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Length: 3:44
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN
"Breaking News."
TJ HOLMES: Iran, of course, accused by the U.S. of
arming insurgents and fueling the violence in Iraq,
now the U.S. says it can back up its accusations with
evidence and CNN's Michael Ware is just back from a
briefing by a senior U.S. military official. He joins
us now live from Baghdad with the breaking details.
Michael, what did we find out? Is there a smoking gun
in here?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Certainly not,
there is no smoking gun. Indeed, the U.S. presented
not one but three officials today: a senior defense
official from here in Baghdad; a senior defense
analyst, an intelligence-type person, here in Baghdad
as well, plus an explosives expert.
Now, what they did was presented information
primarily relating to what the military says is
Iran's provision of deadly munitions that are being
used in attacks against U.S. forces. The main focus
was on a particularly deadly type of bomb called an
"explosively formed penetrator" that punches through
even the toughest armor on American vehicles. And
according to the spokespeople today, is responsible
for killing at least 170 American soldiers since they
first appeared on the scene in the middle of 2004.
So essentially what the military is saying is that,
"Iran's special forces Quds Force is arming,
equipping and helping these Shia insurgent groups in
their attacks on us." To further that, to give
evidence, really there was nothing new. We were able
to see some of these explosive devices that have been
captured. We learned from the explosive exert that
they can only, one element of them can only be
manufactured in Iran.
And we also saw the military provide many examples of
these, which we've shown on CNN last year: tailfins
from 81mm mortars with the manufacturing stamp from
last year.
Now, according to the military, 81mm is a signature
for Iran, as is the particular manufacturer, this
single-piece tailfin is an identifier of Iran. They
also said its geometrics is an identifier of Iran.
So, they presented information by and large we
already knew, but, again, we are seeing an elevation
in the war of accusation between the U.S. and Iran
over what's happening here on the ground in Iraq.
HOLMES: Michael, before we let you go, and if you can
for us, real quickly, give us an idea how high up the
chain, the Iranian government, are these U.S.
officials telling you all this goes? How high up the
chain are these orders coming from to send this stuff
into Iraq?
WARE: Well, that's one of the most interesting things
that did came out of this. I mean, we've heard it
before, but nonetheless they say this comes from the
highest levels indeed from the office of the supreme
leader Khamenei himself.
Indeed, Iran's program here in Iraq is so
comprehensive -- both militarily, politically,
economically, on a religious front, everywhere -- it
has to have that kind of authority. And the U.S.
spokespeople today said that the kinds of materials
we're intercepting, on the level we're intercepting
them, have to come from this kind of authority. They
draw a direct link to Khamenei's office, which is in
contradiction to what they were saying a year ago and
two years ago saying, "yeah, we're picking these
things up but we can't trace them to the government."
Now they're saying it goes all the way to Khamenei
himself.
HOLMES: All right, CNN's Michael Ware in Baghdad for
us with those breaking details. Michael, thank you so
much. And we'll be right back with much more after a
quick break. Stay here.