Iranian-U.S. tensions have been ratcheted up recently, with two U.S. officials theorizing about the possibility that Iran was involved in a January 20 attack that killed five U.S. soldiers.

Two officials from separate U.S. government agencies said Tuesday the Pentagon is investigating whether the attack on a military compound in Karbala was carried out by Iranians or Iranian-trained operatives.

"People are looking at it seriously," one of the officials said, adding that the Iranian connection was a leading theory in the investigation.

The second official said: "We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained."

One thing we can be fairly certain of is that the "two officials" cited in this story are not whistle blowers.  Whistle blowers don't make statements that support administration policies, nor do they couch their language in disclaimers.  Notice how every allegation of Iranian involvement in the Karbala attacks is accompanied with modifying language: the Pentagon is investigating, people are looking at it seriously, we believe it's possible...

The CNN article later states that "Some Iraqis speculate that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps carried out the attack in retaliation for the January 11 capture by U.S. forces of five of its members in Irbil."  

Who would those "some Iraqis" be, and who told the author of this article that they speculate Iran's Revolutionary Guard carried out the Karbala attack?  For that matter, why doesn't the author's name appear in a byline?  Yes, big news agencies often publish stories without crediting their staff writers, but this story contains serious political content attributable to no virtually no one.  The only person it specifically cites is Mr. Bush, and that was in a specific reference to a statement he made in a Monday interview with National Public Radio.  It's kind of hard to quote a public statement the president of the United States and hide the source of the statement.  

"I Believe"

Masters of manipulation who use misinformation, disinformation, false propaganda and other rhetorical means of mass mind control know how to both exploit the abstraction aspects of the communication process and couch their language in a way that covers the territory above their fetlocks.  

They know that as a message works its way through the echo chamber, the qualifying language will fade below the noise threshold while the "message" will continue to reverberate loudly and clearly.  They know that "We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained" will eventually be rebroadcast as "The executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained."

But by having included the disclaimers in their original statements, they can always disavow culpability for having deliberately misled the public.  Keep that in mind when you hear the likes of Messrs. Bush and Cheney say they firmly "think" or "believe" something to be true about Iraq, Iran or any other "factual" information they use to justify their foreign policy decisions.  

Were irony alive and with us, it would roll its eyes at the mainstream media's willingness to echo the administration's pro-Iranian war propaganda even as Judith Miller, the former New York Times reporter now testifying in the I. Lewis Libby trial, tries to defend her role in the Bush administration's media manipulation that led to the Iraq invasion.  

MSNBC just ran a piece by notably unreliable source Jim Miklashevski that talked about claims that Iran is behind all the recent violence in Iraq.  After Micklashevski's segment, the pretty talking head admitted than nothing Mick had said had been proven, but I doubt anybody heard what she said.  

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia.  Read his commentaries at Pen and Sword.