Things I Don't Understand

Perhaps someone in the press could ask for some clarification?

• Why, if these are weapons produced in a country that speaks Farsi, for arming insurgents in a country that speaks Arabic, are the markings on the ones in the photos in English, with an American date format?


• Why, if the "explosively formed penetrator" technology has been used by Hezbollah, couldn't the weapons come from a Lebanese black market?


• Why, if the military said yesterday that it figures these weapons have killed 170 US soldiers, and we've lost more than 3100, why are they making a fuss about these in particular? Where did the weapons come from that killed the other 3000 or so? How would eliminating these alleged Iranian weapons make things noticably better?


• Why, if most of the US soldiers are being killed in battle with Sunni insurgents, aren't we hearing about where they are getting their weapons? (Say, isn't there a wealthy and well-armed Sunni kingdom directly south of al-Anbar province?)


• Why should it upset me that the Iranians might be giving weapons to a leading Iraqi who was recently visiting in the Oval Office?

  He added that the Al-Qods force's top operations officer was detained in December in the compound of leading Shiite politician Abdel-Aziz Hakim with an inventory of weapons to be shipped, including mortars and sniper rifles.
  
  Hakim's party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, told the Americans that the weapons were meant for their protection, he added.

  Since a non-existent meeting between an alleged Iraqi agent and Mohammed Atta was once deemed an operational relationship between Saddam and al-Qaeda, wouldn't an actual meeting between an alleged Iranian agent and George Bush mean that we are actually allies with Iran?



• Update: Why am I supposed to believe that, in a country that was producing big rockets and other munitions under Saddam, there is no one capable of machining the components that the anonymous briefers say could only come from Iran?


• Why, if this briefing was in preparation for weeks, is Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace not familiar with it?

  General Pace said he was not aware of the Baghdad briefing, and that he could not, from his own knowledge, repeat the assertion made there that the elite Quds brigade of Iran's Republican Guard force is providing bomb-making kits to Iraqi Shiite insurgents.
  
  "We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran. What I would not say is that the Iranian government, per se (specifically), knows about this," he said. "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."

  (Meanwhile, world-renowned intelligence expert Tony Snow says he's confident that the Iranian government is involved.

  White House spokesman Tony Snow offered similar responses. "Let me put it this way," he said. "There's not a whole lot of freelancing in the Iranian government, especially when it comes to something like that."

  See, Tony has a detailed understanding of the workings of the notoriously murky and convoluted arrangement of the Iranian government and clerical hierarchy. You can trust him on this. I guess Pace didn't get that memo.)

There are probably reasons for all of these things. I just wish they would explain them to me.