Chronology of a Lie: Iran and EFPs

[leftchick]

http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp06042008.html


By GARY LEUPP

In his Antiwar.com columns investigative journalist and historian Gareth Porter has been doing a masterful job of exposing Dick Cheney’s relentless campaign to vilify Iran, build a case for an attack, bomb the country and produce regime change before the administration’s term ends. The campaign as many have noted parallels in several ways the propaganda blitz that preceded the War in Iraq. Cheney and his neocons cabal seek to skew the reports of mainstream intelligence agencies to confirm their allegations (in this case, the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program as an immanent threat to Israel and the U.S., Iranian Quds Force training of Iraqi “insurgents” in Iranian camps, Iranian provision of explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) to these “insurgents,” Iranian contacts with al-Qaeda, etc.). If they fail to do this, they circumvent the intelligence community and find ways of disseminating disinformation through their own announcements, editorials by their supporters, and stories planted in the corporate press. Since Cheney got Bush to sign an Executive Order giving his office the same powers to classify as the president has, his operations are shrouded in secrecy.

In his latest piece Porter follows the campaign to blame Iran for supplying EFPs to those attacking U.S. occupation forces in Iraq. In January 2007 some military officials asserted that EFPs that could penetrate U.S. armored vehicles were being manufactured in Iran and supplied to Iraqi Shiite militias by the Iranian government. They prepared a draft for a proposed military briefing to announce this claim, which then circulated in Washington and was leaked to the press. However, the document “met with unanimous objection from the State Department, Defense Department, and the National Security Council (NSC) staff, as administration officials themselves stated publicly.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley all wanted to build upon the negotiations with Iranian officials which had occurred in Iraq to that point. These had been based on the desire of both sides to support the Maliki government, which has warm ties with Tehran. The Cheney camp had opposed those talks.

In a press briefing on Jan. 24, 2007, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Department Spokesman Sean McCormack was asked if the government has any evidence for Iranian supply of EFPs to Iraqi forces. He answered indirectly: “You don't necessarily have to construct something in Iran in order for it to be a threat to the U.S. or British troops from the Iranian regime.” He implied that outsiders might be instructing Iraqis on how to produce EFPs.

On February 2, Hadley distanced the National Security Council from the draft report. “The truth is,” he told reporters at a news briefing, “quite frankly, we thought the briefing was overstated. We sent it back to get it narrowed and focused on the facts.” Meanwhile the intelligence community was preparing a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that did not support the claim about EFPs but merely accused Iranians of training fighters of Mahdi Army led by Muqtada al-Sadr, the fiery nationalist who is not Iran’s favorite Iraqi politician although he may be the most popular man in the country. Rice and Gates both stated their expectation that the planned briefing on Iranian involvement in Iraq would reflect the views contained in the NIE.

Then Cheney made his move. On Feb. 9 presidential spokesperson Dana Perino was asked when the briefing would be held. “Decisions on that,” she replied, “are being made out in Baghdad.” Gen. David Petraeus (whom former CENTCOM commander Adm. William Fallon, a known opponent of an Iran attack, has described as an “ass-kissing little chicken-shit”) had just arrived to assume command of U.S. forces in Iraq. On February 11 three military officers in Iraq gave a briefing to the press in which they stated that the EFPs could only have been manufactured in Iran and were being supplied to Iraqi militiamen by the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards with the knowledge of the Iranian government.

“Cheney,” Porter writes, “had used the compliant Petraeus to do an end-run around the national security bureaucracy. Petraeus had already reached an agreement with the White House to take Cheney’s line on the EFPs issue and to present the briefing immediately without consulting State or Defense.” This circumventing of normal channels is of course Cheney’s modus operandi, as scathingly documented in the four-part series about Cheney in the Washington Post last July by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker.

[bill for obama]

1. I would bet a hundred bucks anyone with the money

could buy them. That is capitalism.

I do believe many of those formed charges are made by Iran - doesn't mean anything except that the buyers of the weapons are bad.

Did the country sell them? Or did the makers of the devices sell them - it is a big question.

We sell weapons all around the world, so does Russia and China and France etal.

It is the way the question is posed really. If weapons from United States are sold to some country - who was the seller - the United States, or the company that made them??

Smoke and mirrors.

[anigbrowl]

2. There's a US army field manual showing how to make one.

It's not hard. One method is to take a wine bottle (where the bottom is usually an inward-facing cone), soak a string in gasoline and tie it around the empty bottle. Set fire to the string, which heats the glass, then dunk the bottle in a basin of cold water and it will crack neatly around where you tied the string, giving you a shape something like this:


|......| << .. indicates empty space
|_/\_|

Now you stuff it with plastic explosive, add a fuse, turn it upside down and stick it inside a metal cup, pipe segment or whatever - anything that provides more resistance than the glass and will direct the explosive force towards the center. Voila, one shaped charge which will fire a glob of molten glass at projectile speeds. Any kind of conical or concave metal or glass form will do.

This is not to say that no such things have been manufactured and exported by Iranians, it's possible they have. But it's not the super high-tech thing the RW would have people believe.

Forgot to add that the US army field manual I was thinking of came from the 1950s or 1960s, in a section on how to make improvised weapons if you're caught behind enemy lines. It's really not anything very special, as you can see from this wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge Of course, we use this technology in loads of munitions like anti-tank shells and cluster bombs.

[seemslikeadream]

3. Thanks leftchick

How'd I miss this one?

[NNN0LHI]

4. Here is an EFP factory found in Iraq not Iran

http://www.cjreport.com/news/598/bomb-factory-found-us-troops-near-baghdad.html

Bomb factory found by US troops near Baghdad

Posted on Saturday, November 3 2007 at 12.51 PM in Middle East

US Troops found a large bomb-making factory just north of Baghdad following a tip-off from a local resident.

The factory was being used to assemble explosively-formed penetrators, the fist-sized bombs that can cut through heavy armour, a statement said.

US commanders say that members of the covert operations arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards have been supplying the explosives and training Shiite militiamen in their use, a charge Tehran strongly denies.

The US military said the bomb-making factory was found in the town of Hussein and contained 10 fully assembled Fps of various sizes.

Troops also found around 90 copper plates and more than 90kg of C-4 explosive, enough material to make at least 150 Fps, the statement said.

[leftchick]

5. interesting

and I read the other day of a SAUDI killed while trying to recruit young Iraqi militants. No word on any Iranians.