Ignore the Pentagon, Listen to Michael Ware

Last night on CNN’s “Situation Room”, Wolf Blitzer asked CNN’s correspondent from Baghdad, Michael Ware a few questions. The answers were illuminating. BLITZER: And joining us now from Baghdad, our correspondent, Michael Ware -- Michael, why now? Why is the U.S. military briefing reporters about this -- this Iranian connection to the war in Iraq right now, since you yourself have reported it's been going on for at least a year or two? MICHAEL WARE: If you listen to the military, they say it's for two reasons. One, in the last six to eight months of 2006, there was a massive upsurge in the number of attacks and casualties among coalition troops as a result of these explosive devices coming from Iran's Revolutionary Guard core. The other reason, they say, is that it's taken them time to develop the kind of evidence that the public expects, that will persuade the public. It then took even longer to declassify this information, protecting sources and methods. So that's the military's story. (But here’s the best part.) MICHAEL WARE: But none of this is happening in a vacuum. You see that there's a number of levels of competition between Washington and Tehran. One is in the ether, the environment of the U.N. Security Council, where they're wrangling over Iran's nuclear program. Here on the ground, it's being fought in blood and armor with bullets and bombs. This is very much a real rivalry. BLITZER: And some would suggest, Michael, it sort of sets the stage, potentially, for another war, this one between the United States and Iran. Are there any indications you're seeing that that, potentially, is in the works? WARE: Actually, Wolf, I see quite the opposite. Obviously, I'm reading a lot of speculation about that, that what the intention behind this briefing and the leaks of other information regarding Iran is really softening the ground in preparation for the next war or the last war of President Bush's administration. Quite frankly, Wolf, I know that this is not going to happen. BLITZER: Why? WARE: Because -- not just because the American public no longer has the stomach for it. Nor is there political will for it in Washington. Simply, the American war machine cannot cope with it. It's already straining. The men and machines are at breaking point fighting the wars that are currently underway. Get that? From the real eyes and ears in Baghdad—Michael Ware—A WAR WITH IRAN IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN BECAUSE THE UNITED STATES CAN’T GET IT UP. And even the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace won’t back up the State Department, the Pentagon and the National Intelligence office’s bullshit that the Iranian government is behind the Iraqi insurgents. In a report on Voice of America, Pace said from Australia, “It is clear that Iranians are involved, and it’s clear that materials from Iran are involved, but I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit.” So once again, it’s the putzes in Washington, DC who have never gone to war, have never fought in a war, have never shot a gun except at caged quails or at unsuspecting friends who are running around rattling sabers and talking trash. Everyone else in the world knows the United States military is such a joke that it can’t end the war it started four years ago. The world knows the US humvees in Iraq don’t have the armor needed for proper defense. The world knows our troops in Iraq don’t have the equipment they need. The world knows the US VA hospitals are incapable of treating returning Vets because of apathy and mismanagement and that some of our vets have had to wait so long for a bed that they have committed suicide. The world knows it’s the Republicans who have no plan for Iraq and who do not give a damn about our troops. The world listens to Michael Ware. And three-quarters of the voters in the United States live in the world of Michael Ware’s reality, not in the virtual reality of the White House Insane Asylum.