Ahmadinejad Spared Iraq Attack Cos Terrorists Work For Him
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran may pose the greatest long-term threat to Iraq’s stability, a U.S. general said on Tuesday, the day after Iran’s president wrapped up a visit to Baghdad.
Army Lt. Gen Ray Odierno, who recently ended a 15-month assignment as the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, said Iran continued to train extremist militia groups in Iraq.
Odierno also said he was not surprised Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was able to move around without security problems during his two-day visit to Baghdad as the groups that often target high-profile visitors are Iranian-backed.
“Over the last 12 months, every time a visitor would come from the United States, we’d either foil a rocket attack or the rocket attack happened. And guess what? That’s because it was being done by Iranian surrogates,” Odierno said.
“And when the government of Iraq holds a meeting, there tends to be rocket attacks. Why’s that? Because it’s done by Iranian surrogates,” he told reporters at the Pentagon.
Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government has sought good relations with Iran, another Shi’ite majority country.
But Odierno said he believed Iran wanted Iraq to have only a weak government.
Asked if he saw Iran as the greatest long-term threat to Iraq’s stability, he said: “If you ask me what I worry about most, I do. I do worry about that as a long-term threat.”
He said the United States had “pretty clear” evidence that Iran was still training Shi’ite “special groups.”
He also said U.S. forces in Iraq continued to find many deadly armor-piercing munitions which the U.S. military says come from Iran.
Adm. William Fallon, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, said the United States expected Iraqi leaders to convey to Ahmadinejad “the necessity of stopping this lethal flow of equipment”.
“We are working with our commanders to try to cut off this Iranian influence,” Fallon told the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services.
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Well, that certainly answers my question on who was covering security for that Bozo.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:16 pm