More anti-Iran trash talk

Updated twice below:

Here's some of the anti-Iran trash talk I was talking about in my last post, from today's NY Times:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — The most lethal weapon directed against American troops in Iraq is an explosive-packed cylinder that United States intelligence asserts is being supplied by Iran.

The assertion of an Iranian role in supplying the device to Shiite militias reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies, although officials acknowledge that the picture is not entirely complete.

I'm not sure what it means these days to say that the entire intelligence community is in agreement on this. After all, the entire government has been so packed with Bush-loving politicos it shouldn't come as any surprise if the entire intelligence community agreed with Bush.

This may be the story of the boy who cried "wolf" once too often, but I for one am skeptical. After all, as I understand it, the Shi'a militias are not, for the most part, attacking American troops. They are going after the Sunnis. If Americans get in the way, they may be attacked by Shi'as, but not so much otherwise. It's the Sunni insurgents who are attacking Americans (as well as Shi'ites). So, if these weapons do come from Iran (and I'm skeptical, as I say), the intention may not have been to have them used against Americans, but to help the Shi'a defend themselves against Sunnis.

In the long run, of course, wider availability of arms in Iraq helps no one, but we, not Iran, are the worst offenders on that score. Not only did we fail to protect from theft the arms caches we captured when we invaded Iraq, but we're arming and training Shi'ite militiamen as part of the program to help the Iraqi army stand up for itself.

Update:

And then there's this from the Washington Post:

Last week, the CIA sent an urgent report to President Bush's National Security Council: Iranian authorities had arrested two al-Qaeda operatives traveling through Iran on their way from Pakistan to Iraq. The suspects were caught along a well-worn, if little-noticed, route for militants determined to fight U.S. troops on Iraqi soil, according to a senior intelligence official.

The arrests were presented to Bush's senior policy advisers as evidence that Iran appears committed to stopping al-Qaeda foot traffic across its borders, the intelligence official said. That assessment comes at a time when the Bush administration, in an effort to push for further U.N. sanctions on the Islamic republic, is preparing to publicly accuse Tehran of cooperating with and harboring al-Qaeda suspects.

Doesn't quite fit the story line Bush wants out there, does it?

Update II:

Glenn Greenwald weighs in against the NY Times doing another "Judy Miller" to us. This paragraph captures the tone of the piece:

In fact, with the exception of one cursory note buried in the middle that the Iranian Government denies supplying Shiite militias with weapons, every paragraph in the article -- every one -- simply echoes accusations by military and other Bush officials that Iran is behind the attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. If the White House were to prepare one of its famous Position Papers setting forth its case against Iran, it would look exactly like the article Gordon and the NYT just published on behalf of the administration. What is the point of this sort of article? Why would the New York Times just offer itself up again as a mindless vessel for what are clearly war-seeking accusations by the administration? Have they learned nothing?