Are We Already at War with Iran?
Abd el Malik Regi
At the end of July, the GAO published a relatively short report about the fact that 190,000 assault weapons supposedly intended for Iraqi security forces had simply disappeared back in 2004-2005. Most of the weapons were Kalashnikovs and the deal involved a Moldovan airline that had gotten in trouble in the past for participating in the illegal arms trade. At the time, I commented that the whole operation seemed remarkably inept. For instance, no one from the Department of Defense had even documented the serial numbers on the weapons. It also seemed bizarre. Why would the US have to arm the Iraqi army or police in secret?
Most of the speculation about what happened to the weapons centered on the likelihood that the weapons fell into the hands of Iraqi insurgents. That’s certainly possible and if true, it’s pretty disturbing, but how about an even more disturbing possibility? For the last couple weeks, I’ve been wondering if there’s more going on here. First, the person who should have been on top of this whole deal was David Petreaus who at that time had the responsibility of overseeing the reconstruction of the Iraqi military and police. I know this is the Bush administration, but not long after the Pentagon would have known about this embarrassing chain of events Petreaus got promoted. Second, the whole back channel thing never made sense in the first place.
A couple days ago, I came upon this story about a group called “Jundullah” that operates out of Pakistan. They’ve been operating a small insurgency in Iran already and have been assassinating various Iranian officers and intelligence types.
Perhaps, most significantly their leader claims to have been covertly supported by the United States. By law, the US can not provide direct support to such a group.
There’s also a Kurdish group operating in the South of Iran.
I had mentioned that some of the details of the case of the missing assault weapons sounded strikingly similar to parts of the Iran-Contra scandal. A few of the same people have been involved in both Iran-Contra and Iraq. The incident actually bears an even stronger resemblance to a US project from the eighties, arming the Taliban in Afghanistan along with a fellow known as Osama Bin Laden. I don’t know much about the Jundullah, other than the fact that they also happen to be Islamic militants who the Iranians and Pakistanis have classified as a terrorist group.
In the meantime, the President and Dick Cheney have gotten more and more bellicose with their anit-Iranian rhetoric. Is it possible that 190,000 assault weapons, purchased by the US, that are now supposedly untraceable just happened to find their way to an unofficial war in Iran?
The irrepressible Dick Cheney and the Jundullah Connection
Paul Krugman column on Iran
Joan Ryan Salon column on arming factions in a civil war
chancelucky
Labels: GAO report on missing weaons David Petreaus Jundullah Iranian insurgency
posted by Chancelucky @ 10:23 AM
6 Comments:
This is fascinating speculation, cl. Certainly would fit the Patterns over the Years.
I flick on CNN for 30 seconds every morning to see if They have started bombing Iran on some false flag pretext -- which could indeed be fomented by these massive #s of guns. (This glance at CNN tactic gleaned me Alberto's and Karl's resignations . . . .)
ps, I see David Petraeus as a quisling and a powell.
One of the interesting things is that all the dates match. The other thing has been that Petraeus has started arming Sunni dissident groups to supposedly fight Al Qaeda. Is it possible that they're also headed to Iran?
I recall seeing on 60 minutes that some Iraqi was living in Paris and made off with a half of billion dollars for bad equipment. Now even that is missing. Yikers.
Benny,
there's no question that mismanagement is an issue in Iraq. I'm starting to wonder if some of it is intentional though as in is the missing money and equipment going to projects that would otherwise be illegal.
Corruption and incompetence run rampant in Iraq. Really, it happens anywhere chaos is. In some ways this is an argument against capitalism. But, that is more than a stretch. One of the more disturbing aspects of this is Bush's lack of interest in discovering the problems let alone trying to correct them. I'm not sure about the invasion of Iran though. Sure, its coming.. but how soon? I dont see Bush doing it or a Dem. So, it could be at least five years away. Just long enough for us to "redeploy" the troops I guess.
PL,
I think we're already in Iran more than anyone is letting on. It's very much like Laos and Cambodia.
I don't think the planeload of weapons that disappeared out of Bosnia was an example of corruption or incompetence necessarily. I think those weapons were purposely routed somewhere where they weren't supposed to be traceable.
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