Ditching the moral compass

[Political Waves]

As always, what's going on behind the curtain of government is ever more pressing than what's in front of it -- add the Hand of Fate and we can't even rescue ourselves anymore. Digging around in the news bits is required to unearth the machinations behind the scenes.

Take the Myanmar tragedy, with the complications of the cyclone [disease, water and food unavailability, rainy season] projected to take a million lives; relief is still being kept out generally, but the junta continues to vigorously export rice to Bangladesh and other points, while throwing their citizens the spoiled leftovers. The "election" went on as planned, even though 100,000 people are dead or unaccounted for and the country is in chaos. Fearing backlash, McCain's pick to lead the GOP convention quit due to ties to the junta, as well as two of his aids. Busy, BUSY little Pubs! That ANYone on this side of the hemisphere would lobby for these brutes tells us how low humans will go to make a buck.

We're focused on the cyclone -- while behind the scenes, there's rot.

China had a whiz-bang of an earthquake, reported at 7.8 [which will rattle your teeth right out of your head.] Early estimates indicate 3-5,000 dead, and you know how those grow. Added to the outcry of the Tibetan issues, this is going to add big PR and logistical problems to the joy-joy Olympic occasion they had planned, their entry into 'civil society.' It will be interesting to see how the People's Republic calms the international concerns, immune to the propaganda machine. I'd suppose there will be humanitarian efforts -- in this country, we'd have to borrow money from them to send something along, wouldn't we.

We're focused on the idealism of a sporting event among competing nations -- while behind the scenes there's calamity.

Here in the US of A, 20 people were killed in the latest storm and tornadic event ... they're like pearls on a string, now, one right behind another separated by weeks ... and one little town in Oklahoma isn't even going to try to rebuild. The touchdown that killed 15 was about an hour away from the Pea Patch. These things don't faze us anymore -- well, think Katrina and all; doing nothing is our default position. The moral issues don't get our blood running anymore; we're exhausted, they all seem like one dark event that's pounding us.

Survival issues are resonating our chakra's now. We're preoccupied with the economy and the election, busy putting "food on our families." If we needed a little pick-me-up, we could read about the Bush wedding this weekend, with Jenna marrying her Pub loyalist, and former aid to Karl Rove. [Many feel this is an inappropriate time for nuptials, across partisan lines -- but I'm cutting them slack. Love wins out, and they didn't rub our noses in it with a giant BBQ gala at the White House; this article is symbolic of any number of others I've read.]

Yes, we're focused elsewhere -- and meanwhile, behind the curtain ...

Jude



Kitty Hawk air wing commander removed for 'loss of confidence'
Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes
Sunday, May 11, 2008
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=54697

TOKYO — The U.S. Navy air wing commander for the USS Kitty Hawk's strike group was relieved of duty Friday after an admiral said he lost confidence in the commander's ability, according to a Navy spokeswoman.

Capt. Michael P. McNellis was relieved as commander of Carrier Air Wing 5 by Rear Adm. Richard B. Wren, commander of Commander Task Force 70, the Navy said in a news release.

The admiral's mast, a nonjudicial punishment proceeding below the level of court-martial, was held Friday at sea aboard the Kitty Hawk, according to Cmdr. Jensin W. Sommer, CTF-70 strike group spokeswoman.

Sommer declined Friday evening to give any details about the circumstances leading to McNellis' nonjudicial proceeding.

Sommer described Wren's findings as a removal from command "due to a loss of confidence, not a punishment."

McNellis left the Kitty Hawk on Friday, Sommer said. McNellis, who graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1982 and trained as an EA-6B Prowler pilot, was preparing for retirement, she said.

Capt. Michael S. White, the former air wing deputy commander, assumed command, Sommer said.

McNellis took command of Carrier Air Wing 5 in September 2006 from Capt. Garry Mace, who commended McNellis at the time for his experience.

"Since I started working with [McNellis], he's always been a moral compass for me, keeping me pointed in the right direction," Mace said in 2006. "I'm sure as a leader, he'll do great things for this air wing."

The air wing is based at Naval Air Facility Atsugi and includes seven aircraft squadrons and two smaller aircraft detachments, consisting of about 70 aircraft and 2,000 people. It is part of the Kitty Hawk's strike group, the largest in the Navy.

