http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IA18Ak02.htmlWASHINGTON - For 18 months, the administration of US President George W Bush has periodically raised the charge that Iran is supplying anti-coalition forces in Iraq with arms.
Previously, high administration officials have always admitted that they had no real evidence to support these claims. Now, they are going further. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters on her current Middle Eastern trip, "I think there is plenty of evidence that there is Iranian involvement with these networks that are making high-explosive IEDs
and that are endangering our troops, and that's going to be dealt with."
However, Rice failed to provide any evidence of official Iranian involvement.
The previous pattern had been that US and British officials suggested that Iranian government involvement in the use by Sunni insurgents or Shi'ite militias of "shaped charges" that can penetrate US armored vehicles was the only logical conclusion that could be drawn from the facts. But when asked point blank, they admitted that they had no evidence.
That allegation serves not just one Bush administration objective, but two: it provides an additional justification for aggressive rhetoric and pressure against Tehran and also suggests that Iran bears much of the blame for the sectarian violence in Baghdad and high levels of US casualties from IEDs.
The origins of the theme of Iranian complicity strongly suggest that it was a propaganda line aimed at reducing the Bush administration's acute embarrassment at its inability to stop the growing death toll of US troops from shaped charges used against armored vehicles by Sunni insurgents.
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