The Daily Background

Pentagon officials today presented what they say is evidence that Iran has been supplying explosive devices to Iraqi insurgents. But the same officials who are presenting what they say is evidence- are afraid to attatch their names to the very intel they’re telling the press is a slam dunk:

After weeks of internal debate, senior United States military officials today literally put on the table their first public evidence for the contentious assertion that Iran is supplying Shiite extremist groups in Iraq with deadly weaponry, including a roadside bomb that pierces American armor.
[…]
The officials, who insisted on anonymity as a condition of the briefing, also disclosed that since June 2004, when the first member of the American-led forces here was killed by an E.F.P., the toll had reached more than 170 dead and 620 wounded.
[…]
During the briefing, the senior United States military officials were repeatedly pressed on why they insisted on anonymity in such an important matter affecting the security of American and Iraqi troops. A senior military official said that without anonymity, for example, the military analyst could not have contributed to the briefing.

That explanation is totally bogus and it doesn’t even make sense (which explains why the media kept asking them). I’ve never ever heard of an official Pentagon briefing where the officials wore figurative ski masks over their heads. This is truly bizarre, and I’m surprised it’s not getting more media attention in and of itself.

You’ll recall that Douglas Feith, the man behind much of the faulty prewar Iraq intel was recently singled out as acting inappropriately in an internal Pentagon report which revealed that the CIA disagreed with more than half of the assertions his office produced to justify the White House’s push for war.

Is it possible that right now, officials are afraid to let their names get attatched to this intelligence because they’re not particularly confident in it? The Associated Press reports that officials were cautious to give this type of intelligence out last month, writing “Senior U.S. officials in Washington - cautious after the drubbing the administration took for the faulty intelligence leading to the 2003 Iraq invasion - had held back because they were unhappy with the original presentation.”

According to the AP, the briefing was “revised heavily” after officials were not comfortable of its state last month.

Filed under: Iran Related, Z-TDB Blog