Iranian embassy says U.S. military charges of Iranian involvement in Iraq are 'all lies'

[maddezmom]

BAGHDAD (CNN) -- Calling them "all lies," an Iranian embassy official Monday denied U.S. allegations that an elite Iranian force under the command of Iran's supreme leader is behind bombings that have killed coalition forces in Iraq.

"We dismissed all the American allegations. It's all lies and it's not true at all," the official told CNN. "The American administration has made many mistakes in Iraq and now they want to use Iran as a scapegoat."

The response from the Iranian embassy came as a U.S. military spokesman said one of its generals "misspoke" Sunday when he said the bombings had killed at least 170 U.S. forces in Iraq, changing the figure to include all forces in the coalition. The spokesman did not give a precise breakdown on the coalition fatalities or how the military came up with the overall figure.

CNN's Michael Ware attended a Sunday briefing by a senior defense official, a senior defense analyst and an explosives expert, all of whom asked to remain unnamed, in which they said only U.S. forces died in the bombings.

link: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/02/12/monday/index.html

[Lasher]

1. Nobody believes the USA any more.

Respect from other countries is just one of our many losses. Thanks a lot, Junior.

[ClintonTyree]

2. How many of those weapons that have killed our soldiers....

have Russian markings, even United States markings on them? When the U.S. first invaded Iraq they left huge arsenals of weapons and explosives unguarded (because they lacked the manpower to guard them) in their march to Baghdad. I'm sure some Iranian weapons are getting into Iraq, but singling them out as the root cause of the bloodshed is ridiculous. I'm sure more of our soldiers are getting killed by OUR OWN weapons than Iranian weapons, a fact the Bush administration is loathe to report because it would highlight their ineptness once again.

The Bush administration is looking for any excuse to punish Iran and, like the fabricated intelligence leading to the Iraq invasion, they'll probably "find" (manufacture) it. Is Iran totally without guilt in arming Iraqi insurgents? Highly doubtful. But are they the main source of the weaponry being used against our soldiers? Again, highly doubtful. Bush is looking for a fight with Iran and if Congress doesn't step in and stop the Bush cabal he'll probably find it.

[leftchick]

3. here is a great analysis of the LIES...

<snip>

The allegations by senior but unnamed U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington are bizarre. The U.S. has been fighting a Sunni insurgency in Iraq since 2003 that is deeply hostile to Iran.

The insurgent groups have repeatedly denounced the democratically elected Iraqi government as pawns of Iran. It is unlikely that the Sunni guerrillas have received significant quantities of military equipment from Tehran. Some 1,190 U.S. soldiers have been killed by so-called improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

But most of them consist of heavy artillery shells taken from the arsenals of the former regime and detonated by blasting caps wired to a small battery. The current is switched on either by a command wire or a simple device such as the remote control used for children's toys or to open garage doors.

Such bombs were used by guerrillas during the Irish war of independence in 1919-21 against British patrols and convoys. They were commonly used in the Second World War, when "shaped charges," similar in purpose to the EFPs of which the United States is now complaining, were employed by all armies. The very name -- explosive formed penetrators -- may have been chosen to imply that a menacing new weapon has been developed.

http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1171234212724&call_pageid=1020420665036&col=1112101662670

[Ian David]

4. All lies. Just like The Holocaust.

It's a shame that neither their regime, nor ours have any credibility.

(FYI: I'm not denying The Holocaust, just referencing the fact that Imadinnerjacket does).

I'm not buying Bush's bullshit.

I hope nobody else is, either.

[no_hypocrisy]

5. U.S. knows that it can make these assertions to its advantage because

Iran, in order to rebut the allegations, would have to prove that the "bombs" were manufactured and forwarded from another source. It certainly can't "prove a negative", that is, that Iran did not make the explosives, etc. That leaves Iran in a weaker position to defend itself against these claims.

What is needed is an objective uninvolved third party to examine fragments and other evidence to conclusively decide where the weapons came from.

[Eugene]

6. Reuters: Iran "shies away from any conflict" - Ahmadinejad

Iran "shies away from any conflict" - Ahmadinejad
12 Feb 2007 12:30:59 GMT
Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on
Monday his country "shies away from any conflict" and that peace would return to
Iraq only when U.S. and other foreign forces leave.

Ahmadinejad was speaking in an interview in Tehran with U.S. television network ABC.

"We shy away from any kind of conflict and any kind of bloodshed," he said. "We are
opposed to any kind of conflict and also the presence of foreign forces in Iraq and
that's why we are opposed to the presence of Americans."

"We tell them leave the country, and any other foreigners should leave the country
and there should be no foreigner in Iraq and then you see that you have peace.

Ahmadinejad dismissed U.S. accusations that Iran was fueling violence in Iraq by
suppling militants with weapons. He said the United States was trying to hide its
failures and defeat in Iraq by pointing the finger at others.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N12350861.htm

Also: EXCLUSIVE: Iranian President Denies Charges That Iran Is Arming Iraqi Insurgents - ABC News

[rodeodance]

7. Iran rejects U.S. accusations on Iraq

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070212/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_us_iraq;_ylt=Ak4lej.iimHZKOgGSxAyO5Gs0NUE

Iran rejects U.S. accusations on Iraq

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 48 minutes ago

TEHRAN, Iran -
Iran on Monday rejected U.S. accusations that the highest levels of Iranian leadership have armed Shiite militants in
Iraq with armor-piercing roadside bombs, a day after U.S. military officials in Baghdad said they had traced the weapons to Tehran.


"Such accusations cannot be relied upon or be presented as evidence. The United States has a long history in fabricating evidence. Such charges are unacceptable," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters.
.........
But Hosseini said Iran's top leaders were not intervening in Iraq and considered "any intervention in Iraq's internal affairs as a weakening of the popular Iraqi government, and we are opposed to that."

The U.S. military presentation in Baghdad on Sunday was the result of weeks of preparation and revisions as U.S. officials put together a package of material to support the Bush administration's claims of Iranian intercession on behalf of militant Iraqis fighting American forces.

[bdamomma]

8. I just hope Iran knows that they are dealing with some sick psychotic

thuggish criminals in the US government.

[The Stranger]

9. Hosseini makes an excellent point: Why would Iran subvert the U.S.-supported Shiite regime in place?

[mzmolly]

10. I guess the good news is that CNN is reporting about the lies THIS time?

I do hope the news prevents another deadly disaster. :(

[EVDebs]

11. It used to be all wars were good wars for CNN

Will Iran Be Next ?
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200412/fallows

So why not negotiate with the Mullahs ? Libya and So. Africa decided having nukes was more expensive in the long term...they've gotta be rational and we haven't given diplomacy a chance to work thanks to Bushco.

BTW, Washington intends to provoke Iran

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x189233#189277

note the newpaper article is at page A25 in 'my back pages' as Dylan would say !

[treestar]

12. We never declared war on the Russians yet we knew they

were selling arms to the North Vietnamese. So this as a knee-jerk reason to declare war on Iran is silly. Those weapons have to be coming from somewhere, and many sources other than Iran.

[mzmolly]

13. My guess is that they're coming from the caches we failed to secure when we invaded?

I remember Kerry mentioning this over and over again when he ran for the Presidency.

[Norquist Nemesis]

14. When is Condi going before the United Nations?

While all of this seems like deja vu in the run up to attacking Iraq, one difference seems to be that Bushetals are not coming out and citing UN Resolution (fill in the blank). Bush is going it alone and the rest of us are all hostages.