This is another sign of Bush collapsing from within. On Feb 1, Zbigniew Brzezinski gave startling testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He said that there would be an "terrorist act" "blamed" on Iran which would be used to justify an attack on Iran. Since then, the usual suspects supporting Bush have backed away form supporting his claims. Defense Secretary Gates did so in Europe saying that the munitions "may" be Iranian, no one in the government will sign onto the Bush package of "evidence" that Iran is the main supplier of weapons, and now this. Bush's top General denies Bush claims on Iranian weapons. Don't get me wrong, Iran is a mess but this shows just how close to total "free fall" we are in terms of Bush's viability as a leader. See Conspiracy Theory Goes Mainstream on the Road to Teheran Tom Baldwin in Washington and Stephen Farrell in Baghdad
Stephen Farrell's blog from inside Iraq
Feb 14.2007 (2 hours ago)
America’s top general appeared to contradict claims made by the White House and other US military commanders yesterday that Iran was arming Shia militants in Iraq. General Peter Pace, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he did not know if Iranian-made material used to assemble roadside bombs in Iraq had been supplied on Tehran’s orders.
“That does not translate that the Iranian Government, for sure, is directly involved in doing this,” he said on a visit to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. “What it does say is that things made in Iran are being used in Iraq to kill coalition soldiers.”
On Sunday US military officials in Baghdad said that al-Quds Force, an Iranian para-military organisation, was sending arms into Iraq. Weapons that they said were “coming from the highest level of the Iranian Government” included bombs that shot molten metal jets through the armour of American tanks, which had been responsible for killing 170 US troops and wounding more than 600. Last night a new Iraqi security crackdown was announced, which included closing the border with Iran.
General Pace’s public scepticism over the Iranian link is surprising given his record of intense loyalty to the Bush Administration, which has led him to be nicknamed in some circles “Perfect Peter”.
His comments followed remarks he made the previous day in Canberra, Australia, that: “I would not say that the Iranian Government clearly knows or is complicit.” Yesterday Tony Snow, President Bush’s press secretary, insisted that the Administration and General Pace were “not on separate pages”.