A stunning set of news articles have appeared today that are designed to leave you, the reader, with one impression: "If what is happening in Iraq seems like a civil war, with Shiites slaughtering Sunnis, it is all Iran's fault."
This sort of information will, of course, be quickly accepted...except by those of us with better long term memories.
Find out what I mean, below...
Robert Dreyfus has a
blog entry on the Huffington Post concerning a couple of the stunning articles. He points to
this article published today by Knight Ridder, as well as
this article by the Washting Times, also from today, and reaches the same conclusion:
More and more evidence is mounting that Iran's ayatollahs have their hands deep into the Shiite-led government of Iraq.
...
Knight Ridder, perhaps the single best news organization covering the war in Iraq and its political fallout, carried an important exchange in which the head of the Badr Brigade, the paramilitary force backed by Iran, flatly admits that his 20,000-strong secret army - which is the arm of the ruling Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) - is funded by Iran.
...
In another breakthrough report, today's Washington Times carries an interview with a leading former Iraqi general who says that the network of torture prisons run by SCIRI, Badr, and the Iraqi interior ministry is overseen by an Iranian intelligence officer, Tahseer Nasr Lawandi, nicknamed "The Engineer."
Indeed, similar statements and conclusions have popped up eleswhere in the media, such as this artcile from today by Bloomberg and this article by the AFP from yesterday.
The "former Iraqi general" was also reported on by David Enders in Mother Jones.
This is clearly a media blitz, and the allegations of one man are also getting a lot of play in the media. I looked for more information on the former Iraqi general, Muntazar Jasim al-Samarrai, but was unable to find any. The search was made even more difficult by multiple spellings of his name.
So what to make of all of these articles? Certainly, they contain stunning information, much of which appears in the KR article. For example, KR obtained a memo that is a "smoking gun," showing that a Interior Ministry general had a list of Sunni "detainees," the badly decomposed bodies of which were later discovered.
The article also states that the U.S. has done nothing to halt the infiltration of the MOI by Badr militia men and contains amazing statements from Col. Joseph DiSalvo who "...said it would be all but impossible for the American military to defeat the militias."
But what to make of some of the other allegations in these articles? Some of them are misleading. For example, General al-Samarrai alleges in the Washington Times article that an Iranian intelligence officer "...had worked with the minister and deputy minister to form a special security service to run the detention and interrogation operation and a separate group called the Wolf Brigade to capture suspects and bring them to the secret locations -- usually under cover of darkness."
Yet, in the Mother Jones article, the General apparently contradicted this Iran allegation:
Peggy Gish is an American activist who has spent more than eighteen months in Iraq during the last three years with the Christian Peace Team, one of the last foreign groups monitoring human rights in Iraq. She was most recently in the country in August, and says that she and her colleagues conducted interviews with former prisoners that backed up Al-Samarraie's assertions, including the charge that American advisors were present in the Ministry of Interior. The Wolf and Scorpion Brigades, which have also been accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings, received training from U.S. forces.
Indeed, this fact has been previously reported by the Seattle Times:
In the past year,
the U.S. military has helped build up the commandos under guidance from James Steele, a former Army Special Forces officer who led U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in El Salvador in the 1980s. Salvadoran army units trained by Steele's team were accused of a pattern of atrocities.
The first commando units -- the Lion Brigade, Scorpion Brigade and others -- were formed last year under a Sunni interior minister, Falah Naqib, and include many Sunnis who worked in the repressive security organs of Saddam Hussein's Baath party. The Volcano Brigade was built up under the current, Shiite-led government and "is mostly made of (Shiite) men from the Badr militia," said a Shiite source close to the unit. Like most of a dozen people interviewed about the commandos, he asked not to be named for fear of being killed.
The BBC has also confirmed that U.S. troops trained and helped form the Wolf Brigade.
So, where does all of this leave us? Well, it has been feared for some time now that the Salvador Option that was first considered around the beginning of 2005 was indeed put in in place. There has been suspicion regarding the Wolf Brigade's activities for some time now.
But, to me, the allegations of General al-Samarrai, and the overall thrust of today's articles seem to place the blame for activities of death squads, and the existence of the prisons squarely on Iran. Yet, little, if any, evidence is given to support the allegations.
Also, we already know from available evidence that WE set up the commando brigades, and helped train them, not Iran. We also know that they were originally mixed brigades, with Sunni and Shiite leadership and participation.
In fact, today's media push reminds me of the days when Ahmed Chalabi was shopping his infamous Iraqi defectors to the media. Is someone shopping General al-Samarrai? If so, whom? The question of why and how this ex-General, who apparently fled to Jordan some months ago, has come to the attention of the media now is not explained.
But, in the end, the intent seems clear: we are to be left with the impression that any kidnappings, killings, torture and illegal imprisonment carried out by the Iraqi Interior Minestry is due to the influence of Iran - the ultimate bad guys.