Category Archives: Military

Hillary Used Several Intel Agencies, Hundreds of Classified Emails

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Hillary Clinton with her lawyer, David Kendall have worked out the details to testify before the House Committee on Benghazi led by Congressman Trey Gowdy.

By Marisa Taylor, Greg Gordon and Anita Kumar

McClatchy Washington Bureau

 Data in Clinton’s ‘secret’ emails came from 5 intelligence agencies 
WASHINGTON

The classified emails stored on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server contained information from five U.S. intelligence agencies and included material related to the fatal 2012 Benghazi attacks, McClatchy has learned.

Of the five classified emails, the one known to be connected to Benghazi was among 296 emails made public in May by the State Department. Intelligence community officials have determined it was improperly released.

Revelations about the emails have put Clinton in the crosshairs of a broadening inquiry into whether she or her aides mishandled classified information when she used a private server set up at her New York home to conduct official State Department business.

While campaigning for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton has repeatedly denied she ever sent or received classified information. Two inspectors general have indicated that five emails they have reviewed were not marked classified at the time they were stored on her private server but that the contents were in fact “secret.”

The email issue, however, has distracted from Clinton’s campaign for days and already has hurt her in public opinion polls. Besieged with questions, she has found herself caught in a murky dispute between State Department and intelligence officials over whether emails on her server were classified.

“Even if Secretary Clinton or her aides didn’t run afoul of any criminal provisions, the fact that classified information was identified within the emails is exactly why use of private emails . . . is not supposed to be allowed,” said Bradley Moss, a Washington attorney who specializes in national security matters. “Both she and her team made a serious management mistake that no one should ever repeat.”

The facts are pretty clear. I did not send nor receive anything that was classified at the time. Hillary Clinton at a campaign stop Saturday in Iowa

McClatchy also has determined some details of the five emails that the intelligence community’s inspector general has described as classified and improperly handled.

Intelligence officials who reviewed the five classified emails determined that they included information from five separate intelligence agencies, said a congressional official with knowledge of the matter.

The Benghazi email made public contained information from the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a spy agency that maps and tracks satellite imagery, according to the official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The other four classified emails contained information from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA, the official said.

The Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General did not respond to questions about the matter. The five agencies either referred questions about it to the inspector general’s office or declined to comment.

The intelligence community inspector general only looked at a sample of 40 emails, even though a total of 30,000 emails were turned over to the State Department by Clinton.

Failure to observe any of the requirements for marking or safeguarding (classified information) would be in a category known as a security violation. John Fitzpatrick, director of the Information Security Oversight Office at the National Archives

In documents that were publicly released, Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III said State Department officials had warned that there were “potentially hundreds of classified emails” on Clinton’s private server.

Clinton’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Clinton has maintained she used a personal email account as a “matter of convenience” and has denied she emailed any classified material.

“The facts are pretty clear,” Clinton said at a campaign stop Saturday in Iowa. “I did not send nor receive anything that was classified at the time.”

Clinton said she had “no idea” which emails the inspector general had singled out.

The State Department so far has refused to grant the intelligence community inspector general access to the entire batch of emails on jurisdictional grounds. The inspector general has authority to audit and investigate matters related to 17 intelligence community agencies, including a State Department intelligence unit.

On June 25, McCullough notified members of Congress that he understood that Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall, possessed the more than 30,000 Clinton emails on a computer thumb drive.

In a July 24 letter to FBI Director James Comey, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa expressed concern about “a compromise of national security information” because of Kendall’s possession of the thumb drive. He called on Comey to explain what steps the FBI had taken to secure the information.

Even if Secretary Clinton or her aides didn’t run afoul of any criminal provisions, the fact that classified information was identified within the emails is exactly why use of private emails . . . is not supposed to be allowed. Bradley Moss, a Washington attorney who specializes in national security matters

“This raises very serious questions and concerns if a private citizen is somehow retaining classified information,” wrote Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Kendall did not respond to phone and email messages. The FBI and the Justice Department declined to say whether security officials had recovered the device or had arranged for its secure storage.

John Fitzpatrick, the official responsible for overseeing the government’s security classification system, told McClatchy that during the review of four years of Clinton’s State Department emails it became clear that intelligence agencies were concerned State Department officials were not appropriately protecting classified information in screening documents for public release.

