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'Made in Iran' isn't proof of complicity

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
Published February 15, 2007

AMMAN, Jordan - Should a country that manufactures a weapon be responsible for its use in wartime?

Yes, President Bush seemed to say Wednesday, accusing forces controlled by Iran's government of supplying roadside bombs to insurgents in Iraq. While acknowledging he doesn't know if the weapons were sent with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's approval, he said he was certain they came from Iran.

"They're there whether President Ahmadinejad knows about it or not," Bush told reporters at his first news conference of the year. "I intend to do something about it, and we're going to protect our troops."

But just as Bush is demanding that Iran stop providing weapons to Iraq, human rights groups are demanding that the United States cut off sales of cluster bombs to Israel. The reason: Since Israel's war with Hezbollah last summer, more than 30 Lebanese have been killed by previously unexploded "bomblets" that were dropped by Israel but manufactured in the United States.

The two examples - American-made cluster bombs and Iranian-made roadside bombs - underscore a reality of modern warfare. Just because weapons are produced in a certain country doesn't mean its government endorses, or even has knowledge of, their ultimate use.

"I'm sure there are links between Iranian groups and some of the insurgents in Iraq, in particular the Shiite insurgents, but whether you can make a linkage directly to Ahmadinejad in Iran is questionable," said Dr. Ian Davis of the British-American Security Information Council.

On Sunday, U.S. military officials displayed armor-piercing bombs and other devices they said were traceable to Iran and shipped to Iraq with the approval "of the highest levels of the Iranian government."

However, Davis said, "lots of the stuff" on display, including rocket-propelled grenades, are made in many countries. Determining how much of the carnage in Iraq is caused by Iranian-supplied weaponry is difficult "given the amount of arms sloshing around the Mideast," he said.

"Even if you can tie it directly to Iranian manufacturers, U.S. and British arms also end up in war zones and proliferate all over the place."

The United States and Western Europe account for 80 percent of the global arms trade, indirectly fueling dozens of conflicts since World War II. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1970s, the CIA covertly supplied Stinger missiles to Islamic fighters. The Pentagon later acknowledged that many missiles might have fallen into the hands of al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

Bush's claims that weapons supplied by Iran are killing American soldiers have been met with considerable skepticism. Critics say the White House is building a case for attacking Iran, just as it did against Iraq and its alleged weapons of mass destruction. None were ever found.

Nor are Bush's claims new. In 2005, the British government made similar accusations against Iran, only to back off later.

That July, three British soldiers in predominantly Shiite southern Iraq were killed by a new roadside bomb that "bore all the hallmarks" of a device used by the Shiite group Hezbollah and obtained from Iran, London's Sunday Times reported.

"There are certain pieces of information that lead us back to Iran," Prime Minister Tony Blair said.

However, Iran denied the charge, and British defense officials said they found no evidence linking the bombs to Tehran. In fact, they noted, instructions for making the type of bombs used by Hezbollah were readily available on the Internet.

Further undermining claims of Iranian involvement was the fact that U.S. troops elsewhere in Iraq were being attacked by the same type of device during the same general time period.

The problem was "part of a wider, cross-country development that was not restricted to Shiite militia with possible links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard," Davis said.

"In 2005, U.S. forces were experiencing this in Sunni areas as well. At the time, U.S. authorities made less of the Iranian connection, but that was always likely to change."

There is little doubt that Iran - determined to be the primary power in the Middle East - supports Hezbollah in its battles against Israel or that elements inside Iran have helped Shiites opposed to coalition forces in Iraq.

But whether Ahmadinejad or those in the "highest levels" of his government are authorizing weapons shipments to Iraq will be difficult to prove.

Davis sees a parallel between Iraq and the "troubles" in Northern Ireland, when the Irish Republican Army, a militant Roman Catholic organization, was fighting British troops and Protestant paramilitaries from 1969 to 1998.

"The IRA had lots of supporters within the general population in (Catholic) southern Ireland who were smuggling arms across the border that were used to kill British soldiers," Davis said.

"Did that give British government the right to attack the Irish government? In Iraq it's probably less clear-cut; the Revolutionary Guard may well be supplying arms to Shiites, but the scale and scope I think is exaggerated."

Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com.

[Last modified February 15, 2007, 05:25:11]