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Length: 3:14
MILES O'BRIEN: Another bloody day in Iraq today.
Three bombs in a central Baghdad market, reports of
at least 64 people killed. It comes the day after the
Pentagon presented what it claims is evidence Iran is
funneling weapons to Shiite fighters in Iraq. CNN's
Michael Ware was at the briefing where the evidence
was put on display.
Michael, first of all, let's talk about these
weapons. There's a lot of jargon going around here.
EFPs, explosively-formed penetrators. What exactly
are they?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Okay, Miles,
essentially that is the deadliest kind of roadside
bomb that you have here in the war in Iraq.
Essentially it's shaped like a large coffee tin and
it's pointed at the road. The explosives are
contained within. And when they detonate, they punch
a piece of shaped metal that forms into a molten ball
and punches through the heaviest American armor,
devastating virtually everything that's inside the
vehicle. That is an EFP.
Now the Americans say the components -- one of the
components, the shaped plate, has to be machine
tooled in Iran. It's not done here. And, indeed, they
intercepted some shipments crossing the border,
Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Well, how do they know it has to be
machined in Iran? I mean is there something unique
about the machining equipment in Iran?
WARE: Yes. Well, speaking to an explosives expert, he
says that, yes, it requires such fine tooling that
it's simply either not available here in Iraq or the
facilities where it is are being monitored. Either
way, they say that they can link it back.
Now bear in mind too, there's also a body of
circumstantial evidence. The way this bomb was first
identified, when it first appeared here in May 2004,
was by and large through the Israeli Defense Force.
The Israelis said, hang on, we've been encountering
these against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. So it
turns out this is technology that Iran's
Revolutionary Guard has been developing and sharing
with a number of its proxies.
M. O'BRIEN: To use a term that was used a few years
ago, is this a slam dunk as far as evidence? In other
words, what's sort of being said around the periphery
of this discussion?
WARE: Well, when you peel away all the cloak and
dagger, the arrests of senior Iranian officers, the
debriefs, the interrogations, the documents and the
identification cards and what we're being told is
intercepted intelligence, what it amounts to is
essentially things like this, Miles. These are mortar
tailfins. Now we have collected these over some time
and we first aired them last year. This is precisely
the kind of thing or is actually the kind of thing
that U.S. military intelligence displayed yesterday.
The date stamp shows it was only manufactured in
2006. It's of a particular caliber that the U.S.
military says is a signature for Iran in this region,
as is the make. The fact that this piece of assembly
is one piece and not many parts put together, they
say again is another signature that traces it back to
Iran. So at the end of the day, this is the core
evidence.
M. O'BRIEN: Michael Ware in Baghdad, thank you.
Soledad.
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Length: 3:22
MILES O'BRIEN: Imagine
how terrifying it must be for Iraqis to simply shop
for food. Yet another horrific market bombing in
Baghdad today; more than 70 are dead. It comes the
day after the Pentagon presented what it claims is
evidence Iran is funneling weapons to Shiite fighters
in Iraq. CNN's Michael Ware was at that briefing.
Hello, Michael.
MICHAEL WARE, CNN INT'L. CORRESPONDENT: Yes. What we
saw was the military bring out an American defense
official, a defense intelligence analyst, and an
explosives expert. And what we saw in this background
briefing is America ratchet up the rhetoric against
Iran.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WARE: In a war meant to confront al Qaeda, the
American military says its troops are being killed by
Iran. In a background briefing in Baghdad that could
not be taped, by three official who cannot be named,
the U.S. escalated its campaign of accusation against
Tehran.
The U.S. officials laid out what they call a growing
body of evidence that a largely covert Iranian
special forces unit arms, trains and advises Shia
insurgents attacking coalition soldiers. That unit is
an element of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Its elite Quds Force, which U.S. officials claim,
takes its orders directly from Iranian Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, himself.