State Department officials routinely gather and report diplomatic information that “in an intelligence context could be read very differently,” said Fitzpatrick, the director of the Information Security Oversight Office at the National Archives.

Government employees with access to classified information are trained to identify classified information, Fitzpatrick said.

“The requirement to mark is so that you know it when you see it,” he said. “Failure to observe any of the requirements for marking or safeguarding would be in a category known as a security violation.”

Failing to properly mark information as classified would not necessarily result in criminal charges, he said.

“But there can be consequences for holders of security clearances,” Fitzpatrick said. “If they fail to safeguard the information, once or as part of a pattern, they can be administratively reprimanded” or retrained.

According to a congressional official, the classified emails contained information from the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA.

Secretary of State John Kerry and State Department Inspector General Steve Linick will meet this week to talk about the issue, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said Wednesday.

“Secretary Kerry wants to get to the bottom of this, hear what the concerns are and then figure out if they need to take any action,” Schultz said. “So, I think that’s the right step and we support him doing so.”

The White House has not said that Clinton did not follow rules, but it has repeatedly said that “very specific guidance has been given to agencies all across the government, which is specifically that employees in the Obama administration should use their official email accounts when they’re conducting official government business.”

The House Select Committee on Benghazi subpoenaed the emails while asking Clinton to voluntarily turn over her personal email server to a “neutral, detached and independent” third party for “immediate inspection and review,” perhaps the State Department’s inspector general.

Clinton’s attorney told the committee that Clinton permanently deleted all the emails from the server – apparently after she was asked by the State Department to turn them over. Clinton has refused to hand over the server.

The State Department has begun to release her emails in response to a public records lawsuit, though four of the emails containing classified information were among those that have not yet been released. The next batch is due to be released Friday. Clinton has agreed to testify about her email arrangements on Oct. 22 before the committee investigating Benghazi.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article29519419.html#storylink=cpy

#IranDeal, Lobbyists and Hollywood

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The White House has gathered the army to sell to Congress and the American people the misguided and frankly dangerous Iran deal.

Just the Facts

Israel’s intelligence wing has been tracking the Iran talks from the beginning and recently allowed certain key facts to be revealed, the behind the scenes activities that demonstrate the collusion between Secretary of State,, John Kerry, the White House and Iran.

The lobby group behind this social media promotion that the White House and the State Department is Global Zero.  Enlisting in the propaganda army are Jack Black, Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Robert De Niro and Michael Douglas among others. Further if Thomas Pickering and Valerie Plame are also public relations soldiers, you know it is a bad deal as Pickering is the master of the Iran lobby. What would anyone in Hollywood know about the facts of the deal? It is suggested, nothing and worse they should be challenged if they even read the 160 pages of the JPOA.

The Global Zero Washington DC network with associated lobby groups run deep.

Former Senator from Georgia Sam Nunn is a co-founder of Global Zero and it was his daughter, Michelle who recently ran for a U.S. senate seat in Georgia when it was discovered she was very connected to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Former Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel was also a Board member of Global Zero.

From Real Clear Politics:

Several dozen people gathered around a giant inflatable missile on the White House lawn Saturday morning to protest anticipated spending of $1 trillion to upgrade the U’S. nuclear arsenal. Matt Brown, co-founder of the organizer, Global Zero, spoke to RCP reporter James Arkin.  The White House lawn video is here.

MATT BROWN, GLOBAL ZERO: Six years ago President Obama promised to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons, and now he is about to launch a major overhaul of our nuclear arsenal that will cost us, the American taxpayers over one trillion dollars over the next three decades. And we’re saying, you’ve got to drop this plan, get back to the work of eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide. We can’t afford this, it is unnecessary, and these weapons don’t even address the threats we face today.

I interviewed Clare Lopez on June 24th about the recently signed #IranDeal. That podcast is here.

From my friend and former CIA analyst, Clare Lopez in 2009:

Across the Atlantic, the “special relationship” meant the American-British alliance, the core of the alliance that defeated Hitler in a hot war and the Soviet Union in a cold one.