The USS Kitty Hawk Carrier Strike Group is conducting training and operations in the Philippine Sea, Sommer wrote in the news release. ++


[snipped from] Disturbing Stirrings - Ratcheting Up For War On Iran
Stephen Lendman, OpEdNews  
May 12, 2008
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_stephen__080512_disturbing_stirrings.htm

[...] No one can predict US and Israeli plans, but certain things are known and future possibilities can be assessed. Consider recent events. In mid-March, Dick Cheney toured the Middle East with stops in Israel, the West Bank, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Oman, Afghanistan and Iraq. It came after Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon "resigned" March 10 (a year after his appointment) after reports were that he sharply disagreed with regional administration policy.

Public comments played it down, but speculation was twofold - Fallon's criticism of current Iraq policy and his opposition to attacking Iran. Before the March 10 announcement, smart money said he'd be sacked by summer and replaced by someone more hawkish. It came sooner than expected, and, even more worrisome, by a super-hawk. One with big ambitions, and that's a bad combination. More on that below.

First, recall another Pentagon sacking last June, officially announced as a "retirement." George Bush was said to have "reluctantly agreed" to replacing Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace because of his "highest regard" for the general. At issue, of course, was disagreement again over Middle East policy with indications Pace was far from on board. He signaled it on February 17, 2006 at a National Press Club luncheon. Responding to a question, he said: "It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral." He later added that commanders should "not obey illegal and immoral orders to use weapons of mass destruction....They cannot commit crimes against humanity."

These comments and likely private discussions led to Pace's dismissal. This administration won't tolerate dissent even by Joint Chiefs Chairmen. It's clear that officials from any branch of government will be removed or marginalized if they oppose key administration policy. Some go quietly while more notable ones make headlines that omit what's most important. For one thing, that the Pentagon is rife with dissent over the administration's Middle East policy.

For another, the law of the land, and there's nothing more fundamental than that. The administration disdains it so it's no fit topic for the media. Law Professor Francis Boyle champions it in his classroom, speeches, various writings and books like his newest - Protesting Power: War, Resistance, and Law.

Boyle is an expert. He knows the law and has plenty to cite - the UN Charter; Nuremberg Charter, Judgment and Principles; Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Hague Regulations; Geneva Conventions; Supreme and lower Court decisions; US Army Field Manual 27-10; the Law of Land Warfare (1956); and US Constitution.

He unequivocally states that every US citizen, including members of the military and all government officials, are duty bound to obey the law and to refuse to carry out orders that violate it. Doing so makes them culpable. Included are all international laws and treaties. The Constitution's supremacy clause ("the supreme law of the land" under Article VI) makes them domestic law. General Pace, Fallon and others on down aren't exempt. Neither is the president, vice-president, all administration members and everyone in Congress.

Before Fallon's sacking, things were heating up. Three US warships (including the USS Cole guided-missile destroyer) were deployed to the Lebanese coast - officially "to show support for regional stability (and over) concern about the situation in Lebanon." It's been in political crisis for months, and it's got Washington and Israel disturbed - because of Hezbollah's widespread popularity and ability to defend itself.

Any regional US show of force causes concern, especially when more is happening there simultaneously. Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin criticized it, and Hezbollah said it "threat(ened)" regional stability - with good reason. It believes conflict will erupt in northern Occupied Palestine close to the Lebanese border. It's also preparing to counter Israel's latest threat - an Israeli Channel 10 News report that the IDF is on high alert "inside and outside Israel" and is prepared to launch a massive attack if Hezbollah retaliates for the assassination of one of its senior leaders, Imad Fayez Mughniyah, by a February 12 Damascus car-bombing.

Then came Cheney's Middle East tour with likely indications of its purpose - oil, Israeli interests and, of course, isolating Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas further, and rallying support for more war in a region where Arab states want to end the current ones. What worries them most, or should, is the possibility that Washington will use nuclear weapons. If so, consider the consequences - subsequent radioactive fallout that will contaminate vast regional swaths permanently.

After Cheney left Saudi Arabia, the state-friendly Okaz newspaper reported that the Saudi Shura Council (the kingdom's elite decision-making body) began formulating "national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom" should the Pentagon use nuclear weapons against Iran. It's a sign Saudi leaders are worried and a clear indication of what they discussed with Cheney.