Insisting the Quds Force is systematically funneling
insurgents a range of arms, from mortars to sniper
rifles, grenades to machine guns. The American
officials highlighted one weapon in particular they
blame the Quds Force for supplying. A roadside bomb
pioneered by Lebanese Hezbollah, so powerful it
punches through the heaviest American armor with
ease. Called an explosively formed penetrator, or
EFP; the officials say the device has killed at least
170 soldiers since it first emerged on the Iraqi
battlefield in 2004.
But like much of the declassified information
released during the briefing, it's a claim U.S.
officials have made many times before, insisting one
of the bomb's key components needs fine
machine-tooling that can be traced back to Iran, as
can markings on mortars and explosives found inside
Iraq, which show they were manufactured by Tehran.
While admitting there is no smoking gun of Iranian
complicity, a Defense Department intelligence analyst
says this is a sophisticated Iranian campaign being
fought through a host of surrogate groups, maximizing
Iran's deniability.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WARE: And that intelligence analyst said deniability
is the name of the game in this shadow proxy war. He
said, "plausible deniability, the Iranians invented
it," mirroring the tactics that the CIA used with the
Afghan and Arab Mujahedin to defeat the Soviets in
Afghanistan in the 1980s.
M. O'BRIEN: Michael Ware in Baghdad, thank you.
Soledad.
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Length: 3:16
MILES O'BRIEN: Imagine
how terrifying it must be for Iraqis simply to shop
for their food. Yet another horrific market bombing
in Baghdad today. At least 88 are dead. It comes the
day after the Pentagon presented what it claims is
evidence Iran is funneling weapons to Shiite fighters
in Iraq.
CNN's Michael Ware was at that briefing.
Michael, first of all, let's talk about the evidence
that was presented.
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Essentially,
Miles, the thrust of the evidence is that a U.S.
defense official and an intelligence analyst outlined
what they basically described as a very sophisticated
program being executed by one of Iran's special
forces units answering directly to Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei himself, where they're funneling weapons,
training, money, and support to Shia insurgent groups
killing Americans.
And when you peel away all the cloak and dagger --
the arrest of covert agents, officers here in the
country revealed, fake identification -- what it
boils down to are things like these, Miles. These are
mortar tailfins that have been used here in Baghdad.
Now, what's significant, according to American
military intelligence, are the markings. Now, for
example, we collected these last year and first aired
them in November. The markings clearly show they were
manufactured only last year.
Iraq is not making mortars. They had to come from
somewhere.
American military intelligence also says this
assembly is Iranian. That it's a signature of Iranian
mortars that the tailfin is one piece, as is the
caliber, 81mm, as is the geometry of this tailfin.
So what they're pointing to is what they're finding
here in the country, and they're saying that this is
part of a broader sophisticated campaign using the
exact tactics the CIA used against the Soviets,
manipulating Mujahadeen fighters in Afghanistan to
attack their enemy. That's precisely what Iran is
doing now, using Iraqi surrogates to attack America
-- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Well, Michael, you mentioned you found
those pieces more than a year ago. What in this
evidence is new? And I guess a part of that question
would be, why is the U.S. coming forward at this
moment?
WARE: Well, the evidence has been mounting for years.
I mean, since the moment the U.S. invaded, Iran and
its surrogates swept into the vacuum left by the fall
of Saddam's regime. It wasn't long after that that we
started to see emergence of death squads,
reconnaissance units, all sorts of networks.
So the evidence has been out there from the
beginning. I mean, you can collect these today. You
could have collected them a year ago. What's changed
is the American rhetoric.
Now, a year ago, when you would ask American
intelligence about things such as these mortars, they
would say, yes, we know they're coming across the
border, but we can't pin it necessarily on the
Iranian government. However, today they're saying,
perhaps rightly, that in Iran you don't just take
mortars, disappear with them, and cross a border
unless the government knows. I mean, that's the
situation in Iran. They're now saying that this
cannot happen without official sanction -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Michael Ware in Baghdad.
Thank you.