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Other weapons shown to the press included 81mm mortars with Iranian markings and a distinctive tailfin which a coalition explosives experts described as typical of Iranian munitions.
It didn't take long for others to pounce:
BBC
Monday, February 12, 2007
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Pentagon carelessness fabricating bogus “evidence” against Iran is really quite stupendous. As I wrote here yesterday, the 81mm mortar shell offered up to the complaisant corporate media as “evidence” Iran is supplying weaponry to the Shi’a of Iraq is an obvious ruse, as the date on the proffered shell does not follow the Muslim calendar and other markings are in English when it only makes sense they would appear in Persian script.
It gets better:
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Iran does not manufacture 81mm mortar shells. According to a report offered by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, connected to the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the neocon Brookings Institute, the smallest mortar produced by Iran is the 107mm M-30. This information is included in the JCSS’s “Middle East Military Balance,” updated last February. It can be read in this PDF file on page 15. According to JCSS, “The Middle East Military Balance has been the most authoritative source on Middle Eastern Armies since 1983.”
And a twist:
Al Pessin
VOA
Monday, February 12, 2007
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The top American military officer, General Peter Pace, declined Monday to endorse the conclusions of U.S. military officers in Baghdad[/U], who told reporters on Sunday that the Iranian government is providing high-powered roadside bombs to insurgents in Iraq. General Pace made his comments during a visit to Australia, and VOA's Al Pessin reports from Canberra.
And now the kicker:
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Iran does not manufacture 81mm mortars—but Pakistan does.
Not Pakistan - not the Pakistani ISI who worked so closely with the CIA to support the Mujaheedan in Afghanistan - surely those close ties with terrorists no longer exist.