Saudi, Iranian and other world leaders know the stakes. They're also familiar with Bush administration strategy and tactics post-9/11... ++


Attack Iran? Why Not Just Paint Targets on the Backs of Kids Like Those on PBS's "Carrier"?
Russ Wellen, SmirkingChimp
May 12, 2008
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14569

After the National Intelligence Estimate last November which reported that Iran had no nuclear program since 2003, many of us breathed a sigh of relief. It was official: When it came to attacking Iran, the administration hadn't a leg to stand on.

But, as with Iraq, it was used to that. Once anointed lame duck, it didn't skip a beat and continued to stumble forward.

In a recent post at his blog "Early Warning," Washington Post security analyst William Arkin writes: "Those predicting war with Iran or some Bush-Cheney October surprise attack on Tehran are constantly looking for signs of military preparations."

He cites the unauthorized transfer of nuclear warheads from Minot to Barksdale Air Force bases, extra aircraft carriers sent to the Persian Gulf, and the B-1 that crashed in Qatar last month.

Then Arkin recalls a secret mission conducted last August over Afghanistan. He claims it "tells us everything we need to know about the ability of the U.S. military to conduct a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack in Iran."

It seems that four F-16CJ fighters completed a mission that won the prestigious Mackay Trophy for the "most meritorious" Air Force fight of the year. They flew from Iraq to Eastern Afghanistan, where they dropping more than a dozen "precision-guided" bombs on Taliban targets. It "was the equivalent of flying from New York to Los Angeles and back," Arkin explains.

In other words, like a 10-K runner logging a hundred miles a week, they might have been training for a strike on Iran, which is just the next country over from Iraq.

Meanwhile, on May 2, Andrew Cockburn (author of a new book, "Muqtada," called "required reading" in the New York Times Sunday Book Review today) reported on Counterpunch that, six weeks before, President Bush signed a secret directive authorizing a covert offensive against Iran.

Supposedly, it surpasses in scope anything attempted before. Assuming, that is, that you don't count the CIA's work to destabilize Iran's democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh's, in 1953.

The directive, Cockburn writes, funds (to the tune of $300 million), "actions across a huge geographic area –- from Lebanon to Afghanistan -– but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted. . . including the assassination of targeted officials." Presumably by the terrorist MEK, the Iranian anti-Islamic Republic group that, despite its designation as a terrorist group by the State Department, we're only too glad to make use of.

But, on his blog, Pen and Sword, outspoken Military.com columnist Ken Huber calls Cockburn's Counterpunch piece "counterproductive." "Cockburn seems to want us to get excited that this Lebanon-to-Afghanistan offensive may involve assassination," he writes. But "we're already assassinating people in Somalia with freaking cruise missiles. We're doing the same thing in Pakistan with Hellfire missiles fired from pilotless spy planes; the folks who pickle off the missiles are dweebs sitting at consoles in an Air Force base in Nevada."

Pickle off, indeed. Huber concludes: "The door to this barn has been open for a long, long time. That the horses are gone shouldn't be news to anybody."

However, the threat has since been kicked into a higher gear by respected security analyst Philip Giraldi, who was a former CIA officer and is now foreign policy advisor to the Ron Paul campaign.

In his latest blog at the American Conservative, "War With Iran Might Be Closer Than You Think," he writes: "There is considerable speculation and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Qods-run camp [near Tehran] that is believed to be training Iraqi militants."

"Secretary of Defense Robert Gates," he adds, "was the only senior official urging delay. . . . [The decision] is the direct result of concerns [over] the deteriorating situation in Lebanon, where Iranian ally Hezbollah appears to have gained the upper hand against government forces."

After contacting Iran and reading them the riot act, the White House decided that "some sort of unambiguous signal has to be sent to the Iranian leadership, presumably in the form of cruise missiles." Unambiguous, thy name is cruise missile. Of course, President Bush "will still have to give the order to launch after all preparations are made."

PBS has been running a series titled Carrier, about life aboard the USS Nimitz. Imagine Iran retaliating to an air strike by blowing a mega-tub like this, along with its crew of over 5,000 mostly young people, out of the water? Iran's state-of-the-art Shahab-3 missiles are able to reach parts of the Arabian Sea and even the Mediterranean.

