We're at War with Iran --- We're Just Not Fighting !

About The Other Surge — Iran In Iraq

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Tuesday, September 11, 2007 4:20 PM PT

Mideast: Gen. Petraeus has spoken this week not only of the progress America has made in Iraq but also the progress Iran has made there. Those who worry that we might go to war with Iran forget we're already in one.

It hasn't gotten as much media play as the confrontation between Petraeus and the surrender caucus of the Democratic Party. But in his testimony, America's commander in Iraq included evidence that one impediment to progress has been the actions of an Iran publicly willing to fill the power vacuum that would be left by the precipitate American withdrawal Democrats seek.

Petraeus warned that Tehran is trying to use its Iranian Revolutionary Guard as "Hezbollah-like" militia in Iraq. He also noted that a "senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative" is among those who've been captured by U.S. forces in Iraq.

In March, coalition forces captured Ali Mussa Daqduq, a Hezbollah explosives expert, near Basra. A 24-year veteran of Hezbollah — the Iranian creation that sparked a short war with Israel and is now trying to topple Lebanon's democracy — Daqduq had commanded a special operations unit and headed Hezbollah boss Hassan Nasrallah's security detail. In May 2006, he traveled to Tehran to meet with senior Quds Force officials and observe members of the special groups in training.

Petraeus testified that the Iranian Quds Force had been connected to kidnappings of Iraqi officials, rocket attacks on civilian areas and the deaths of American soldiers, killed by high-tech Iranian improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

"It is increasingly apparent to both coalition and Iraqi leaders that Iran, through the use of the Quds Force, seeks to turn the Iraqi special groups into a Hezbollah-like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq," Petraeus said.

Attacks on American-led forces using Iranian-supplied explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) reached a new high in July, according to the No. 2 commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno. EFPs fire a semi-molten copper slug that can penetrate the armor on a Humvee.

The devices were used to carry out 99 attacks on American-led forces in July. Of the 69 coalition troops killed that month, 23 died as a result of encountering EFPs. "I think it is because the Iranians are surging support to the special groups," Odierno said, referring to the American name for Iran-backed cells in Iraq.

Odierno reports that Iranians have provided Shiite militia groups with 107-millimeter rockets and the launchers for firing them, as well as 122-millimeter mortars. "Over the last three to four months, it has picked up in terms of equipment, training and dollars," he says.

U.S. forces recently thwarted an attack at a military base used by forces from the Third Infantry Division. Fifty launchers equipped with rockets were discovered within range of the facility. Serial numbers taken from the launchers indicated they were made in Iran.

In July, Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner said Iran was directly involved in a Jan. 20 attack on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala. Five U.S. soldiers were killed — four of them murdered in cold blood after being kidnapped by Iranian-backed radicals wearing American-style uniforms and carrying forged identity cards.

According to the June 4 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology, an American reconnaissance satellite over Iran found a mock-up of the Karbala facility that apparently had been used to train for the attack.

Bergner revealed that Iran's puppet, Hezbollah, is involved in organizing and training Iraqi jihadists in these special groups. He added that the Quds Force was spending up to $3 million a month to bring groups of up to 60 Iraqi insurgents at a time to three training facilities near Tehran.

You'd think that an aspiring nuclear power led by a megalomaniac like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who wants to nuke Israel and is actively killing Americans would be of concern even to the Democrats who quizzed Petraeus at this week's hearings. But they're more interested in creating a power vacuum that Iran is quite willing to fill.