Newsweek: only a “small percentage” of IEDs found in Iraq show signs of possible Iranian origin

[sabra]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16795765/site/newsweek/page/2/

Is Iran providing devices that help insurgents detonate IEDs in Iraq?

Jan. 24, 2007 - Why is the Bush administration escalating its accusations that Iran is backing Shiite extremists inside Iraq? One reason: mounting intelligence indicating Tehran has been supplying insurgents with electronic sensors that trigger roadside bombs used against U.S. troops.

The devices in question—which cost as little as $1 a piece—are called "passive infrared" sensors or detectors. They are commonly used to turn on lights or burglar alarms when someone or something passes in front of them. Over the past year, U.S. forces in Iraq have repeatedly fallen victim to sophisticated homemade bombs—known as IEDs, or improvised explosive devices—which are often rigged with passive infrared sensors.

Recent reports from U.S. intelligence agencies show that Iranian agents or brokers have ordered the devices in bulk from manufacturers in the Far East, said one U.S. counterterrorism official, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters. Bruce Riedel, a senior intelligence official who retired from the CIA only two months ago, told NEWSWEEK he too was aware of reports that serial numbers of sensors retrieved from IEDs in Iraq have been traced to orders from Iran placed with infrared-sensor manufacturers in Taiwan and Japan. (Riedel is now an analyst with the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution.)

...

One senior U.S. intelligence official, speaking recently to a group of reporters on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that only a “small percentage”" of IEDs found in Iraq show signs of possible Iranian origin, though the official indicated that because of their more sophisticated design, the Iranian-linked IEDs tend to be more deadly than Sunni homemade bombs.

[bigluckyfeet]

1. But the U.S. has no problem furnishing weapons

To Israel to blow the hell of of lebanon.

[bigtree]

2. or to the Iraqis

remember the report about the U.S. confiscating our own arms from the combatants?

[sabra]

3. al Maliki said gives us more guns and we'll take care of things

and the US said no...

[bigtree]

5. Thousands of U.S.-Bought Weapons Lost in Iraq

Listen to this story... by Tom Bowman
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6407177

All Things Considered, October 30, 2006 · The U.S. military can't account for thousands of weapons purchased to arm some 325,500 Iraqi security forces by December, according to a new report. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that the U.S. military would beef up Iraqi forces' training. But the new data reveals weaknesses in the arming of Iraqi security forces.

From pistols, AK-47s, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, the U.S. government has spent $133 million arming the Iraqi Army and the police.

But just 10,000 of the nearly 400,000 small arms were registered by their serial numbers, the inspector general's report says. Citing the "sensitivity of weapons accountability," Bowen wrote in his report that the disparity means there is no way to say who is using it.

"We have a situation, we have no idea how many of the weapons we give to police are being confiscated by people who also work with militias," says Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst with the Brookings Institution. "And therefore wind up in the hands of people who are causing the problems in Iraq as opposed to solving the problems.

In the report, the U.S. military command in Baghdad conceded it did not list the serial numbers of all weapons. Military officials say they kept records of which Iraqi Army and police units received weapons.

But the inspector general's report says even those records were questionable. The U.S. military did not account in those books for 13,000 pistols, 750 assault rifles and 500 machineguns that were bought with American money.

[frylock]

4. why let facts get in the way of good propaganda?

[zbdent]

6. The famed "one percent solution"