In other words, not only is the Persian Gulf, but total war, a hop, skip and a jump away. ++


Early Warning
A Secret Afghanistan Mission Prepares for War with Iran
William M. Arkin, Washington Post
08/05/08
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19891.htm

Those predicting war with Iran or some Bush-Cheney October surprise attack on Tehran are constantly looking for signs of military preparations: a B-52 bomber that mistakenly takes off from North Dakota with nuclear-armed cruise missiles; a second or third aircraft carrier entering the Persian Gulf; a B-1 crashing in Qatar.

Since the most likely path to war with Iran is not Marines storming the beach but a strike on nuclear facilities and "regime" targets, signs such as these can often just be mirages. The true strike is not necessarily going to come with any warning, and the U.S. military has developed an entire system called "global strike" to implement such a preemptive strike.

A secret mission conducted last August over Afghanistan caught my eye because it tells us everything we need to know about the ability of the U.S. military to conduct a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack in Iran. It also tells us how useless such a strike might be.

On Aug. 12, 2007, four F-16CJ fighters took off on an 11-hour mission from Iraq to Eastern Afghanistan, crossing the airspace of six different nations, before dropping more than a dozen precision-guided bombs on Taliban targets. The crews of the record-breaking flight received the coveted Clarence MacKay Trophy for 2007, an award given annually for "the most meritorious flight" of the year.

The secret mission had never before been attempted, according to the Air Force, and the pilots were allotted a two-minute window of attack at the end of their 2,100-mile flight. The entire non-stop mission, which took 13 aerial refuelings, was the equivalent of flying from New York to Los Angeles and back.

The mission was a success, according to the Air Force: It resulted in "direct hits" that allowed coalition ground forces to "conduct raids on Taliban positions."

However, a check of the news out of Afghanistan for the week of Aug. 12 reveals no real air strike of significance. On Aug. 12, the wire services reported fighting near the Pakistani border and the death of three U.S. soldiers and their Afghan interpreter from a roadside bomb. Further fighting was reported on Aug. 13 and Aug. 14, but no significant bombing missions in support of U.S. or Afghan forces.

On Aug. 15, the Afghan government announced a large scale three-day operation in the area of Tora Bora, an operation launched in response to the killing of three U.S. soldiers by IED earlier that week. Officials said nearly 50 suspected Pakistani and Taliban militants were killed in air and ground operations. Coalition aircraft carried out two sorties to target the Taliban positions in that area, an Afghan official said.

I don't doubt that the F-16CJ night mission was complicated and historic, as well as physically and mentally demanding. The crews, according to the Air Force, worked with new operating instructions and went into the unknown. The squadron commander had only 18 hours to plan and prepare for the attack. The mission was so secret, furthermore, it was not listed on the daily Air Tasking Order, the daily schedule distributed throughout the U.S. military, further complicating aerial refuelings and overflights.

If on Aug. 12, 2007, the United States had killed Osama bin Laden or scored some major victory in Afghanistan, one might fully appreciate the mission and the award of the MacKay Trophy. But I suspect that what was important here is that the mission went like clockwork, not that something important in Afghanistan was destroyed.

None of this is to besmirch the effort or the achievement. But if this was really a rehearsal to attack Iran, it was a mission where getting the airplanes over the target was more consequential than what was actually bombed. ++


War With Iran Might Be Closer Than You Think
Philip Giraldi, The American Conservative
May 9th, 2008

There is considerable speculation and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Qods-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants. 

The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran.  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was the only senior official urging delay in taking any offensive action.  The decision to go ahead with plans to attack Iran is the direct result of concerns being expressed over the deteriorating situation in Lebanon, where Iranian ally Hezbollah appears to have gained the upper hand against government forces and might be able to dominate the fractious political situation. 

The White House contacted the Iranian government directly yesterday through a channel provided by the leadership of the Kurdish region in Iraq, which has traditionally had close ties to Tehran.  The US demanded that Iran admit that it has been interfering in Iraq and also commit itself to taking steps to end the support of various militant groups.  There was also a warning about interfering in Lebanon.  The Iranian government reportedly responded quickly, restating its position that it would not discuss the matter until the US ceases its own meddling employing Iranian dissident groups.  The perceived Iranian intransigence coupled with the Lebanese situation convinced the White House that some sort of unambiguous signal has to be sent to the Iranian leadership, presumably in the form of cruise missiles.  It is to be presumed that the attack will be as "pinpoint" and limited as possible, intended to target only al-Qods and avoid civilian casualties.  The decision to proceed with plans for an attack is not final.  The President will still have to give the order to launch after all preparations are made. ++


Hizbollah Rules West Beirut In Iran's Proxy War With US
Robert Fisk, TheIndependent
10/05/08
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19897.htm

Another American humiliation. The Shia gunmen who drove past my apartment in west Beirut yesterday afternoon were hooting their horns, making V-signs, leaning out of the windows of SUVs with their rifles in the air, proving to the Muslims of the capital that the elected government of Lebanon has lost.