But now the “special relationship” is between Iran and North Korea, the two nations which prove daily that the “axis of evil” idea wasn’t just another poor choice of words by George W. Bush.

In late July, a cargo ship carrying North Korean weapons bound for Iran was seized by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The seizure was the first since the United Nations Security Council stiffened a tough arms embargo against North Korea in the wake of its second nuclear test in May. The UNSC sanctions authorize ship searches on the high seas and complement sanctions already in place against Iran that are intended to curb its nuclear weapons development program.

There are a number of things wrong with this picture. The most obvious problem is the open working arrangement between Iran and North Korea to develop deliverable nuclear weapons. Both countries have made it abundantly clear that they hold Iran’s obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and UNSC resolutions aimed at curbing North Korea’s proliferation activities in about the same regard as they do the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

North Korea was caught building a nuclear reactor in Syria (destroyed by the Israelis in September 2007) and defector reports recently made public allege Pyongyang is also helping Myanmar to build a nuclear reactor and plutonium extraction plant. It was specifically to authorize interdiction of North Korean shipments of nuclear-related material to this rogues gallery of global pariah states that the UNSC passed Resolution 1874 on June 12, banning all arms exports from North Korea. Likely not the first or the last North Korean ship to challenge the new measures, the Australian-owned, Bahamian-flagged cargo ship, the ANL Australia, that was seized in the UAE was nevertheless the one that made headlines.

The 10 containers of rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition, and other prohibited items disguised as oil equipment found on board had been ordered by the Tehran-based Tadbir Sanaat Sharif Technology Development Center (TSS). TSS is a subsidiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) and both of them plus the South African company, Icarus Marine (Pty) Ltd., were named in a U.S. Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security Temporary Denial Order (TDO) on 14 April 2009.

At that time, the TDO was imposed because IRISL and TSS were about to take delivery of a Bladerunner S1 powerboat, the “Bradstone Challenger,” for intended use by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The Bradstone Challenger caught the Commerce Department’s attention not only because it features U.S.-origin engines and other components, but because it is a highly-capable fast attack craft that the IRGC arms with torpedoes, rocket launchers, and anti-ship missiles and sends out in swarms to harass U.S. ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz.

The original TDO carried an expiration date of 22 July 2009. The ANL Australia reportedly was seized at the end of July. Even though the entire IRGC, IRISL and its naval fleets are listed by the U.S. Treasury Department as Specially Designated Nationals to which unlicensed export or re-export of prohibited items is a violation of U.S. Export Administration Regulations, somehow it doesn’t come as any real shock that regimes evil enough to rape young girls before execution and use political prisoner populations to test biological weapons agents just might choose to disregard such niceties — or wait for their expiration date.

This is where the picture really begins to not make much sense. The UAE, and especially Dubai, is a known hub for the transshipment of all manner of goods, legitimate and not, including weapons and Afghan heroin, into and out of Iran. The large Iranian expatriate community in the UAE supports the tight economic relationship with the IRGC-dominated mullahs’ regime in Tehran. But at a time when the international spotlight is focused more than ever on North Korean ships heading for the Middle East, it seems odd that Iran would be giving a green light to a weapons cargo like this. It also begs the question why the weapons discovered on the one ship to have been turned in by the UAE (thus far) are so mundane. Kudos to the UAE for this demonstration of support for the UNSC sanctions, but is a batch of RPGs really the worst cargo putting in to Abu Dhabi these days?

It gets worse. On August 19, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson played host to two North Korean diplomats from Pyongyang’s U.N. mission. Gurgling happily about a possible “thaw” in relations, Gov. Richardson told reporters afterward that North Korea is ready to engage in a dialogue with the U.S. (again).

This upbeat announcement comes shortly on the heels of former President Bill Clinton’s 4 August visit to North Korea, where he obtained the release of two American journalists held by Kim Jong Il’s regime after they had ‘strayed’ into North Korean territory. Gov. Richardson hinted helpfully that the North Koreans obviously feel entitled to some kind of reward for having let the two reporters go free. Myanmar’s military junta might be looking for some quid pro quo of its own after permitting yet another wayward American to leave that country on August 16 in the company of visiting U.S. Senator Jim Webb, who’d negotiated his release.

