Posted on 02/20/2006 6:19:44 PM PST by nuconvert
US accuses Iran of arming, training Iraqi militias
Mon Feb 20,2006
Iran is providing weapons and training to militias and extremist groups in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to Iraq, charged.
"Iran has a mixed policy towards Iraq," he told a news conference.
On the one hand it had good state-to-state relations with the Shiite-dominated government, but it has "another policy as well which is to work with some militias, to work with some extremist groups, to provide training and to provide weapons, directly or indirectly," Khalilzad said.
"Iraqis are increasingly concerned about the role Iran is playing," he added.
US authorities are particularly worried about the growing influence of Shiite militias which are alleged to have infiltrated Iraq's interior ministry.
Khalilzad also slammed a call made last week by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki for British forces, belonging to the US-led coalition, to leave southern Iraq, saying this was "uncalled for interference" in Iraq's internal affairs.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari also said Sunday that Mottaki's calls were "unacceptable", adding that "only the Iraqi government is allowed to decide the fate of these troops".
Iran's attempt to stir trouble could be linked to attempts to distract public opinion away from the nuclear question, the ambassador said, referring to international fears Tehran is seeking to built an atomic weapon.
As I wrote before in other threads, size of Iran is more than California, Texas and New York State put together, is covered with mountains (large part of territory is above 5,000 feet) and has 70 million people.
How do you imagine the attack?
Easy.
Bombardment of known nuclear facilities: one week.
Insertion/Extraction of follow-up Spec-Ops demolition teams: one week.
Destruction of all command and control infrastructure: (Concurrent with first week): One week.
Decapitation of leadership: (Concurrent with first week) two weeks.
Cordon of major oil producing fields in the south: TBD.
Any questions?
I was thinking that the Iranian threat to stop the flow of oil.
Any questions?
What is the chance of success of your simple prescription?
Look. There is one way and one way only this is going to go down.
The "international community" (yeah, right) is going to tighten the screws on Iran until they do what they have already threatened to do which is to close the Straight of Hormuz.
When they do that, it will be an act of war against the whole oil consuming world.
Yes, oil prices will rise.
But EVERYONE (ChiComs included) will want nothing more than that the US re-open the Straight, stop the strangle-hold and bring the price back down.
And NO ONE will care about a little "colateral damage" to Iran's nuclear facilities.
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