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Michael delivers a voice-over summation of what Iran's Special Groups are up to in Iraq, and it is an absolutely chilling look at the war, the kind of things our troops face every day but that we, the American public, have been shielded from. And it is about damned time we saw it and started comprehending the truth about the fight and about what is at stake.
KIRAN
CHETRY: A propaganda video used to recruit fighters
to kill U.S. soldiers. They are being targeted on the
tape obtained by CNN. The U.S. military says it is
proof Iran is training an elite militia inside of
Iraq.
CNN's Michael Ware is breaking this story from
Baghdad.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL WARE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT
(voice-over): These men are well-trained to kill
American soldiers in Iraq. They belong to what U.S.
military intelligence calls the Special Group.
This video obtained by CNN shows them firing against
U.S. targets. Elite groups of Shiite fighters trained
in guerilla warfare by the militant Lebanese group
Hezbollah, they are armed and directed by Iran.
GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, TOP U.S. COMMANDER IN IRAQ:
Clearly, again, the Iranian-supported Special Groups
are right now again a very, very difficult enemy.
They are killing our soldiers. They are shooting
rockets at the Iraqi seat of government, at the
International Zone.
WARE: U.S. military intelligence says Iranian-backed
militia like this are killing more U.S. soldiers each
month than al Qaeda or the Sunni insurgency. And the
U.S. now rates Iran as an equal or greater threat
than al Qaeda in Iraq.
U.S. intelligence says Iranian-made weapons are still
flooding across the border -- some seized in April
with 2008 markings. It also claims that captured
members of the Special Groups have admitted they were
trained inside Iran. But it's very hard for the U.S.
to prove continuing Iranian involvement with the
Special Groups.
It's most recent dossier of evidence sent to Tehran
with an Iraqi delegation merely adds fresh detail to
old allegations. And on his last visit to Tehran,
Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki carried his own
dossier of evidence implicating Iran, yet even his
senior aides says it's weak.
HAIDAR ABADI, MALIKI ADVISER: I mean, look, you may
ask us for evidence, we cannot produce watertight
evidence. We cannot. Because the Iranians, they have
experience, with even the previous regime, of
infiltrating the borders, causing problems for many
years. They have that experience without being
exposed.
WARE: Iran also had strong ties to the major
political parties that make up the governing
coalition in Baghdad, with even Iraq's president
considered by U.S. intelligence to be an Iranian
agent of influence. All of which the U.S. has to
accept as a fact of life.
PETRAEUS: Again, it's a reality.
WARE: That there is that kind of infiltration.
PETRAEUS: It's a reality. Again, look, as you pointed
out earlier but again for the listeners, your
audience, these parties are products, many of them,
of time in Iran.
WARE: And though Iran's influences is believed to be
growing, Petraeus says he still sees a possible
opportunity here with some Iraqi politicians
connected to Iran becoming anxious about Iran's
Special Groups.
PETRAEUS: You see leaders of parties that again have
benefited financially, physically and all kinds of
different ways from their relationships with Iran now
being gravely concerned about what the Special
Groups, and to a degree the militias, are doing in
Iraq.
WARE: The Iraqi Army has moved against Shia militia
in Sadr City and in the port of Basra, the operations
ending after ceasefires -- at least one brokered by
Iran -- were declared. So that leaves the Special
Groups -- who the U.S. says are responsible for a
huge car bombing in Baghdad on Tuesday -- as the tip
of Iran's military spear in Iraq.
At last Friday's prayers, anti-American rebel cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr announced the creation of a new group
in his Mahdi Army militia to fight U.S. troops,
meaning Iran's Special Groups may have just found a
political sponsor inside Iraq. With the success of
America's mission at stake, for General Petraeus this
is a critical time.
PETRAEUS: Well, I think again the question is what is
the character of that involvement? How malign is it?
Do they allow Iraq to succeed again as the first
Shia-Arab state. To let this new country in this
ancient land actually prosper and flourish or do they
somehow try to control it or use it as a tool.
WARE: Yet the Iraqi government said if Iran promises
not to interfere in Iraq's affairs, it will forge
closer security ties with Tehran.
ABADI: It will open the gate for full cooperation
with Iran. There can be security training. We can
benefit a lot from Iran. The Iranians have a lot of
experience, counter-intelligence, experience of
counter-terrorism.
WARE: But while these Special Group attacks continue
against U.S. bunkers and American soldiers, an
alternative to the rising Iranian influence is
precisely what America needs.
Michael Ware, CNN, Baghdad.