EFPs, the New WMD

The Iranians are giving lethal aid to Shia militias in Iraq that is costing American lives.

That, of course, is the latest fiction coming from the Bush administration, the military, and their corporate media megaphones. The EFP story, like Iraq's WMDs before them, was created to justify an attack on Iran that has been years in the making.

EFPs are Explosively Formed Penetrators, simple yet powerful devices that have the ability to destroy heavy tanks and kill their crews. "You can do as much or more damage with a 5-pound EFP, which is aimed, as with a 200-pound conventional IED [Improvised Explosive Device], where most of the energy is dissipated away from the target," said one Pentagon analyst. The cost of making an EFP? About $20-$30. $30 to take out a $3 million M-1 Abrams tank or a $100,000 humvee is not a bad investment.

EFPs work by using a blast to compress, melt and shoot a concave-shaped metal disc in a particular direction. They are also small and light, and a lot easier to carry and plant without detection than your standard IED which is usually made out of an artillery shell.

Although the Cheney administration claims that only Iran could have supplied these weapons, the reality is that anyone with a garage and access to basic construction and electrical equipment (and explosives, obviously) can build one. The U.S. has actually discovered a few EFP manufacturing sites, none of which had any evidence of Iranian involvement.

Furthermore, if it was true that Iran was supplying these things, the most obvious thing to do would be to seize a few trucks crossing the Iran-Iraq border and show the world where these EFPs are coming from. The reason they haven't done so is because Iran isn't supplying any faction in Iraq with weapons.

Once again, the Cheney administration is using false pretenses to lay the basis for another war in the Middle East. Once again, the Democrats in the Senate have given them the green light for it.

With half the American navy parked off the coast and all the targets picked out and prioritized, it's just a matter of time before Bush launches his third war.