate is over."

*

Documents withheld

U.S. officials have declined to provide documentation of seized
Iranian ordnance despite repeated requests. The U.S. military often
releases photographs of other weapons finds.

British government officials, including Prime Minister Tony Blair,
have also accused Iran of supplying advanced explosive devices to
Iraq.

Blair said a year ago that the weapons bore the hallmarks of Iran or
Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon. But British officers
stationed in Iraq at the time said they had seized no such weapons in
the districts for which they had responsibility.

"We do have intelligence which suggests that weapons and ammunition
are being smuggled in from Iran," Maj. David Gell, a spokesman for
British forces in Basra, said last week. "We don't always manage to
find any."

U.S. military officials in Diyala have had the same experience. No
munitions or personnel have been seized at the border, officers said.
Sutherland, the U.S. colonel who oversees Diyala, believes that Tehran
is prepared to work with any group, Shiite or Sunni, that can tie up
U.S. forces. But State Department and intelligence officials have
privately expressed doubts that Iranians are helping Sunnis.

Sunni insurgents in Diyala don't appear to need outside suppliers.
They exploit massive weapons stashes containing materiel dating back
to the Iran-Iraq war, when Hussein had a major military base in the
area. U.S. military officials say they have found the type of shaped
charges they attribute to Iran and Hezbollah in majority-Shiite parts
of the province.

Outside military analysts have questioned how many of these sorts of
weapons actually come from Iran. The technology used to make them is
simple and widely known in the Middle East, they note. Iran is a
likely source for some of the more sophisticated devices, but other
countries could also be pitching in.

"A lot of rather sophisticated weapons have actually been released by
Syria," said Peter Felstead, editor of the London-based Jane's Defense
Weekly.

Others note that smugglers could be bringing weapons across the border
from Iran without government approval.

*

'They are significant'

A second high-ranking U.S. intelligence official in Washington
acknowledged that only a "small percentage" of explosions in Iraq
could be linked to shaped charges coming from Iran.

"But in terms of American casualties, they are significant," he said,
because they are much more lethal than standard roadside bombs.
A senior U.S. military intelligence official said coalition forces in
Iraq had also found shaped charges "in the presence of Iranians
captured in the country." He declined to elaborate but noted that U.S.
operatives who raided an Iranian office in the Iraqi city of Irbil
this month captured documents and computer drives he called a
"treasure trove" on Iran's "networks, supply lines, sourcing and
funding."

Five Iranians were taken into custody in the raid, prompting angry
protests from the Iraqi government.

U.S. intelligence officials emphasized that Iran intentionally stops
short of steps that would be seen as direct provocation and provide
justification for a military response. For example, Iran has refrained
from supplying Shiite militias with surface-to-air missiles and other
weaponry that was part of Hezbollah's arsenal in its fight with Israel
last summer, they said.

A high-ranking U.S. intelligence official called it a "careful
calibration" that probably reflected disagreements within the Islamic
regime. "I don't doubt that Iranian national security council meetings
are very contentious," the official said.