Iranian Weapons. American Lives.
A Pajamas Media exclusive video and interview about the Iranian weapons flooding Iraq.
By Richard Miniter
BAGHDAD--Maj. Martin Weber, an explosives expert, is trying to walk through a political mine field with me.
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As with an ordinary mine field, you have to be very careful where you put your emphasis. Stress the wrong truth and either the left or the right wants to blow you up.
Here at Camp Victory, a sprawling concrete and razor wire American base that wraps around Baghdad International Airport, Maj. Weber was trying to explain how to negotiate that mine field. On the one side he wanted me to know me that the captured weapons on the table before us were — definitely, no doubt about it, absolutely — from Iran. On the other hand, he avoided drawing the obvious conclusion that Iran is supplying America’s enemies inside Iraq.
That simple and obvious conclusion would anger the Democratic leadership in Congress, much of the press corp, and a large swath of the antiwar set.
Bear this is mind, when you watch this exclusive Pajamas Media video shot in Iraq. The video offers startling new evidence of Iran’s involvement in the insurgency. It is the first up-close, online video showing captured Iranian weapons. These particular weapons have not been shown to the public before.
Far from being offered up by the military, it took me weeks of wangling to see Maj. Weber. The military does not want to talk about the mortars, rockets and bombs flooding in from Iran. It has been burned by the press every time the subject comes up.
Senior officers also realize that the Democrat-led Congress doesn’t want to hear about Iran’s sinister role in Iraq and that President Bush does not want a confrontation with Iran now. To make the interview even harder to get, Maj. Weber’s specialty, Explosives Ordnance Disposal or EOD, has a culture of not talking to the press. Any EOD officer who does, owes his unit a case of beer for each appearance.
So conspiracy theorists who feel this exclusive Pajamas Media Video is military propaganda couldn’t be more wrong–the military would have been happier if the interview never happened.
Finally, Maj. Weber agreed to this exclusive interview with Pajamas Media on two conditions: that a public-affairs officer be present to interrupt him if he said anything with political ramifications, and that the conversation be limited simply to the weapons themselves.
I agreed to those conditions because a large story the rest of the media missed: the weapons themselves. These Iranian weapons and others like them are killing American soldiers.
Twice before the military has tried to present to the press overwhelming evidence of Iran’s involvement in the Iraq war, only to be met by hostile skepticism. The skepticism basically takes the form of three questions:
1) Couldn’t these weapons have been made anywhere?
2) Isn’t it fishy that these weapons were marked in English with American-style dates?
3) Isn’t all of this a ploy to justify a neocon war with Iran?
As you will see from the video, Maj. Weber can definitively answer the first two questions. As for the Daily Kos-inspired third question, well, who can address questions from planet Paranoid? And who should bother?
A West Point graduate, Maj. Weber has spent the last decade studying bombs made by the FARC in Colombia to Hezboallah in Lebanon. Like other skilled bomb technicians, he can examine the components and design of a bomb or weapon and tell you who made it and where. For the weapons shown in this video, he can even point out the page in the Iranian arms sales catalog where one can find these weapons. As for why Iran is selling or giving these weapons to insurgents, that is a question for someone else.
Maj. Weber is matter of fact. He laughingly admits that he got into EOD because he liked to hear things go BOOM. He’s an old fashioned army officer who abhors politics but loves his profession. He’s not trying to pedal a line, that’s for the guys upstairs. He’s just trying to tell you what he found and what it means.
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25 Comments
1. Gabriel Sutherland:Why isn’t this report on NBC Nightly News?
These news networks are so lost. This kind of reporting is light years ahead of what the major media conglomerates are producing.
This is an excellent report for PJM.
May 8, 2007 - 11:54 am 2. Hal Bowman:“Couldn’t these weapons have been made anywhere?”
Maj. Weber can be taken as credible that these are of Iranian manufacture. His comments, however, point out that the Iranians mark these weapons in this way for sale on the international market. Nothing in this presentation rules out that these specific items coming from another immediate source other than Iran. The Iranians could have sold them, and the buyer could have brought them into Iraq.
Now, I believe the military when it says the evidence is conclusive that Iran is smuggling weapons into Iraq. This presentation, however, does not constitute a smoking gun.
