Don’t Bomb Iran

5/5/2008 Doubting the Evidence Against Iran: TIME magazine

US allegations of Iranian interference are �based on speculation� and �is far from a slam-dunk case� says Time , �no concrete evidence has emerged in public that Iran was behind the (new EFP) weapons. U.S. officials have revealed no captured shipments of such devices and offered no other proof�.

Taken altogether, the U.S. evidence offered publicly about Iran’s supposedly nefarious activities in Iraq is far from a slam-dunk case, a fact Dabbagh was at pains to make when speaking to reporters in Baghdad. “If it turns out there is hard evidence, the government will deal with it,” Dabbagh said.

Instead, the Americans argued their case publicly with deductive reasoning: the copper slugs used in EFPs had to be precisely tooled with a heavy press in order to work properly, they said; no such heavy presses were in operation in Iraq, according to the Americans, therefore the slugs had to have been machined in Iran and moved into Iraq. It is, however, not impossible that such heavy presses may well be operating in Iraq. Three major cities in southern Iraq (Basra, Karbala and Najaf) have gone without a significant U.S. military presence for more than a year. These cities, which U.S. officials believe form hubs for the flow of arms into Baghdad, may indeed have such presses.

The U.S. has also alleged that Tehran was passing rockets to militia elements in Iraq for use against American troops and, lately, the Iraqi government living under American protection in the Green Zone. Recovered materials from some of the rockets reveal Iranian markings, American officials have said, without however producing convincing physical evidence.

Tags: Iran, Iraq