John William Yetlaw is the swimmer who violated the house arrest restrictions on Myanmar’s most famous political prisoner, Aung San Suu Kyi. Webb, too, burbled cheerily to reporters, telling them about the atmosphere of goodwill and trust that is building with the genocidal generals of Rangoon.

The capstone episode of the summer was the 21 August release of Pakistan’s father of the Islamic bomb, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, from all restrictions on his movement. The nuclear scientist whose black market proliferation activities spanned the globe and gave Iran and Libya the foundations of their nuclear weapons programs, A.Q. Khan will now be free to resume his busy career on behalf of a country beset with a jihadist threat both from within and without.

The Obama administration must surely have known about the seized North Korean ship and its weapons cargo before granting the special approvals required for the North Korean diplomats to travel from New York to Santa Fe. It probably knew about it even before President Clinton’s trip to Pyongyang. Whether the White House or Intelligence Community had any advance knowledge about AQ Khan’s impending release is not publicly known.

If there is any connection between these various events, it is not immediately apparent what it is. But what is both obvious and worrisome is that this administration lacks a strategic framework of principles and objectives for dealing with a very real and very active axis of evil that means harm to U.S. national security.

As the renowned Purdue University law professor, Louis Rene Beres, likes to say, “International law is not a suicide pact.” If North Korea and Pakistan are permitted to continue aiding and abetting Iran, Myanmar, Syria, and who knows who else to “go nuclear,” American strategic doctrine will have to scramble to persuade anyone that the U.S. retains truly persuasive military power and the will to use it.

Given the events of August 2009 and the alliances both obvious and concealed (such as Iran’s long-standing relationship with al-Qa’eda) that are moving inexorably to acquisition of catastrophic offensive power, a U.S. policy that incapacitates our intelligence capabilities, abandons our missile defense shield, makes nuclear Global Zero a national priority, and pleads piteously for reciprocity from the thugs of the world, exposes us all to Armageddon.

 

Amb. Hill and General Mattis Roundtable Discussion, Iran and America

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The last half of the video is better than the first half, but in totality, it must been viewed.

Hoover Institute:

Recorded on  July 16, 2015 – Hoover fellows Charles Hill and James Mattis discuss the Iran deal and the state of the world on Uncommon Knowledge with Hoover fellow Peter Robinson. In their view the United States has handed over its leading role to Iran and provided a dowry along with it. Iran will become the leading power in the region as the United States pulls back; as the sanctions are lifted Iran will start making a lot of money. No matter what Congress does at this point, the sanctions are gone. Furthermore, the president will veto anything Congress comes up with to move the deal forward. This  de facto treaty circumvents the Constitution.

If we want better deals and a stronger presence in the international community, then the United States needs to compromise, and listen to one another other, and encourage other points of view, especially from the three branches of government. If the United States pulls back from the international community, we will need to relearn the lessons we learned after World War I. But if we engage more with the world and use solid strategies to protect and encourage democracy and freedom at home and abroad, then our military interventions will be fewer. The United States and the world will be in a better position to handle problems such as ISIS.

Selected Israeli Intelligence Items Revealed on Iran Talks

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The deal is just too dangerous, even some Democrats are expressing that dynamic.
On Nov. 26, 2013, three days after the signing of the interim agreement (JPOA) between the powers and Iran, the Iranian delegation returned home to report to their government. According to information obtained by Israeli intelligence, there was a sense of great satisfaction in Tehran then over the agreement and confidence that ultimately Iran would be able to persuade the West to accede to a final deal favorable to Iran. That final deal, signed in Vienna last week, seems to justify that confidence. The intelligence—a swath of which I was given access to in the past month—reveals that the Iranian delegates told their superiors, including one from the office of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, that “our most significant achievement” in the negotiations was America’s consent to the continued enrichment of uranium on Iranian territory.

That makes sense. The West’s recognition of Iran’s right to perform the full nuclear fuel cycle—or enrichment of uranium—was a complete about-face from America’s declared position prior to and during the talks. Senior U.S. and European officials who visited Israel immediately after the negotiations with Iran began in mid 2013 declared, according to the protocols of these meetings, that because of Iran’s repeated violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, “Our aim is that in the final agreement [with Iran] there will be no enrichment at all” on Iranian territory. Later on, in a speech at the Saban Forum in December 2013, President Barack Obama reiterated that in view of Iran’s behavior, the United States did not acknowledge that Iran had any right to enrich fissile material on its soil.

