US and UK Fail To Find "Smoking Gun" Linking Iran to Iraqi Insurgency

Guardian:

Although British and US military and diplomats often complain of Iranian support for insurgents in Iraq, there is no "smoking gun" to prove it, a senior British officer in Basra admitted yesterday.

Lt Col Justin Maciejewski said he could not prove Iranian interference in the southern Iraqi city, where UK troops come under regular mortar and rocket attack. But community leaders had told him Iranian agents were paying Iraqis $500 a month (£254) to carry out attacks.

"All the information we are getting from the locals ... is that the vast majority of the violence against us is inspired from outside of Iraq and the people here very much believe that that is Iran," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "There is nothing I have seen that would disprove what they are telling me."

Anecdotal evidence that can't be disproved? Well, that's conclusive justification for the saber-rattling rhetoric.