Update: The news media is now reading their own reporting on Iran’s support to al-Qaeda in Iraq and realizing John McCain was right:

“McCain’s national security adviser, Randy Scheunemann, told The New York Sun, ‘There is ample documentation that Iran has provided many different forms of support to Sunni extremists, including Al Qaeda as well as Shi’ia extremists in Iraq. It would require a willing suspension of disbelief to deny Iran supports Al Qaeda in Iraq.”

And the Sun’s reporting concurs:

“The Sun, in a series of dispatches from northern Iraq and Baghdad, detailed claims that Iran has supported Al Qaeda in Iraq. One such dispatch, published on April 25, 2007, quoted the director of the security ministry for the Sulaimaniyah province, Sarkawt Hassan Jalal, as saying Iran had harbored the leadership of a group calling itself Al Qaeda in Kurdistan in five towns on the Iraqi border. A subsequent story, based on an interview with a Kurdish prisoner who went by the name Osman the Small, said Iran’s revolutionary guard and domestic intelligence service had issued the Kurdish jihadist group political refugee cards, identifications that made it possible for them to cross back and forth into Iraq from Iran.”

…

“The Sun also reported in July that a senior leadership or management council for Al Qaeda meets regularly in eastern Iran, according to the classified portion of the latest national intelligence estimate on Al Qaeda.”

Maybe if the news media actually remembered what they reported they would not look so foolish and make wild and unsubstantiated claims – geez! And they wonder why Americans find them less and less credible every passing day? Doh! – end update

If the liberal dems want to underscore the suicidal naiveté about terrorism they can do no better than claim there are no connections between Iran and al-Qaeda. I ran across this article noting that the 9-11 commission determined there were lots of connections between Iran and al-Qaeda, even prior to 9-12:

In compiling that exhaustive report, the 9-11 Commission interviewed over 1,000 people from at least 10 countries. Among the conclusions that they reached regarding Iran and al Qaeda:

• In late 1991 or early 1992, in meetings held in Sudan, Iran agreed to train al Qaeda operatives. Not long afterwards, al Qaeda terrorists traveled to Iran and received training in explosives. Subsequent to this, al Qaeda terrorists also traveled to Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, where they received training from Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

• Once Osama bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan and established terrorist training camps there, Iran facilitated the transit of Jihadists to al Qaeda training camps through Iran. This facilitation included making an exception for al Qaeda terrorists in stamping passports when they passed through Iran to Afghanistan.

There is more in the article, but I decided to look at the report myself and here are the exact excerpts:

[page 61] – Bin Ladin seemed willing to include in the confederation terrorists from almost every corner of the Muslim world. His vision mirrored that of Sudan’s Islamist leader,Turabi,who convened a series of meetings under the label Popular Arab and Islamic Conference around the time of Bin Ladin’s arrival in that country.

…

Turabi sought to persuade Shiites and Sunnis to put aside their divisions and join against the common enemy. In late 1991 or 1992, discussions in Sudan between al Qaeda and Iranian operatives led to an informal agreement to cooperate in providing support—even if only training—for actions carried out primarily against Israel and the United States.Not long afterward, senior al Qaeda operatives and trainers traveled to Iran to receive training in explosives.

…

[page 128] – On November 4, 1998, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed its indictment of Bin Ladin, charging him with conspiracy to attack U.S. defense installations. The indictment also charged that al Qaeda had allied itself with Sudan, Iran, and Hezbollah.

…

[page 240] – As we mentioned in chapter 2, while in Sudan, senior managers in al Qaeda maintained contacts with Iran and the Iranian-supported worldwide terrorist organization Hezbollah, which is based mainly in southern Lebanon and Beirut.Al Qaeda members received advice and training from Hezbollah.

Intelligence indicates the persistence of contacts between Iranian security officials and senior al Qaeda figures after Bin Ladin’s return to Afghanistan. Khallad has said that Iran made a concerted effort to strengthen relations with al Qaeda after the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, but was rebuffed because Bin Ladin did not want to alienate his supporters in Saudi Arabia.Khallad and other detainees have described the willingness of Iranian officials to facilitate the travel of al Qaeda members through Iran, on their way to and from Afghanistan. For example, Iranian border inspectors would be told not to place telltale stamps in the passports of these travelers. Such arrangements were particularly beneficial to Saudi members of al Qaeda.1

Our knowledge of the international travels of the al Qaeda operatives selected for the 9/11 operation remains fragmentary. But we now have evidence suggesting that 8 to 10 of the 14 Saudi “muscle” operatives traveled into or out of Iran between October 2000 and February 2001.

…

In mid-November, we believe, three of the future muscle hijackers,Wail al Shehri,Waleed al Shehri, and Ahmed al Nami, all of whom had obtained their U.S. visas in late October, traveled in a group from Saudi Arabia to Beirut and then onward to Iran. An associate of a senior Hezbollah operative was on the same flight that took the future hijackers to Iran. Hezbollah officials in Beirut and Iran were expecting the arrival of a group during the same time period. The travel of this group was important enough to merit the attention of senior figures in Hezbollah.

The report notes there is always a slim chance this was all coincidence. But one thing is clear, al-Qaeda had an operational arrangement with Iran. There is little doubt this arrangement has not been exploited in al-Qaeda’s dealings with Iraq. And there have been reports of support over the years. Here is one from May, 2006 where Iran is supplying missiles to al-Qaeda in Iraq:

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had provided the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq heavy weapons including anti-aircraft missiles, it emerged on Friday.

The Iraqi daily az-Zaman which is published in London and Baghdad quoted credible Iraqi sources as revealing that the IRGC had given al-Qaeda in Iraq, Strela-type SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles, modern explosives, and a large number of personnel arms including Kalashnikovs and BKC machineguns.

Here is a Washington Post article from 2004 on the connections outlined in the 9-11 report. Here is an article from the Financial Times from this year reporting on the support from Iran to al-Qaeda fighters in Iraq.

Evidence that Iranian territory is being used as a base by al-Qaeda to help in terrorist operations in Iraq and elsewhere is growing, say western officials.

It is not clear how much the al-Qaeda operation, described by one official as a money and communications hub, is being tolerated or encouraged by the Iranian government, they said.

The group’s operatives, who link the al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan with their disciples in Iraq, the Levant and North Africa, move with relative freedom in the country, they said.

The officials said the creation of some kind of al-Qaeda hub in Iran appears to be separate from the group of seven senior al-Qaeda figures, including Saad bin Laden, son of the group’s figurehead, that Iran is said to have detained since 2002.

As the left continues to show off how ignorant they are of the forces allied against this nation and its people, it only reinforces the fact the left is dangerously ignorant – and couldn’t see a pending threat if it hit them squarely in the face – as it should have with all these reports and sources. Keep it up surrendercrats – all this is doing is strengthening McCain’s standing (since he clearly has access to the detailed intel reports that leftwing bloggers and the such pretend do not exist).