World Underwhelmed by Iran-Iraq Connection

After two delays several anonymous officials have presented their evidence that Iran is arming the insurgents in Iraq.

Iran denies the charges of course:

Such accusations cannot be relied upon or be presented as evidence. The United States has a long history in fabricating evidence.

(When they're right, they're right.)

Patrick Cockburn is skeptical:

The allegations by senior but unnamed U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington are bizarre. The U.S. has been fighting a Sunni insurgency in Iraq since 2003 that is deeply hostile to Iran.

The insurgent groups have repeatedly denounced the democratically elected Iraqi government as pawns of Iran. It is unlikely that the Sunni guerrillas have received significant quantities of military equipment from Tehran. Some 1,190 U.S. soldiers have been killed by so-called improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

The Voice of America reports Top American General Disputes US Military Claim on Iran

The top American military officer, General Peter Pace, declined Monday to endorse the conclusions of U.S. military officers in Baghdad, who told reporters on Sunday that the Iranian government is providing high-powered roadside bombs to insurgents in Iraq.

This is astounding. The Bush administration cannot get the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to back them up on this. The Minneapolis Star Tribune in an editorial titled Congress must prevent attacks against Iran has this to say:

Sunday came a strange briefing in Baghdad in which three anonymous Pentagon officials laid out what can only be generously called "evidence" that Iran was supplying advanced munitions to Shiite militants in Iraq that were being used to kill U.S. soldiers. The briefing was a dud, leaving reporters, according to National Public Radio, "with more questions than answers." Even the new U.S. intelligence estimate on Iraq says "the involvement of these outside actors (Iraq's neighbors) is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability." On Monday, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointedly declined to endorse the central allegation made at the briefing: that the Iranian government was sending the munitions to Iraq.

It appears that the Joint Chiefs do not want to attack Iran, probably because it is such a monumentally stupid idea.