Iraqi Officials Show Proof Of Iranian Support For Militias and Iran Says No More Talks

A woman walks past an anti-American mural on a wall of the former U.S. embassy in central Tehran May 1, 2008.
A senior Iranian official said on Saturday Tehran saw no need for more talks with the United States about Iraqi security until what he described as U.S. attacks on Iraqis stopped, Iran’s Fars News Agency reported.

* Iraqi officials show proof of Iranian support for militias
* U.S. military official says some Iranian arms made in 2008
Iraq presents proof of Iranian meddling-official
BAGHDAD,
May 2
Reuters
An Iraqi delegation in Iran has confronted Iranian security officials with evidence that Tehran is providing support for Shi’ite militias battling Iraqi government forces, an Iraqi official said on Friday.

“They presented a list of names, training camps and cells linked to Iran,” Haidar al-Ibadi, a member of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Dawa party, told Reuters.

“The Iranians did not confess or admit anything. They claim they are not intervening in Iraq and they feel they are being unfairly blamed for everything going on Iraq,” he said of the talks, which took place on Thursday.

Ibadi said he had been in contact with the delegation.
Washington has long accused Tehran of backing Shi’ite militias, particularly fiery cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army, providing them with weapons, funding and training. It has displayed some of the weapons, including rockets and mortars.
The Shi’ite-led Iraqi government, however, has generally been more restrained in its criticism of its Shi’ite majority neighbour, which denies the charges and says it supports the government.
Maliki launched a crackdown on the Mehdi Army in the southern oil hub of Basra in late March, provoking a furious response by the militia in southern Iraq and Baghdad, including relentless volleys of Iranian-made rockets against the Green Zone government and diplomatic compound in the capital.
The U.S. military said this week that “very, very significant” amounts of Iranian weaponry had been found in Basra and Baghdad during the offensive. Some of those arms were made in 2008, a senior U.S. military official said on Friday.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there had been a “sea change” in Baghdad’s view of Iranian activity in Iraq since the discovery of the weapons.

“Basra changed it for the Iraqis. I’m not sure they believed it before. But they went to Basra and saw it first hand,” he said.

Maliki’s ruling United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of Shi’ite Islamist parties, sent the delegation to Tehran to tell Iranian officials to stop backing the militias.
The delegation includes the deputy speaker of parliament, Khalid al-Attiya, Ali al-Adeeb, a lawmaker from Dawa, and Hadi al-Amari, a powerful figure in the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, one of the biggest Shi’ite parties in Iraq.
And this is latest as of this posting……..
TEHRAN (Reuters)

A senior Iranian official said on Saturday Tehran saw no need for more talks with the United States about Iraqi security until what he described as U.S. attacks on Iraqis stopped, Iran’s Fars News Agency reported.

Washington accuses Tehran of funding, training and equipping militias in Iraq, a charge Iran denies. Tehran blames the presence of U.S. troops for violence and instability in Iraq.

“Should the Americans’ attacks against civilians and the defenseless Iraqi people come to an end, Iran will consider their request for the fourth round of negotiations,” Fars quoted the official as saying.

It said the official was a senior member of the negotiating team with U.S. officials but did not give his name.

“Under the current conditions, with the Americans’ massive attacks on the Iraqi people in various cities, no need is felt for holding negotiations with that country about Iraq’s security,” the official said.

Wild Thing’s comment…….
“If US savage attacks against the Iraqi people are stopped, we will examine the US request for a fourth round of talks,” the unnamed official said”
Is the savage official too scared to be named? Friggin cowards and thugs.
They must be complaining about our attacks against Mookie’s Army. TUFF he is owned by Iran.
The nerve of them. Asking us to stop attacks on their own Iranian-backed criminal gangs, then they would consider re-opening talks with us. Hell, smart Americans don’t want to bother talking to Iran in the first place. Only the failures like the nitwits in the Iraq Study Group, and the Hamas-supported Presidential candidate, the Obamessiah, think that talking to the Iranians is going to accomplish anything.