US again misfires on Iranian arms in Iraq

By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - Last April, top George W Bush administration officials, desperate to exploit any possible crack in the close relationship between Iraq's Nuri al-Maliki government and Iran, launched a new round of charges that Iran had stepped up covert arms assistance to Shi'ite militias.

Secretary of Defense Robert M Gates suggested there was "some sense of an increased level of [Iranian] supply of weapons and support to these groups". And Washington Post reporter Karen DeYoung was told by military officials that the "plentiful, high quality weaponry" the militias were then using in Basra was "recently manufactured in Iran".