On 12 January Cole said concerning Iranian involvement in Iraq:

"One scenario you could imagine is that Iran was sending some aid and weaponry to the Peshmerga on condition it be shared with the Badr Corps paramilitary of the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The US raided a compound of SCIRI leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim recently and captured Iranian intelligence officials there, who had come to consult about the shape of the Iraqi government.

"Kurdistan authorities have long had good relations with the Badr Corps, to which they gave bases in Kurdistan late in the Saddam period when they were jointly trying to overthrow him.

"Although Bush keeps implying that Iran is supplying weapons and aid to US enemies in Iraq, the circumstantial evidence is that it was helping the two main US allies in Iraq with their paramilitary capabilities-- Kurdistan and SCIRI. But it is likely that the money and weapons do bleed over into insurgent groups and have a destabilizing effect."

This is funny. It seems Cole thinks those nice Iranians are just trying to help their old friends in Iraq, and that if any lethal weaponry happens to get into the hands of people who would use it to kill US soldiers, it is just an accident; that stuff is merely bleeding into the hands of those Iraqis who happen to share with Iran a hatred for the US. The Iranians aren't sending it there deliberately!

Cole is only speculating, or "imagining," as he says, but this speculation can't be fed by any real awareness of the torrent anti-US venom that emanates daily from the IRI propaganda mill.

Even if Iranian money and weapons are accidentally getting into the hands of people who want to kill US soldiers, George Bush has every right to prevent it with whatever force may be necessary and to hold the Iranian government responsible and accountable. As a former soldier in the US army, I give him my permission. Although I am not comfortable with the US mission in Iraq, I support the right of US soldiers to defend themselves; depriving those who do not wish them well access to high-tech weaponry is definitely part of that self-defense.