More like this, please

From the St. Petersburg Times:

Gray weapons market clouds Iran role. The article makes the blindingly obvious point that the arms cache the U.S. recently showed off is as phony as a 3-dollar bill:

In a series of media briefings this month, the U.S. military has displayed mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and a particularly lethal type of roadside bomb alleged to have been made in Iran. The military has acknowledged there is no direct evidence the Iranian leadership is responsible, and the Bush administration denies it is building a case for attacking Iran as it did with Iraq in 2003.

But skepticism abounds about the origin of the weapons, with critics wondering why those alleged to have been made in Iran had markings in English, not Farsi. And Monday, the New York Times printed a letter from an Iranian diplomat who said dates on some of the weapons shown - including a warhead marked 5-31-2006 - prove the U.S. claims are "preposterous."

"The dates are in the American date format - month first, day second - whereas the rest of the world does not use this format," wrote M.A. Mohammadi, press secretary for Iran's U.N. mission. Iran and most other countries put the day first, followed by month and year.

I'm betting these guys forged notes explaining absences from school and signed them, "Billy's Mom."

But they aren't just relying on the markings on the munitions to conclude they come from Iran. There's another pillar holding up this argument -- they have eliminated internal (Iraq) sourcing because of the sophistication of the work.

Now let's line that one up with the rest of the Bush propaganda output, shall we? OK, follow closely:

1. Iraq is a success. Everything is going great, rebuilding, rebuilding, rebuilding. Just one bombing a day. Happy, happy, joy, joy.

2. How do we know the weapons we found come from Iran?

Anthony Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says Iraq at one time would have been able to manufacture many of the types of weapons now being seized by U.S. forces.

"Truth is, these aren't so sophisticated to say DIO has to make them," said Cordesman, referring to the Tehran-based Defense Industries Organization. "Any really good machine shop with automated metal lathes and normal tools could make them.

"The problem is that in a lot of Iraq, very little is working and things it would have been very capable of doing several years ago would be much more difficult today."

Cognitive dissonance. It's the new black.