And it has. The national army still patrols the streets, but solely to prevent sectarian killings or massacres. Far from dismantling the pro-Iranian Hizbollah's secret telecommunications system – and disarming the Hizbollah itself – the cabinet of Fouad Siniora sits in the old Turkish serail in Beirut, denouncing violence with the same authority as the Iraqi government in Baghdad's green zone.

The Lebanese army watches the Hizbollah road-blocks. And does nothing. As a Tehran versus Washington conflict, Iran has won, at least for now. Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader and MP and a pro-American supporter of Mr Siniora's government, is isolated in his home in west Beirut, but has not been harmed. The same applies to Saad Hariri, one of the most prominent government MPs and the son of the murdered former prime minister Rafik Hariri. He remains in his west Beirut palace in Koreitem, guarded by police and soldiers but unable to move without Hizbollah's approval. The symbolism is everything.

When Hamas became part of the Palestinian government, the West rejected it. So Hamas took over Gaza. When the Hizbollah became part of the Lebanese government, the Americans rejected it. Now Hizbollah has taken over west Beirut. The parallels are not exact, of course. Hamas won a convincing electoral victory. Hizbollah was a minority in the Lebanese government; its withdrawal from cabinet seats with other Shias was occasioned by Mr Siniora's American-defined policies and by their own electoral inability to change these. The Lebanese don't want an Islamic republic any more than the Palestinians. But when Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah chairman, told a press conference that this was a "new era" for Lebanon, he meant what he said.

Mr Hariri's Future Television offices were invested by the army after Hizbollah surrounded it on Thursday night, its staff evacuated and the station switched off. When I turned up there yesterday morning, I joined a queue for manouche – Lebanon's hot cheese breakfast sandwiches – at Eyman's bakery in Watwat Street. I patiently waited behind four black-hooded gunmen from Hizbollah's allied (but highly venal) Amal movement only to find uniformed Lebanese soldiers representing the government patiently queuing at the next window. Law and disorder, it seems, both have to eat.

But I found far more powerful symbolism in Hamra Street, one of west Beirut's two main commercial thoroughfares. More than 100 Hizbollah men were standing or patrolling the highway, clad in new camouflage fatigues, wearing new black flak jackets and new black, peaked, American-style baseball caps and – more to the point – what appeared to be equally new American sniper rifles..

No, this is not a revolution. No, this is not a "hijacking" of west Beirut or the airport, which remains cut off by burning tyres on roads guarded by Hizbollah militiamen. But the government's supporters deserve some space. Several pointed out that the Israelis closed Beirut airport in 2006. So what right did Hizbollah have to do the same to the Lebanese now? And, according to Saad Hariri, Mr Nasrallah – when he called Mr Jumblatt "a thief and a killer" – was "authorising his murder and clearly stating that, 'I am the state and the state is me'." No wonder, then, that Mr Jumblatt fears for his life and that Mr Hariri claims the Hizbollah's coup de folie is a form of fitna, the Arabic for chaos. "I invite you, Sayed Nasrallah, to take back your fighters from the streets and to lift the siege of Beirut to protect the unity of Muslims," he said. "Israel will be rejoicing at the blockade of the country and the collapse of its economy."

Marwan Hamade, Mr Siniora's Telecommunications Minister – and victim of an attempted assassination in 2004 – admitted he had turned a blind eye to Hizbollah's underground phone system but could no longer when he realised that Hizbollah now maintains 99,000 numbered lines.

Mr Nasrallah also insisted on the reinstallation of Brigadier General Wafiq Chucair as head of security at Beirut airport, since he was not a member of Hizbollah. General Chucair was suspended after Mr Jumblatt claimed he worked for Mr Nasrallah's outfit, a demand which prompted Mr Jumblatt to say he did not know General Chucair was so important to Mr Nasrallah that it was worth closing the international airport.

