Fool Us Twice, Shame On Us
First we were told about Iraq having WMDs and all the links that supposedly proved Saddam’s complicity with al Qaida in the 9/11 attacks. A majority of Senators and Representatives along with many of us common folk bought into the lies and half-truths we were spoon fed and the result is the unbelievable mess we have created in Iraq. Shame on them for fooling us!
Now we are being told about Iran’s nuclear program. Iran claims it is for peaceful uses, we insist they are trying to build a bomb. We know this because… well we don’t trust them so they must be lying. The latest news is that we “know for sure” that Iran is supplying the explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) currently wreaking deadly havoc in Iraq. We know this because… EFPs are sophisticated devices that could not be made without involvement at high levels so it must be Iran that is supplying these devices to the insurgents. This time if we accept what we are told without demanding more proof, it will be shame on us!
The intelligence backing up the Administration’s claim about the EFPs is minimal and there is good reason to believe these devices can and are being made in Baghdad. There was an Andrew Cockburn article in the Los Angeles Times, reprinted in the San Jose Mercury in February, about a largely unreported raid of a Baghdad machine shop last November. The raid uncovered copper disks that were determined to be part of an ongoing order. These disks plus a high powered explosive and a pipe-like container make an EFP. Contrary to the claim that EFPs are a sophisticated device they are simple and inexpensive to make for anyone who knows how.
The real question about these deadly devices is why we were not prepared to protect our military from them? EFPs are not new. They were used as far back as World War II by the French Resistance, in Northern Ireland by the IRA, and against Israel in Lebanon in the 1990s. While Donald Rumsfeld concentrated on building an expensive technology based military system, he continued sending our men and women into a guerilla war where they were being killed by inexpensive home made bombs, the deadliest of which is the EFP. Rumsfeld’s response was more technology. Spending time and money developing technological military devices when we are fighting a guerilla war shows the true measure of a man like Donald Rumsfeld and it’s not a pretty sight.
We can only hope that Secretary Gates is more tuned in to the reality of the war we are fighting and that as long as our young men and women are in Iraq, that he understands supporting the troops means giving them what they need to survive.