Thank you, Maj. Weber, and your comrades for your service to the USA. And thanks to Mr. Miniter for this report.
May 8, 2007 - 12:11 pm 3. Hal Bowman:“Couldn’t these weapons have been made anywhere?”
Maj. Weber can be taken as credible that these are of Iranian manufacture. His comments, however, point out that the Iranians mark these weapons in this way for sale on the international market. Nothing in this presentation rules out that these specific items coming from another immediate source other than Iran. The Iranians could have sold them, and the buyer could have brought them into Iraq.
Now, I believe the military when it says the evidence is conclusive that Iran is smuggling weapons into Iraq. This presentation, however, does not constitute a smoking gun.
Thank you, Maj. Weber, and your comrades for your service to the USA. And thanks to Mr. Miniter for this report.
May 8, 2007 - 12:14 pm 4. AmericanScribbles:It’s a sad state of affairs in the free world when the MSM, who are charged with bringing stories of this magnitude to the public’s attention, ignore out of hand genuinely important news simply because it doesn’t fit into their political agenda. Not that the MSM hasn’t always been ethically challenged, they have, but you’d think in today’s enlightened world they’d have arrived at the simple conclusion that our enemies don’t give a whit about their transparent attempts to appear neutral. They’d kill reporters with the same zeal with which they kill our military members, simply because they do not adhere to 12th century religious tenets.
Puzzling as it is that this situation even exists, the fact is the media’s conduct has always been suspect, but since 9/11 it’s been particularly nausiating, not to mention a danger to national security and the general well-being of every citizen in the America and the West in general.
May 8, 2007 - 12:35 pm 5. Andrew:This needs to be on the MSM. I can’t stand that the MSM in America will take the word of terrorists from places like Iran over that of their own government. The media is one of the greatest threats to America. Its time the American people demand truth and retake what is theirs.
May 8, 2007 - 1:54 pm 6. Johnothon:Anyone with half a brain knows that this is just propoganda. The U.S. funds the Kurdish Resistance movement in Iran, yet they don’t whine about it. It’s absurd to say that Iran is funding these people with weapons that tons of other countries posses.
May 8, 2007 - 2:14 pm 7. Wildmonk:Well, Johnothon, your (mis)spelling certainly qualifies you as one certain to have half a brain…
May 8, 2007 - 2:42 pm 8. Just a Joe:And please let’s not forget the Steyr .50 HS sniper rifles recently sold to Iran by our “friends” the Austrians, now being found in Iraq.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/tm_headline=iraq-brit-shot-dead–&method=full&objectid=18952479&siteid=89520-name_page.html
http://world.guns.ru/sniper/sn64-e.htm
No amount of body armor will protect against this.
I pray our president is -behind the scenes- doing much, much more than sending his Secretary of State to have dinner with Iran’s representatives. Allowing Iran’s material support of terrorists who target American troops to go unchallenged is depravity. I’m ashamed of an administration that allows it.
May 8, 2007 - 2:42 pm 9. @thepointyend:Great report.
Hal, your comments about not being a smoking gun are true, but when taken in totality with all of the evidence collected by U.S. forces, including capturing Iranian smugglers entering Iraq, and Iranian operatives in the country, and what we know regarding the tech associated with EFPs, the case against the Iranias is pretty clear.
God bless the brave Americans who work in the EOD field, and all the service people, Iraqis and other coalition partners working to secure Iraq. Your efforts are appreciated both there and here at home.
May 8, 2007 - 2:47 pm 10. Econ-Scott:Gabriel Sutherland :
Why isn’t this report on NBC Nightly News?
Obious isn’t it ? That don’t want it known on a widespread and more importantly on a REPEAT basis because it hurts their…. Get Democrats Elected and Smear Republicans, damn any other conesquences …Game plan.
These news networks are so lost.
That’s agenda driven Propaganda for you. What do you expect ?
This kind of reporting is light years ahead of what the major media conglomerates are producing.
It looks like really primitive battlefield production value. Just Honest Questions, Honest Answers.
This is an excellent report for PJM.
Primitive, no flashy studios with Anchor desks,
but honest. How rare is that ?