In February 2014, the first crumbling of this commitment was evident, when the head of the U.S. delegation to the talks with Iran, Wendy Sherman, told Israeli officials that while the United States would like Iran to stop enriching uranium altogether, this was “not a realistic” expectation. Iranian foreign ministry officials, during meetings the Tehran following the JPOA, reckoned that from the moment the principle of an Iranian right to enrich uranium was established, it would serve as the basis for the final agreement. And indeed, the final agreement, signed earlier this month, confirmed that assessment.

The sources who granted me access to the information collected by Israel about the Iran talks stressed that it was not obtained through espionage against the United States. It comes, they said, through Israeli spying on Iran, or routine contacts between Israeli officials and representatives of the P5+1 in the talks. The sources showed me only what they wanted me to see, and in these cases there’s always a danger of fraud and fabrication. This said, these sources have proved reliable in the past, and based on my experience with this type of material it appears to be quite credible. No less important, what emerges from the classified material obtained by Israel in the course of the negotiations is largely corroborated by details that have become public since.

In early 2013, the material indicates, Israel learned from its intelligence sources in Iran that the United States held a secret dialogue with senior Iranian representatives in Muscat, Oman. Only toward the end of these talks, in which the Americans persuaded Iran to enter into diplomatic negotiations regarding its nuclear program, did Israel receive an official report about them from the U.S. government. Shortly afterward, the CIA and NSA drastically curtailed its cooperation with Israel on operations aimed at disrupting the Iranian nuclear project, operations that had racked up significant successes over the past decade.

On Nov. 8, 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry visited Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw him off at Ben Gurion Airport and told him that Israel had received intelligence that indicated the United States was ready to sign “a very bad deal” and that the West’s representatives were gradually retreating from the same lines in the sand that they had drawn themselves.

Perusal of the material Netanyahu was basing himself on, and more that has come in since that angry exchange on the tarmac, makes two conclusions fairly clear: The Western delegates gave up on almost every one of the critical issues they had themselves resolved not to give in on, and also that they had distinctly promised Israel they would not do so.

One of the promises made to Israel was that Iran would not be permitted to stockpile uranium. Later it was said that only a small amount would be left in Iran and that anything in excess of that amount would be transferred to Russia for processing that would render it unusable for military purposes. In the final agreement, Iran was permitted to keep 300kgs of enriched uranium; the conversion process would take place in an Iranian plant (nicknamed “The Junk Factory” by Israel intelligence). Iran would also be responsible for processing or selling the huge amount of enriched uranium that is has stockpiled up until today, some 8 tons.

The case of the secret enrichment facility at Qom (known in Israel as the Fordo Facility) is another example of concessions to Iran. The facility was erected in blatant violation of the Non Proliferation Treaty, and P5+1 delegates solemnly promised Israel at a series of meetings in late 2013 that it was to be dismantled and its contents destroyed. In the final agreement, the Iranians were allowed to leave 1,044 centrifuges in place (there are 3,000 now) and to engage in research and in enrichment of radioisotopes.

At the main enrichment facility at Natanz (or Kashan, the name used by the Mossad in its reports) the Iranians are to continue operating 5,060 centrifuges of the 19,000 there at present. Early in the negotiations, the Western representatives demanded that the remaining centrifuges be destroyed. Later on they retreated from this demand, and now the Iranians have had to commit only to mothball them. This way, they will be able to reinstall them at very short notice.

Israeli intelligence points to two plants in Iran’s military industry that are currently engaged in the development of two new types of centrifuge: the Teba and Tesa plants, which are working on the IR6 and the IR8 respectively. The new centrifuges will allow the Iranians to set up smaller enrichment facilities that are much more difficult to detect and that shorten the break-out time to a bomb if and when they decide to dump the agreement.

