The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (91 page)

Iran decided to provide a new weapon to its Iraqi insurgents: enhanced formed projectiles, or EFPs. Improvised bombs made from explosives or old Iraqi munitions caused most American casualties in the war in Iraq, but these new weapons increased the lethality dramatically. Using a cylinder fabricated from commonly available metal or PVC pipe, the front end was encased with a concave copper or steel disk. When the explosive detonated, the force of the blast shaped the copper disk into a high-velocity molten-shaped slug—the poor man’s sabot round. This slug easily penetrated armored vehicles and proved so accurate that insurgents could target specific seats in a vehicle. They usually aimed for the driver-side window to kill the driver and roll the vehicle, or targeted the front passenger seat where the officers usually sat.

These EFPs first appeared in Lebanon in the late 1990s, employed by Hezbollah against Israeli armored vehicles. Building them required precise manufacturing tools, which did not exist in Iraq but did in Iran, especially at an ammunition plant in northeastern Tehran in an area controlled by the
Revolutionary Guard.

In July 2004, Quds Force officers met in a safe house in Basra with Mustafa al-Sheibani. Iran brought Lebanese Hezbollah trainers into both Iraq and Iran to teach al-Sheibani’s men on the use and assembly of the EFPs, which would be manufactured in Iran from explosives produced at a plant in Esfahan, with other parts manufactured in the factory in Tehran. They agreed to ship the EFP components across the border disguised as food products, and with the aid of a Hezbollah agent, who provided the infrared triggers, they would be reassembled in Iraq. In the first nine months of 2005, this group alone conducted thirty-five EFP attacks against coalition forces in Iraq, killing seventeen soldiers and wounding thirty-six more. The EFPs proved especially lethal. Each attack left an average of two dead.

Iran expanded its distribution of EFPs. In May 2005, a Quds Force lieutenant colonel arrived in Basra to provide money and EFPs to several insurgent groups. In May, he met in al-Kut and paid one Shia leader 1.5 million Iraqi dinars to attack U.S. forces. The Iranians developed elaborate smuggling routes to get the EFPs into Iraq. One of the main routes was at a large border crossing near the Iranian city of Mehran, where Suleimani had his headquarters. The Iranian Quds Force built the EFP components in a clandestine lab, smuggling them across every month to Revolutionary Guard safe houses in An Numaniyah and Basra hidden in oil drums, cement bags, television sets, and food containers. There they could be reassembled by Iraqi insurgents. A U.S. intelligence report in the fall of 2006 noted that EFPs inflicted coalition casualties at a rate nearly six times higher than those inflicted by standard IEDs.

Iranian supporters in the army and police force aided the effort. For example, in late 2006 the former Badr Corps members in the security forces drove a truckload of EFPs to Baghdad, having been transported across the Iranian border and through Basra. They stored them in safe houses around the city and even in a Baghdad police station. Ever the entrepreneurs, some of these Shia sold the EFPs to their Sunni rivals, making handsome profits on this side business. When the U.S. military uncovered the network, analysts surmised that there may have been ninety EFPs prestaged in Baghdad.

Al-Sadr supporters traveled to Iran from Sadr City to receive training on the new EFP technology. Iran and the Jaysh al-Mahdi built a solid working relationship with both EFPs and weapons and explosives smuggled in from Syria on refrigerated trucks. As one American report noted: “The use of JAM [Jaysh al-Mahdi] operatives affords Iran plausible deniability as it continues to
expand its influence in Shia populated areas of Iran.” On January 16 and 18, 2006, Jaysh al-Mahdi fighters ambushed two British waterborne patrols on the Shatt al-Arab with antipersonnel mines and small-arms fire. They then shelled British positions with 240-mm rockets—some of the largest in the Iranian inventory.

