A rare glimpse from the Washington Post about who is actually fighting the U.S. in Iraq. In this case, Shiite forces in Baghdad who are using a different, more deadly form of armor-piercing, tank-piercing projectile explosive. Strikingly, this information is only appearing because it is sanctioned by the U.S. military, so that the article begins:
Attacks in Iraq involving lethal weapons that U.S. officials say are made in Iran hit a record high last month, despite efforts to crack down on networks supplying the armor-piercing weapons known as explosively formed projectiles, according to a senior U.S. commander.
Why would the "senior U.S. commander" tell a Washington Post reporter about this? Because -- while undoubtedly true and "reality-based" -- this also fits into interests of the Bush administration: the military claims that these weapons are essentially produced by Iran and, furthermore, that "the U.S. military in recent weeks captured the Iraqi leader of a network that brings the projectiles into Iraq from Iran."
Since these weapons "are far more lethal than other roadside bombs," the article states, "they have been a factor in keeping U.S. troop casualties from dropping." So, in other words, the military is presenting these as something which
a) explains the high number of deaths and injuries post-surge in Iraq,
b) is attributable to Iran, rather than indigenous to Iraq,
c) and which the U.S. can and will actively combat.
It is a narrative, in other words, which the military likes. "Also seized were computer documents and records detailing attacks against U.S. forces, Petraeus said." At the same time, this propaganda necessarily includes the actual facts about what these bombs do:
Averaging about the size of a coffee can, explosively formed projectiles detonate and send a cone-shaped slug of metal at high speed toward the target, acting as a spear that's able not only to penetrate armor but also to shatter it, creating debris that inflicts further damage.
And it also leads the Washington Post to give unusual amounts of details about the insurgency itself -- centered on the evolving efforts of insurgents in Iraq to produce this kind of weapon.
Iraqi fighters have been making their own versions of the weapons, but so far none has been effective against U.S. forces, Odierno said. The Iraqi-made projectiles, using brass and copper melted on stoves, have failed to fully penetrate U.S. armor and are more likely to be used against Iraqi forces, whose vehicles often have thinner armored protection than U.S. vehicles, U.S. military officials said. . . . Explosively formed projectiles were first reported used in the Iraq war in 2005 against British forces in the south, but have grown increasingly common, primarily in Baghdad.
This passage also tells us a number of -- very disturbing -- things.
a) It gives a rare glimpse of the inevitably evolving military tactics of the insurgency. This is literally the degree zero of how the Iraq war is catalyzing -- rather than preventing -- the next generation of anti-U.S. terrorism. "Brass and copper melted on stoves." In a way that can't be traced to individuals, but is rather systematic and viral, insurgents continue to develop new methods of making war. This will continue no matter what kind of force is brought to bear in Iraq by the occupation.
b) It suggests the shabby inequality that also inevitably accompanies imperial occupation. Here, the Iraqi troops need to go around in vehicles with "thinner armored protection" -- a detail which tells a whole, epic story.
This article is really disturbing -- disturbing in what it says about the war, the forces of insurgency, the traumatic violence that U.S. soldiers face, the realities of how "terrorism" develops, the unwinnable nature of the occupation, and the strange, distressing inequality between U.S. and Iraqi troops. But it's also disturbing in how it was written -- in the way that (all too scant) facts about the war on the ground often only emerge in the mainstream press as they are sanctioned or leaked or massaged by the U.S. military itself. Leading to a paraphrase of that old truism: the first, but not necessarily the last, casualty of war is the truth.
The number of attacks with the projectiles rose to 65 in April, said Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno . . . . Before April, the month with the greatest number of projectile attacks was December 2006, with 62.