U.S. backpedals accusations against Iran
By Borzou Daragahi and James Gerstenzang, Times Staff Writer
February 14, 2007
WASHINGTON -- U.S. officials from President Bush to a top general in Iraq said Wednesday that there was no solid evidence that top officials in Iran had ordered deadly weapons to be sent to Iraq for use against American soldiers, backing away from claims made at a Baghdad presentation by military and intelligence officials earlier this week....
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Critics in recent days have accused the administration of overstating claims of official Iranian involvement in Iraq's violence. On Sunday, U.S. officials in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity alleged that Iranian officials at the "highest levels" of the government in Tehran, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, were behind the smuggling of a deadly type of explosive devices used against U.S. forces in Iraq.
But during news conferences in Washington and Baghdad on Wednesday, Bush and Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the chief military spokesman in Baghdad, appeared to step back from that claim, just as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace did in an overseas interview earlier this week.
Caldwell characterized the recent statements about Iranian weapons in Iraq as a diplomatic endeavor to convince Iranians to stop the flow of such weapons....
The controversy surrounding the weapons claims revolves around the nature of wartime intelligence work, which often requires making conclusions based on classified information, confidential sources, circumstantial inferences and historical patterns rather than the type of evidence that may prove a court case.
At a presentation Sunday, U.S. officials showed reporters weapons found in Iraq they said had been made in Iran. But they spoke on condition of anonymity and barred reporters from bringing cameras or recorders. The unusual secrecy, amid several ongoing Washington probes into abuses of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, raised as many questions about U.S. motives as Iranian actions....
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