UPDATE: The title of this article is being recanted by me, the author, as it is misleading. I made a mistake, and apologize to the readers for that mistake.
Here's what happened:
Admiral Mullen made a somewhat confusing statement during the US Senate Armed Services Committee on September 22nd. To most of the news agencies who reported the story, their understanding of the statement was that the Admiral was referencing the Haqqani terrorist network, not Iran. The bulk of the conversation that day also focused on the Haqqani network. Here is the exchange between Senator Ayotte and Admiral Mullen:
Sen. AYOTTE: I wanted to ask you about Iran and, in particular, Iran's influence on Iraq right now. Admiral Mullen, how would you describe Iran's surrogate activities in southern Iraq? And is Iran providing weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq, who are in turn attacking our troops? And how much is Iran contributing to increased violence in Iraq?
ADM. MULLEN: I think over the summer there was a significant spike into what the secretary said earlier with respect to Iran supporting two Shia extremist groups, AAH and KH. And they have control of that -- very clear. Because we went by several channels, but politically to Iraq; Iraq went to Iran, and it stopped. So it is -- there's no question that Iran can control this, and it's a very dangerous potential. And they're shipping EFPs and IRAMs in particular, and the IRAMs are getting bigger and bigger. And so there is a -- there is a great downside potential for destabilizing particularly southern Iraq.
That, actually, I think Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi leadership is concerned about. So in that regard, it is in one - on the one hand, up to them. It's very clear that they - if they want to do it, they can do it. They are - they have been warned about continuing it, and consistent with what the secretary has said about the Haqqani Network, you know, that if they keep killing our troops, that will not be something we will just sit idly by and watch.
Prior to my writing this article, every top-level Google result for the specific quote that Mullen said resulted in a story about Pakistan, specifically about the Haqqani network, and made no mention of Iran. Every credible news agency I had found that covered the story said that Mullen was speaking of the Haqqani network. I did not feel the need to verify that information by finding the original quote, which was a major mistake, and I apologize. Unlike all of the major media organizations that covered this story, I always link to my sources. This time, I linked to the Dawn News, but I easily could have linked to AFP, or dozens of other agencies that carried the story. I was misled, so you were misled.
Unfortunately, this problem will now overshadow my larger point made in the rest of the article, that Fox is trying to manipulate this story in order to drum up fear, without providing adequate evidence. The quote in question was not really made about "Iran," but about Shia extremist groups that have been waging an insurgency for a long time. No hard evidence is given that Iran had supplied weapons to the extremists. And no evidence is given to support the idea that Iran will supply weapons to Shia groups once the U.S. soldiers withdraw from Iraq.
I write these articles to keep the media in check and to dig for the truth, and I thank the reader who pointed out my mistake. At the end of the day somebody has to keep the media honest, and Fox News, the AFP, and I all need to do a better job.
On Monday, Fox News posted an article with the very provocative title: "After Deadly Attacks in Iraq, Iran Lays Low While U.S. Plans Withdrawal:
An Iranian militia on July 12 attempted to fire 41 Iranian-made rockets at a U.S. military post in eastern Iraq near the border with Iran. Seventeen of the 107 mm rockets were confiscated by U.S. and Iraqi forces before they could be launched, but the rest missed the U.S. base known as COS Garry Owen in Maysan province just north of Basra and instead hit the base for the Iraqi 10th Army division, killing several Iraqi women and children.
U.S. defense officials familiar with the incident tell Fox News that in response an angry Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki issued a communiqué warning his Iranian counterparts that should such destabilizing operations continue he would be forced to ask U.S. forces to remain in Iraq past December 31, the current deadline for all U.S. forces to leave.
The article then explains how attacks have decreased since the incident, thus the supposed "laying low" of Iran as it awaits the departure of American troops.
So Fox takes an event which may or may not have occurred -- somehow, an AP profile of COS Garry Owen in September failed to note any Iranian attacks during the summer --- combines it with a non-event since then, and concludes: 1) the warning of continued US presence in Iraq keeps Tehran quiet but 2) once that presence goes, the Iranian menace will re-appear.
So a bit of clever manipulation by the Fox folks, but something did not sit quite right. The glaring problem with the article came in the last paragraph:
In June of this year, 9 U.S. soldiers were killed as a result of Iranian rockets. U.S. troops were attacked 6 times this year by militias firing Iranian rockets, twice as many times as the year before. Admiral Mike Mullen before retiring as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs last week warned, "If they [Iran] keep killing our troops that will not be something that we will sit idly by and watch." Now it seems that Iran's leadership has made a new calculation that it may be more beneficial to slow the attacks until the government of Iraq finalizes its request for how many U.S. troops it will ask to remain.
I knew I had heard this warning from Admiral Mullen this week. So I did some research. Mullen said those very words, but the quote had absolutely nothing to do with Iran:
The admiral's tough language follows a series of stern warnings from top US officials on Pakistan's failure to crack down on the Haqqani network, raising the possibility of unilateral US action.
"If they keep killing our troops that would not be something we would just sit idly by and watch," Mullen said of the Haqqani insurgents.
So now they are outright lying about the statements of retiring Admirals in order to beat the war drum. Just another epic media fail.
This article originally appeared on EA WorldView, where James Miller and others provide daily coverage of Iran and the Arab Spring.