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Tuatara · #12 (**permalink**) 05-06-2008, 11:00 AM

Just found this.
Iraq: No Evidence Iran Is Arming Shiites

Quote:

A top Iraqi official said Sunday there was no "conclusive" evidence that Shiite extremists have been directly supplied with some Iranian arms as alleged by the United States.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraq does not want trouble with any country, "especially Iran."

Al-Dabbagh was commenting on talks this week in Tehran between an Iraqi delegation and Iranian authorities aimed at halting suspected Iranian aid to some Shiite militias.

Asked about reports that some rockets made in 2007 or 2008 and seized in raids against militias were directly supplied by Iran, al-Dabbagh replied: "There is no conclusive evidence." ...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/...n4069224.shtml
Also of note..,

Quote:

...there’s the team of Da’wa (the party of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki) and the former Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (which runs most of the country’s security services). Both SCIRI and Da’wa have decades-deep connections to Iran. “Shiite rivals, particularly the party loyal to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr, regularly accuse the Supreme Council of being a tool of the Iranian intelligence service. The party’s top officials, including its leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, lived in Iran for decades and still frequently return,” the Times observes.

“SCIRI was essentially created by Iran, and its militia, the Badr Brigade, was trained and equipped by the Revolutionary Guards,” Council on Foreign Relations Iran scholar Ray Takeyh notes in the current Middle East Journal.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/arc...basra_team-up/

The thought that the Iranians would be helping out militias against their own Badr Brigade is ludicrous.
And yet another story

Quote:

The Iraqi government backed away yesterday from accusations of Iranian interference, saying it had appointed a committee to determine whether there is merit to US charges that its eastern neighbor is arming and training Shi'ite Muslim militants here.
more stories like this

The sharp change in tone, after meetings with Iranian officials in Tehran, reflects the difficult position in which Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq finds himself as he attempts to juggle relations with two powerful allies who are intense rivals.

"We have no choice but to have good relations with the neighboring countries," said Maliki's spokesman, Ali Dabbagh. "We do not want to be pushed into a conflict with a country like Iran."

Dabbagh's comments came after US officials had trumpeted the discovery of large quantities of Iranian weapons, some of them manufactured in 2008. The purported finds have not been shown to the media. But if true, they would suggest that Iran had not kept a promise to Maliki to help cut the supply of arms, funding, and training to Iraqi militants.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/mid...iran_conflict/