The Iranians see continued work on advanced centrifuges as very important. On the other hand they doubt their ability to do so covertly, without risking exposure and being accused of breaching the agreement. Thus, Iran’s delegates were instructed to insist on this point. President Obama said at the Saban Forum that Iran has no need for advanced centrifuges and his representatives promised Israel several times that further R&D on them would not be permitted. In the final agreement Iran is permitted to continue developing the advanced centrifuges, albeit with certain restrictions which experts of the Israeli Atomic Energy Committee believe to have only marginal efficacy.

As for the break-out time for the bomb, at the outset of the negotiations, the Western delegates decided that it would be “at least a number of years.” Under the final agreement this has been cut down to one year according to the Americans, and even less than that according to Israeli nuclear experts.

As the signing of the agreement drew nearer, sets of discussions took place in Iran, following which its delegates were instructed to insist on not revealing how far the country had advanced on the military aspects of its nuclear project. Over the past 15 years, a great deal of material has been amassed by the International Atomic Energy Agency—some filed by its own inspectors and some submitted by intelligence agencies—about Iran’s secret effort to develop the military aspects of its nuclear program (which the Iranians call by the codenames PHRC, AMAD, and SPND). The IAEA divides this activity into 12 different areas (metallurgy, timers, fuses, neutron source, hydrodynamic testing, warhead adaptation for the Shihab 3 missile, high explosives, and others) all of which deal with the R&D work that must be done in order to be able to convert enriched material into an actual atom bomb.

The IAEA demanded concrete answers to a number of questions regarding Iran’s activities in these spheres. The agency also asked Iran to allow it to interview 15 Iranian scientists, a list headed by Prof. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, whom Mossad nicknamed “The Brain” behind the military nuclear program. This list has become shorter because six of the 15 have died as a result of assassinations that the Iranians attribute to Israel, but access to the other nine has not been given. Neither have the IAEA’s inspectors been allowed to visit the facilities where the suspected activities take place. The West originally insisted on these points, only to retreat and leave them unsolved in the agreement.

 

In mid-2015 a new idea was brought up in one of the discussions in Tehran: Iran would agree not to import missiles as long as its own development and production is not limited. This idea is reflected in the final agreement as well, in which Iran is allowed to develop and produce missiles, the means of delivery for nuclear weapons. The longer the negotiations went on, the longer the list of concession made by the United States to Iran kept growing, including the right to leave the heavy water reactor and the heavy water plant at Arak in place and accepting Iran’s refusal of access to the suspect site.

It is possible to argue about the manner in which Netanyahu chose to conduct the dispute about the nuclear agreement with Iran, by clashing head-on and bluntly with the American president. That said, the intelligence material that he was relying on gives rise to fairly unambiguous conclusions: that the Western delegates crossed all of the red lines that they drew themselves and conceded most of what was termed critical at the outset; and that the Iranians have achieved almost all of their goals.

 

IRGC’s Penetrator Bomb Evidence Killed Americans, Iran Hearing

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Hoorah for Senator Tom Cotton vs. Secretary of State John Kerry at hearing dated July 29, 2015.

NYT ~ August 2007: Attacks on American-led forces using a lethal type of roadside bomb said to be supplied by Iran reached a new high in July, according to the American military.

The devices, known as explosively formed penetrators, were used to carry out 99 attacks last month and accounted for a third of the combat deaths suffered by the American-led forces, according to American military officials.

“July was an all-time high,” Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 commander in Iraq, said in an interview, referring to strikes with such devices.

Such bombs, which fire a semi-molten copper slug that can penetrate the armor on a Humvee and are among the deadliest weapons used against American forces, are used almost exclusively by Shiite militants. American intelligence officials have presented evidence that the weapons come from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran, although Tehran has repeatedly denied providing lethal assistance to Iraqi groups.

Iran killed Americans yet waved off by the White House and the P5+1 for the sake of the Iran deal.

CTC: In June 2011, 14 U.S. soldiers were killed by hostile fire, representing the largest monthly toll for U.S. forces since June 2008. Twelve of those fatalities were attributed to three extremist Shi`a groups: Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), Kataib Hizb Allah (KH), and the Promised Day Brigades (PDB). All three organizations are directly tied to the IRGC Qods Force, led under the direction of the enigmatic Brigadier General Qasem Soleimani. Their attacks and operations are “reflective of Iranian training,” said a U.S. military official under condition of anonymity. “Not amateurs, they’re professional.”