Iran adopted a similar strategy to that used with Hezbollah in the early 1980s—provide training and equipment, but do not actually participate in attacks. While the more basic military training could be accomplished in Iraq, more advanced training designed to train the trainers—as the U.S. Special Forces described it—required traveling to Iran. Captured documents and Iraqi prisoners exposed an organized transportation network where buses and taxis took the select recruits and experienced militia members to the border. There, as one Iraqi described it, they were picked up in a variety of civilian vehicles and taken to safe houses in Mehran, being provided chocolate and biscuits along the way. After breakfast the next morning, the group headed to an airport, where tickets awaited them for a flight to Tehran.
¹¹
The Lebanese group formed the new Unit 3800 to help the Iranians run their training camps.
¹²
At its height in 2008, it had between forty and sixty Lebanese running regular classes on EFPs and small-unit tactics in four small training camps scattered about Iran: in Tehran, Ahvaz, Elam, and Qom.

T
he United States was slow to address the Iranian EFP threat. Initially, so many intelligence personnel were tied up in the Iraqi Survey Group hunting for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction that they lacked the people to devote to Iranian weapons smuggling.
¹³
The U.S. forces in Iraq had their first breakthrough in unraveling the Iranian network in December 2004, when an Iraqi walked into one of the bases and provided details of the training he’d received in Iran and how the Quds Force smuggled the EFPs into Iraq. As the months passed, more information poured in and U.S. intelligence refined its knowledge of the Iranian hand behind the attacks. U.S. intelligence even identified two border crossings that the Iranians were using to smuggle in the lethal weapons.

When in 2005 Iran’s hand behind the attacks became obvious, a debate ensued inside the Pentagon over whether the supreme leader had sanctioned the attacks or if they were being carried out by rogue elements within the Revolutionary Guard. In the aftermath of the intelligence failure on Iraq, relations
soured between the civilians in the Defense Department and senior intelligence officials. A deep mistrust developed, with intelligence officials concerned that the neocons now wanted to start another war, using Iranian support for the Shia as a pretext. Intelligence officers downplayed the Iranian actions despite overwhelming evidence of Iran’s government sanctioning the proxy war. In one meeting at the Pentagon in early 2005, a heated argument occurred after an intelligence analyst took pride in speaking “truth to power” by telling an incredulous civilian political appointee that the DIA had no proof that the Iranian government had sanctioned the attacks on the coalition forces.

The chairman, Peter Pace, agreed with the DIA analysis and offered a tepid response to the increase in Iranian-provided EFPs. In April 2005, he publicly said that the United States could not trace the EFP attacks to Iran. It was not true, but reflected, according to Abe Shulsky, the uncertainty at the Pentagon. Pace clung to this belief even as evidence mounted to Iran’s involvement. In February 2007, he modified his views that while the EFPs came from Iran, there was no evidence that the supreme leader had authorized the attacks.
¹⁴

Abe Shulsky completely rejected this view. On one occasion, he discussed the Iranian arms influx with a senior DIA analyst who echoed Pace, saying, “We don’t have any evidence that the supreme leader is behind the attacks.”

“What is it about this dog that doesn’t bark?” Shulsky retorted, dumbfounded. “Are you telling me that these guys are out taking very risky operations with serious consequences and the supreme leader does not know about it? They work for him!”

When Pace uttered the words in 2007, the prevailing view within the intelligence community accorded with Shulsky’s. Even senior analysts who distrusted the neocons found it incredible that the Quds Force would have orchestrated such a large campaign against the United States without the supreme leader’s endorsement. But as more Americans died and the intelligence reports pointing to Iran piled up, the military leadership at the Pentagon remained lethargic. In one memo, a senior general in the Pentagon approved the convoluted logic that the Iranians were not making as much mischief as they could, so why stir things up by striking back, which might lead to a violent escalation. As long as Iran kept its support to a low level, some senior officers wanted to look the other way.

In early 2006, pro-Iranian militias ramped up their attacks. In February, army intelligence uncovered plans for a large-scale attack on an American
base, Camp Bucca. Three Iranian Quds Force officers conducted surveillance of the base and met with Jaysh al-Mahdi fighters to plan the attack. With heavy weapons smuggled in from Iran just for the occasion, 120 Shia fighters would conduct a coordinated attack on the U.S. base. It would have been a major attack had it been executed. Additionally, Iran sent pallets of mortars and other munitions to Shia fighters. In March 2006 alone, U.S. forces estimated that Iran shipped 216 EFPs, half the number provided in all of 2005. Casualties correspondingly increased. In the first six months of 2006, sixty-seven soldiers died due to Iranian-supplied EFPs.