Rare
This fourth estate thing needs to get fixed
May 8, 2007 - 3:07 pm 11. Stumpneck:The word is “ordnance” you moron, not “ordinance”. EOD is an acronym for Explosive Ordnance Disposal, not Explosive Ordinance Demolition. Any EOD tech worth his or her salt will decry your using the word “expert.” Other than having your facts wrong, oh, never mind…
May 8, 2007 - 4:00 pm 12. SteveA:Maj. Weber, thank you and your friends for your service to our country.
Mr. Miniter, thank you for your reporting. I think you owe the guy at least one case of beer.
May 8, 2007 - 5:21 pm 13. A Real American:Pure propaganda at its finest. If you believe one word of this shill piece you are so brainwashed you’re beyond hope… well, almost.
Do your own thinking for once and do some research! Too many of you guys let the media think for you and that’s exactly the way “they” like it. Become a critical thinker instead of a conditioned sheep.
May 8, 2007 - 7:41 pm 14. Voyager:That interview rocked.
You guys likely to get any more interviews like this one? They’re far more interesting than the fifteen layers removed stuff we seem to be getting from all the other news outlets.
Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen any eye-witness reports lately, aside from that one Reuters guy that turned out to be photo-shopping his pictures.
We really need some eyes on the ground.
Harry Voyager
May 8, 2007 - 8:51 pm 15. AubreyJ:Awesome Interview!!!
May 8, 2007 - 9:44 pm 16. Sabot:Very well done and very informative.
AubreyJ………
Hey ‘Real American’ - tell me again how this is propaganda? This info has been coming out of Iraq since 2004. You provide no factual rebuttal, just braying about propaganda and ‘brainwashing’. Every EOD tech who’s spent time in Iraq will tell you the same thing as the Major interviewed here. You’re the brainwashed moron here…
May 8, 2007 - 10:26 pm 17. Ricg:MAJ Weber is my classmate. While I do not know him well, I know culture that produced him and it is generally quite trustworthy.
There is nothing here that remotely fits the definition of propaganda, which is information present in a particular way to stimulate a particular response. Weber stuck to the facts, presented no opinions outside his competence, and, according to Miniter, was even reluctant to go as far as he did.
If he had said the Iranian government sent these to kill Americans, I would require more information, but expressly declined to make such a statement, or to reach the opposite conclusion.
Someone who calls this propaganda is someone unwilling to deal with facts. And the other facts (not presented here) are, as JaJ noted above, that Austrian-made weapons of the same type sold to the Iranian G o v e r n m e n t (over the protests of our the United States government) have also been found in Iraq. I have not followed the story closely enought to know whether the serial numbers are the same as those sold to Iran, but the evidence against Iran is piling up, and it is not what I would call a trustworthy source of information.
May 9, 2007 - 1:50 am 18. TJ:I Have an Iranian friend who once served in the iranian army. since 1979, they have been arming any group that opposses the US, including countryless terrorist groups. our government and most governments around the world are aware of this yet, liberals see fit to dismiss all evidence.
sheep being led to the slaughter!
May 9, 2007 - 4:49 am 19. Insufficiently Sensitive:If MSM would present news in the manner of this interview, I’d eagerly watch or read it. But MSM doesn’t.
This interview allows the viewer to draw the conclusions, and deprives the gorgeously-coiffed anchor of his/her God-given right to steer public opinion.
Today’s the 46th anniversary of declaration by the head of the FTC that television programming was a ‘vast wasteland’. By contrast, this item by Pajamas Media illuminates the fact that it still is such a wasteland, and monoculturally slanted to boot - including PBS and NPR, the bastard children of Newton Minow’s celebrated speech.
More Pajamas, and less oh-so-sophisticated anchors.
May 9, 2007 - 7:42 am 20. Walter F. Flammond:Ordinance is like a city ordinance. Ordnance is what we are talking about here i.e. explosives etc.
May 9, 2007 - 8:46 am 21. clazy:Great interview. Why all these comments about “ordinance”? I can’t find the misspelling anywhere. Who is Stumpneck writing too? What’s his point?