Rocket and mortar attacks on the International Zone and U.S. bases in central and southern Iraq are a frequent occurrence. This year, there were 162 attacks targeting U.S. forces in April, up from 128 in March, and 93 in February. Aside from the frequency of attacks, a concerning trend is that Shi`a militants trained by Iran have now learned how to effectively employ an improvised rocket-assisted mortar (IRAM), which has been responsible for many of the recent U.S. fatalities. “IRAMs are devastating,” said a U.S. military official. “They’re getting more sophisticated, more lethal, and more precise in targeting.”

 Travels 6000′ per second

Among the three Shi`a groups, KH has demonstrated to be the most advanced and sophisticated. “They’re much more experienced,” asserted the same military official. “It’s a learning process. They have better facilities, more money and backing, more experienced fighters, and better recruiting.”  On June 6, 2011, KH carried out multiple IRAM attacks on Camp Loyalty in eastern Baghdad that led to the deaths of five U.S. soldiers, the most in a single incident since April 2009.

Another major trend is the noticeable increase of attacks involving a roadside bomb known as an explosively-formed penetrator (EFP), a signature weapon used by Iranian-backed Shi`a insurgents. Of the types of roadside bombs used, EFPs represent a small fraction, but are one of the deadliest weapons in Iraq because of its ability to penetrate even the strongest armored vehicles used by the U.S. military.  Most recently, on July 7, 2011, two U.S. soldiers were killed by an EFP-attack just outside Camp Victory near Baghdad International Airport. In the past, one or two EFPs would be used in a single attack; some of the recent attacks, however, have involved as many as 14 EFPs.

The frequency and type of operations by Iranian-sponsored Shi`a insurgents has demonstrated their higher level of confidence and freedom of movement in Baghdad and southern Iraq. This is partially the result of the elevated political influence of the Sadrist Trend in key southern provinces since the March 2010 parliamentary elections. Occupying 40 seats out of the 325-seat Council of Representatives, the Shi`a cleric Moqtada al-Sadr holds more representation in parliament than any individual party in Iraq. His political weight is heavily considered by al-Maliki, as the latter retained the premiership after finally securing al-Sadr’s support during last year’s government formation crisis. The Sadrist Trend has continuously threatened to take drastic measures, including armed resistance against U.S. personnel, in an effort to deter Iraqi politicians from accepting an extended U.S. presence. They have utilized high-profile visits by senior U.S. officials to their advantage by intensifying Iraqi nationalism on the street.

The U.S. military asserts that members of the Iranian Qods Force are entering Iraq and working to re-arm their surrogate Shi`a groups. According to Major General Jeffrey Buchanan, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, the volume of weapons crossing into Iraq from Iran is considered the highest in years.  In the last six months, the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) have uncovered a higher quantity of weapons caches throughout the country, including EFP materiel, roadside bombs, and rockets, some with manufacturing dates as recent as 2010. One discovered stockpile contained 49 prepared EFPs.

A significant amount of the weapons and materiel is believed to be entering Iraq through legal “ports of entry,” including during religious pilgrimages. Others include decades-old smuggling routes that cross into Maysan Province, where the city of Amara serves as a distribution point. In late June 2011, after receiving pressure from the United States, the ISF carried out operations in southern Iraq to confront the Shi`a groups and disrupt their smuggling routes and networks.[17] The operation, however, was diluted in robustness and scope, and was largely superficial in results. Only low-profile Shi`a insurgents were arrested, while operations were suspended as Iraqi forces were diverted toward protecting Shi`a religious pilgrims traveling to Karbala.

The Iraqis had not met the expectations of the U.S. military, which desired simultaneous operations to occur in multiple provinces. “Without multiple locations, you lose a lot of surprise,” said a U.S. military official, “and the bad guys will walk across the border.”[18] The U.S. military cited a lack of both will and capability on the part of Baghdad to confront the Shi`a groups. According to a senior Iraqi military official, however, the decision to diminish the operation was political: “There are some targets, known targets. We have not been allowed to go after them.”