While the Joint Chiefs dawdled, pressure came from the military and civilian leaders in Iraq to do something about the Iranians. Leaks began appearing in American newspapers from officers in Iraq pointing to the growing danger of the EFP threat. The senior commander in Iraq, George Casey, and CENTCOM commander John Abizaid both raised this issue with Pace and Secretary Rumsfeld. The CENTCOM intelligence section in Tampa issued numerous reports about the growing influence of Iran among the Shia and about Quds Force operatives crossing the border.

Abizaid wanted to pressure the Iranians, but Iraqi prime minister al-Maliki always had a “red card that held sway. You could go after the Sunnis and al-Qaeda, but when it came to the Shia and the Iranians, the Iraqi government was much more reluctant, and Washington echoed that reluctance,” he said.

On May 8, 2006, Abizaid sent Rumsfeld a three-page memo outlining his concerns about Iran. “Mr. Secretary, Iran, specifically the Islamic Guard Corps–Quds Force, is providing lethal support to Shia militants conducting attacks against coalition forces in Iraq. While there is no evidence Quds Force provides specific targeting guidance, I believe Iran is fully aware of EFP use against coalition targets.” Abizaid proposed that a strongly worded démarche be sent to Iran, putting Tehran on notice that the United States would take action if these attacks did not cease. Alarmed, Rumsfeld forwarded Abizaid’s letter and a draft démarche to Hadley and Rice.

In June, Bush met with his advisers at Camp David, and Hadley made sure the démarche and the EFP issue were discussed. A number of officials—from Cheney to Rodman—raised concerns that a démarche without action would have no effect on Iran. Rodman had recommended rolling up some of the Quds Forces in Iraq and then sending the démarche to show the
seriousness of the United States. “Stern words without concrete action might risk sending the inadvertent signal to Iran that we are prepared to tolerate more of the same,” Rodman wrote Rumsfeld.
¹⁵
Cheney agreed. “I don’t see why we should tolerate Iran killing our soldiers,” he said. The vice president suggested they consider a wider array of options, including a surgical strike at the EFP factories inside Iran, to signal American resolve.

Rice sided with Abizaid and the strong démarche, and this swayed the president, at least for a while. A note went out via the Swiss, stating, “The Iranian interference in Iraq is a blatant violation of the UN Charter. If Iran continues to support violent groups in Iraq, we will arrest and expel or detain any Iranians involved.”

In the first week of July 2006, Zalmay Khalilzad, now the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, returned to Washington and met with Rumsfeld. “The Iranians are doing harmful things in Iraq,” he said. “The United States needs to make a decision as to what we are going to do about it and how we are going to pressure them.” This prompted another snowflake memo from Rumsfeld to Pace: “Please think this through; get a team of people and let’s get on it.”
¹⁶
The following week Rumsfeld read an intelligence report that highlighted the Quds Force operations against the coalition in Iraq. An irritated defense secretary sent off another memo to the chairman: “I keep seeing this type of thing. If we’re so darned smart, why don’t we shut them down? I am really at my wits’ end.”
¹⁷

Since the 2003 invasion, the Iraqi border had been a major problem for the United States. Iranian soldiers and smugglers routinely crossed it. As the Iranians increased their support for militias, tension grew with the Americans along the border. On the morning of September 7, 2006, a joint Iraqi-American vehicle patrol led by a lieutenant from the 5-73 Cavalry headed out on a reconnaissance looking for infiltration routes. The patrollers stopped when they observed two men running back to the Iranian side of the border. When Iranian soldiers appeared across the border, the Iraqis dismounted to start talking with the Iranians about resolving border issues, and soon the two sides were exchanging pictures of their families and having tea. While the American lieutenant tried in vain to convince his Iraqi allies to get moving again, two more Iranian trucks appeared and sixteen soldiers armed with AK-47s and rocket launchers dismounted and took up firing positions around the American patrol. The lieutenant tried unsuccessfully to get the Iraqis to
end their meeting with the Iranians and see the gravity of the situation. So he ordered his four Humvees to back away. The Iranians opened fire.