May 9, 2007 - 9:46 am 22. Liam H:Superb in depth report. The Major clearly knows his subject. I am really not sure why anyone would call this propaganda, at least not in a perjorative sense, the Major clearly acknowledged that there was a lot of material left over from the previous regime that was being used for IED’s. However, he also opined that Iran was a supplier of arms. Pretty balanced stuff IMHO. And guess what? If you are so inclined you can disbelieve the Major. There was no editorialising from PM.
And as for the person who said we should think for ourselves, that’s just the sort of reporting that allows you too: you disagreed - QED. However I was disappointed that, given it was described as a “shill” piece there was not an explanation as to why it is thus. I would genuinely like to know what’s the counter argument to the one the Major gave.
May 9, 2007 - 10:04 am 23. Steve:Given the context of decades of conflict between Iran and the US, it’s absurd to think that the determination of whether Iran is an enemy would ride on the origin of mortars and IED supplies found in Iraq. It might be of some tactical interest to understand supply lines (if the military weren’t paralyzed), but recognizing the fact that Iran is leader of global terrorism certainly doesn’t hinge on such miniscule facts. For example, a State Department report of 1999 identified Iran is the most active state sponsor of terrorism. Or one might consider Iran’s support for organizations like Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and Hezbollah, or the involvement of Iran in attacks on the West over the past 50 years.
That there is some plausibility in looking at these devices to conclude that Iran is our enemy is a tribute to the effectiveness of the MSM in obliterating all historical context. As Iran flaunts world opinion to accelerate its nuclear program and proclaims “death to the Great Satan America”, we speculate that identifying Iran as the weapons manufacturer is not conclusive proof of Iran’s involvement, because some 3rd party could be the distributor. How far removed from the events of the last 50 years does one have to be in order to make such an objection seem plausible?
The term “political correctness” obscures the true question at issue: more precisely, it’s moral correctness. The Left, the American intellectuals, the church, the Right, and the terrorists all agree that altruism is a proper moral standard - selflessness is the highest virtue. That is why we’re caught in a dead-end effort to defend the US indirectly - to somehow secure the West through the vehicle of charity to the Iraqi people. It is why we have encumbered our troops with Rules of Engagement that put them in harm’s way for the sake of respecting the enemies ideals, and why we cannot name the enemy. The Right’s current attempt at defense within the moral confies set forth by the Left is doomed to fail. If the Right wants to change course and save America and their party, they’ll have to identify morality as the issue at stake. reject altruism as the basis for conducting war, and mount a unilateral defense of Western Civilization.
May 9, 2007 - 11:14 am 24. Sean Aqui:To whomever brought up the sniper rifles: That connection, at least, appears to be bunk.
http://www.steyr-mannlicher.com/index.php?id=253&L=1
http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=195331
I like the video, but the presence of Iranian-made weaponry does not say anything about how it got into Iraq. It could have been bought on the black market, for instance. (And if it were, that would, conversely, not be evidence that Iran wasn’t involved: countries routinely use the black market to disguise what are essentially arms transfers).
I will be vastly unsurprised if it turns out Iran is arming Shiite groups in Iraq. But proving Iranian involvement is going to be very tough indeed, unless they’re caught in the act of delivering it.
And that doesn’t even address the question of who is arming the Sunni insurgents.
Nor does it get at *how much* of the weaponry is Iranian. As the major noted, Iraq is awash in unfathomably huge amounts of leftover ordnance.
May 9, 2007 - 1:17 pm 25. Andrew Helms:This is a well-written interview offering a little light on the Iranian influence within Iraq. Just like any other American, I think we need to take every step possible to minimize the loss of lives in Iraq, whether it be American, British, Iraqi, Kurdish, etc.
However, the big question is what do we do with this information. Iran, however complicit it is in Iraq, is simply looking after its own national interest, much like the US does by funding the Northern Alliance before the 2001 invasion, by funding pro-democracy (and semi-terrorist) movements in Iran, and by selling weapons to the enemies of our enemies, and sometimes our friends.
We need to find a constructive and diplomatic manner in which to influence Iran to stop exerting their influence through weapons. We as a country cannot afford another invasion, and we need to maintain all of our political capital to pressure Iran on the Iranian issue.
May 11, 2007 - 6:42 am