Wash Post' Joins 'NYT' in Trumpeting 'Anonymous' Claims on Iran Weapons

By Greg Mitchell

Published: February 11, 2007 1:20 PM ET updated 3:30 PM

NEW YORK First it was Michael Gordon in The New York Times on Saturday. Now The Washington Post has joined in suggesting a slam dunk case for Iranian weapons killing Americans in Iraq.

An article by Joshua Partlow from Baghdad -- currently atop the Post's Web site -- carries the declarative headline, "Iran Sending Explosives to Extremist Groups in Iraq," without even "U.S. officials say."

Not that those officials could be named anyway. As in case of Michael Gordon's article, the officials are unnamed.

The Post article, which was published online at 12:30 this afternoon, states, "Iranian security forces, taking orders from the 'highest levels' of the Iranian government, are funneling sophisticated explosives to extremist groups in Iraq, and the weapons have grown increasingly deadly for U.S.-led troops over the past two years, senior defense officials said Sunday in Baghdad."

"Three defense officials from the U.S.-led Multi-National Force in Baghdad, laid out for reporters what they described as a 'growing body of evidence' that Iran is manufacturing and exporting into Iraq the armor piercing explosives, known as 'explosively formed penetrators,' or EFPs, that have killed more than 170 coalition troops, and wounded more than 620 others, in the past two years."

The officials all spoke "on condition of anonymity."

Partlow adds: "The allegations against Iran marked the farthest that coalition forces have gone to make the case that Iran is working to attack U.S. and Iraqi troops. The revelations threaten to further enflame tensions between America and Iran."

Of course, the article itself -- and its placement on top of the Post site and with that headline -- is sure to "enflame" as well.

Defense officials claimed they were "not trying to hype this up to be more than it is."

The officials said they decided to speak "on the condition of anonymity so the trio's explosives expert and analyst who would normally not speak to reporters could provide more information. The analyst's exact job description was not revealed to reporters. Reporters' cell phones were taken before the briefing, and the officials did not allow reporters to record or videotape the proceedings....

"On two tables in a briefing room in Baghdad, military officials laid out tubular rocket propelled grenades, football-shaped mortars, a cylindrical EFP, and about 40 tail fins of exploded mortars, which they say are manufactured in Iran -- just a 'smattering' of the examples they have found in Iraq, said the defense analyst.

"Iran is the only country in the region that produces these weapons, the officials said."

On his new site, Iraqslogger.com, Eason Jordan observes in response, that "one of the three supposedly unnamed US officials apparently has been outed by an Iraqi news service, Voices of Iraq, whose report on the Baghdad news conference identified one of the three speakers as Major General William Caldwell, whose portfolio includes public affairs and who holds frequent news conference and grants one-on-one interviews.

"So, if the VOI report identifying Caldwell is correct, why did every other news organization apparently agree to grant anonymity to the general who's the official spokesman of the US-led Multi-National Force in Iraq? Why would Caldwell insist on not having his name associated with these allegations today?

"After the bogus Iraq evidence debacle in 2002 and 2003 -- allegations that led to war, tens of thousands of lives lost, and hundreds of billions of dollars spent -- only a fool would accept as the gospel supposed evidence against another country that's presented by officials who insist on making their allegations anonymously.

"We deserve better from the US government. We deserve better from the western news media."

An E&P article earlier this weekend pointed out echoes of the WMD charges in the run-up to the Iraq war. Michael Gordon, for example, had co-authored with Judith Miller the wildly inaccurate "aluminum tubes" article in 2002 that proved so influential.

UPDATE:

The online hed on the Partlow article was later changed to "Officials: Iran Sending Arms to Militias in Iraq."
Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is editor.