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Length: 8:16
MICHAEL WARE, CNN
CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These American soldiers
might not know it, but they have a bounty on their
heads, according to U.S. military intelligence. A
senior U.S. military official tells CNN Iran's Quds
Force is offering reward money to Iraqi militia who
kill GIs. The Quds Force is an elite unit of Iran's
Revolutionary Guard.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOREMAN: Michael Ware on Tuesday with a report that
puts Iranian activities in Iraq in a more sinister
light than ever before. He also reported that
fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah militia were
brought in by Iran to train Iraqi insurgents. Michael
joins us now from Baghdad and to discuss this and all
the other news out of Iraq, CNN military analyst
Brigadier General David Grange, U.S. Army, Retired,
in Chicago and senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie
McIntyre at the Pentagon.
First, let's get this out of the way. The Iranian
foreign ministry in "The Los Angeles Times" on
Tuesday responded to allegations that Iran brought
Hezbollah fighters to Iraq by saying, "It is another
silly and ridiculous scenario brought up by Americans
based on a baseless remark of a person. It is a sheer
lie, and it is ridiculous." Michael Ware, what's your
response to that?
WARE: My response is, what else do we really expect
them to say? This is the precise point of using
proxies in Iraq. The idea is that inevitably when the
people who are working with them are finally killed
or captured, you need to be able to sever that link.
That's why Iranian Quds Forces themselves, the
officers, aren't carrying out these activities. Yes,
they're in Iraq. We know that. Many of them have been
detained. Indeed, the Iranian embassy is full of them
here in Baghdad right now. They're not the ones on
the ground with the paramilitaries. It's these
cutouts. And indeed, what we know and hasn't been
revealed before is that the Lebanese Hezbollah man
who has been arrested, this operation's commander,
has said that it was indeed the Hezbollah leader,
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who personally sent him, not
to Iraq but to Iran. There he spent a year training
Iraqis ready to go back and fight Americans. It was
the Iranians who then said, "Can you go over the
border?"
FOREMAN: Let's take a look at the map so everybody
has a perspective on this. When we look at Iraq and
its immediate proximity to Iran, we're talking about
people being trained here, sent into Iraq to fight or
in some cases coming in from Lebanon over here where
Hezbollah is based and passing through Syria or over
Syria into Iraq to fight. These would be the proxies
you're talking about in Hezbollah. Jamie, the
Pentagon has been saying some version of this sort of
thing has been happening for quite some time.
JAMIE McINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And
again, just on Friday in the latest briefing from one
of the commanders in Iraq, Major General Rick Lynch,
again cited the number of Iranian munitions that are
found. He was asked if anyone had been detained
specifically from Iran. He said no, but he still
pointed a very accusing finger at Iran. Clearly he's
convinced that Iran is continuing to be what they
call an unhelpful influence in Iraq.
FOREMAN: Jamie, broadening the picture out now to the
question of the number of U.S. troops there to fight
against all of these forces, wherever they're coming
from the general also said something fascinating to
you in an interview. Let's take a listen to this
about the idea of reducing the number of U.S. troops
there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAJ. GEN RICK LYNCH, CMDR, MULTINATL DIVISION CTR: It
would be a mess Jamie. It would be a mess. Those
surge forces are giving us the capability we have now
to take the fight to the enemy. And the enemy only
responds to force and we now have that force. We can
conduct detailed kinetic strikes. We can do cordon
and searches and we can deny the enemy the
sanctuaries. If those surge forces goes away, that
capability goes away. And the Iraqi security forces
aren't ready yet to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOREMAN: Jamie, how afraid are the generals that now
with General Petraeus in command, they are moving in
the right direction, things actually are making
progress but that the clock in Washington has just
run out?
McINTYRE: Well, you saw that comment from General
Lynch. It followed the one on Thursday from General
Mixon, his counterpart to the north. There's a united
front from front line commanders who are urging
patience for the surge. Their biggest fear now is
that the surge is going to be successful in the short
term and then the troops are going to be pulled out
and it's all going to go back to the way it was.
That's what they're warning about now, and they say
they're not paying attention to what's happening in
Washington, but they can feel the heat of the
disillusionment in Washington, the impatience with
the policy, and they're very concerned that the rug
might be pulled out from underneath them just when
they think they have a strategy that's working.
FOREMAN: Another big defection this week, Senator
Pete Domenici from New Mexico, another Republican,
had this to say: "It is the Iraqi government that is
failing to make even modest progress to help Iraq
itself or to merit the sacrifices being made by our
men and women in uniform. I am unwilling to continue
our current strategy." Yet another big leader saying
we can't wait until the fall to see how the surge is
doing. General, how big of an issue will this be for
the men on the ground who have been told the surge
will be respected by the politicians in Washington at
least until September?
BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, U.S. ARMY (RETIRED): Well,
it will be a big deal to the troops if they don't
believe that the political leadership, the elected
leadership or the people themselves are not behind
this current strategy. You know, it amazes me when
people say it's time for a new strategy. Well, a new
strategy was just implemented. And yet there's some
debate going on of not giving it the time it needs to
work. There are small pockets of success. Let it run
its course a little while. These things don't happen
overnight. It is starting to work. They have a good
strategy. They have good leaders in there. They're
all in agreement. They don't have to pull from one
area to another hot spot and back and forth as they
used to do. Now they can surge throughout a big area,
do something and hold the area and transition to
Iraqis and build that confidence. It must be given
some time to work.
FOREMAN: Michael Ware, you've had some of the most
pessimistic outlooks at times that anything can be
done to make things better, but you're on the ground
there. You see this so-called surge at work. Would
you say to the politicians here, "Yeah, give it until
September, see how it works out," or would you say,
"Look, we've waited and waited and waited. Maybe
you're on the right thing to change now"?
WARE: What I would say is quite the contrary. I would
say that, you know, I'm sorry, but American forces
took this country. A set of circumstances emerged and
whether you like it or not, whether you were for or
against this war from the beginning, whether you're
for or against the surge now, I'm sorry, America has
very little choice but to stay, and for the
long-term. I mean, this country is broke. America's
enemies are emboldened and stronger. Their spheres of
influence are increasing as a direct result of the
U.S. presence here and the ongoing war. And what, you
want to turn around and pull out and leave it behind
to them? If that's what you want to do, I mean, if
America wants to pull out now, the question is, is
America ready to pay the price?
FOREMAN: General Grange, what do you think that price
would be, very briefly?
GRANGE: I think Mike's right on. I think that right
now, many of our adversaries smell blood and they
have positioned themselves through a very detailed
and thoughtful strategy on how to negate the
proudness of America to cause us to have to pull out
as early as possible and take advantage of that void.
I think you would really look at -- again, whether
you like the war or not -- you would look at some
type of an expanded regional conflict if that in fact
happened.
FOREMAN: And Jamie, very, very briefly, what happens
if we do start pulling out right away? Is that the
sense around the Pentagon, that there would be a
much, much bigger problem in the future?
MCINTYRE: That's the argument. But the
counter-argument, of course, is that the result is
going to be the same, whether the U.S. stays or not
and that the U.S. ought to consider cutting its
losses and moving out of there, and that no amount of
time is going to make that much difference. And of
course, the real problem is nobody really knows which
one of those scenarios will play out.
FOREMAN: It seems like that's always the problem.
Jamie, Michael, General, thank you all.