And so it goes on. There was an unusually good editorial in the French-language daily L'Orient Le Jour, which asked how the Hizbollah – literally "the party of God" in Arabic – could have war as its raison d'etre yet be a factor of stability and security in Lebanese domestic affairs. "And this party, can it really call itself the 'Party of God' without creating, in the long term, the distrust of all those other children who count themselves to be from the same unique and one God?"

No, this is not a civil war. Nor is it a coup d'etat, though it meets some of the criteria. It is part of the war against America in the Middle East. The Hizbollah "must stop sowing trouble," the White House said rather meekly. Yes, like the Taliban. And al-Qa'ida. And the Iraqi insurgents. And Hamas. And who else? ++


Iraq: No Evidence Iran Is Arming Shiites
Top Official Says Reports That Militants Received Weapons From Tehran Are Not "Conclusive"
AP via CBS News
May 4, 2008
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/04/iraq/main4069224.shtml

 
(AP) BAGHDAD -- A top Iraqi official said Sunday there was no "conclusive" evidence that Shiite extremists have been directly supplied with some Iranian arms as alleged by the United States.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraq does not want trouble with any country, "especially Iran."

Al-Dabbagh was commenting on talks this week in Tehran between an Iraqi delegation and Iranian authorities aimed at halting suspected Iranian aid to some Shiite militias.

Asked about reports that some rockets made in 2007 or 2008 and seized in raids against militias were directly supplied by Iran, al-Dabbagh replied: "There is no conclusive evidence."

Al-Dabbagh said Iraq wants friendly ties with Iran and stressed both countries share common interests.

"We can't ignore or deny we are neighbors. We do not want to be pushed in a struggle with any country, especially Iran," he told a news conference.

"We are fed up with past tensions that we have paid a costly price for because some parties have pushed Iraq (in the past) to take an aggressive attitude to Iran." ++


'NYT' vs McClatchy on Iran's Link to Iraqi Insurgents
Greg Mitchell
May 05, 2008

NEW YORK -- Michael Gordon, the military writer for The New York Times who contributed several false stories about Iraqi WMD in the runup to the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2002, has written several articles in the past year about Iran's alleged training of Iraqi insurgents -- or supplying them with weapons to kill Americans. He produced another major report on this subject for today's Times – based solely on unnamed sources -- which is at odds with an account from McClatchy's Baghdad bureau.

Gordon asserts that "Militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah have been training Iraqi militia fighters at a camp near Tehran…An American official said the account of Hezbollah's role was provided by four Shiite militia members who were captured in Iraq late last year and questioned separately.

"The United States has long charged that the Iranians were training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran, which Iran has consistently denied, and there have been previous reports about Hezbollah operatives in Iraq.

"But the Americans say the reports of Hezbollah's role at the Iranian camp offer important details about Iranian assistance to the militias, including efforts Iran appears to be making to train the fighters in unobtrusive ways."

But McClatchy has a quite different take.

Leila Fadel, the bureau chief, and Shashank Bengali report: "The Iraqi Government seemed to distance itself from U.S. accusations towards Iran Sunday saying it would not be forced into conflict with its Shiite neighbor. And Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki ordered the formation of a committee to look into foreign intervention in Iraq.

"As the government appeared to back down from its hardening stance against Iran, four marines were killed in Anbar in the deadliest attack in the Sunni province in months.

"The government spokesman, Ali al Dabbagh, told reporters Sunday that a committee was formed to find 'tangible information' about foreign intervention, specifically Iran's role in Iraq rather than 'information based on speculation.'

"'We don't want to be pushed into any conflict with any neighboring countries, especially Iran. What happened before is enough. We paid a lot,' Dabbagh said, referring to the eight years war between the two nations in which an estimated 1 million people died."

Also today from Agence France-Press: "Iraq said on Sunday it has no evidence that Iran was supplying militias engaged in fierce street fighting with security forces in Baghdad.

"Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said there was no 'hard evidence' of involvement by the neighbouring Shiite government of Iran in backing Shiite militiamen in the embattled country. Asked about reports that weapons captured from Shiite fighters bore 2008 markings suggesting Iranian involvement, Dabbagh said: 'We don't have that kind of evidence... If there is hard evidence we will defend the country.'"

Here is a list of Gordon's sources in his Times article:

-- "An American official"

-- "But the Americans say"

-- "American officials"

-- "American officials"

-- "The Americans "

--"American officials"

--"An American official"

-- ditto, and so on ++


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