December 13, 2005
More and more evidence is mounting that Iran’s ayatollahs have their hands deep into the Shiite-led government of
Iraq.
Astonishingly though, the Bush administration – and its allied phalanx
of neoconservatives – have turned a blind eye to Iran’s influence in
Iraq. That’s because the Iraqi Shiites, who run the regime in Baghdad,
are supposed to be the "good guys," i.e., the ones we are defending in
Iraq. As I’ve written before, the United States has 160,000 troops in
Iraq serving as the Praetorian guard for that Shiite regime. We’re
killing hundreds of Sunnis all over western Iraq on their behalf.
Before we get to the latest reports of more torture prisons run by the
Shiites, along with death squads, consider the following items from the
news.
Knight Ridder, perhaps the single best news organization covering the war in Iraq and its political fallout, carried an important exchange in which the head of the Badr Brigade, the paramilitary force backed by
Iran,
flatly admits that his 20,000-strong secret army – which is the arm of
the ruling Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) – is
funded by Iran:
politician Ayad Allawi.
"Allawi receives money from America, from the
CIA,
but nobody talks about that. All they talk about is our funding from
Iran," he said, raising his voice. "We are funded by some (Persian)
Gulf countries and the Islamic Republic of Iran. We don't hide it."
And the report, by Tom Lasseter, includes this bombshell from General Casey:
"They're putting millions of dollars into the south to
influence the elections ... it's funded primarily through their charity
organizations and also Badr and some of these political parties," said
Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. general in Iraq. "A lot of their
guys (Badr) are going into the police and military."
In another breakthrough report, today’s Washington Times carries an interview with
a leading former Iraqi general who says that the network of torture
prisons run by SCIRI, Badr, and the Iraqi interior ministry is overseen
by an Iranian intelligence officer, Tahseer Nasr Lawandi, nicknamed
"The Engineer." Here’s the report, but read the whole thing:
An Iraqi general formerly in charge of special
Interior Ministry forces said yesterday that a senior Iranian
intelligence officer was in charge of a network of detention centers
where suspected insurgents were routinely tortured and sometimes
killed.
Gen. al-Samarrai said the Iranian intelligence officer, Tahseer Nasr
Lawandi, works directly under the Kurdish deputy minister, Gen. Hussein
Kamel, and is known throughout the ministry as "The Engineer."
"The Engineer was behind the torturing and killing in the ministry
and was also in charge of Jadriya prison," said Gen. al-Samarrai, who
left the ministry after a dispute with superiors and is now living in
Jordan.
The Iranian officer not only masterminded interrogations, tortures and
executions at the prisons, but also would take part in torture
sessions, often using an electric drill, Gen. al-Samarrai said.
Some of the tortured prisoners were found in morgues with drill
holes in their legs and eyes, according to another security source, who
declined to be identified.
The general said Mr. Lawandi had worked with the minister and deputy
minister to form a special security service to run the detention and
interrogation operation and a separate group called the Wolf Brigade to
capture suspects and bring them to the secret locations -- usually
under cover of darkness.
This is critically important stuff, because it utterly destroys the
Bush administration’s contention that the United States is building
"democracy" in Iraq.
Today’s New York Times has a story about the torture
prisons, noting that a senior Iraqi interior ministry official denies
that any abuse occurred, and it then quotes U.S. military officials
contradicting him.
So the question is: when will hear the Bush administration's top
officials start calling the Shiite fundamentalist regime in Baghdad
"Islamofascists"? So far, they's applied that term only to the Iraqi
resistance, tarring the Sunni-led insurgency by painting them as led by
Al Qaeda-style terrorists, when in fact that they are mostly Iraqi
nationalists, Baathists, and ex-military men. Their main grievance is
that the United States is handing Iraq over to Iran. I'd say they're
right.
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