No sign of increased threats in Iraq or Syria from Iran or proxies says British General, coalition’s deputy commander for strategy and information. Existing US claim of such threats may not have originated from US or UK intel agencies-DefenseOne.com, AntiWar.com

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Two sources: 5/14/19, “A Bewildering Briefing on the Iranian Threat Leaves More Questions Than Answers,” DefenseOne.com…and “CENTCOM Shoots Down General’s Claim of ‘No Increased Threat’ from Iran,” Military.com 

May 14, 2019, “UK General: No Sign of Increased Threats From Iran or ‘Proxies’,” AntiWar.com, Jason Ditz 

“Says UK intelligence is in line with US intelligence on the matter” 

“The narrative of an “increased threat” posed by Iran and its proxies across the Middle East is being used to justify a US military buildup and a general escalation of tensions in the area. British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, however, has raised serious doubts about that.”… 

[““There’s been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria,” U.K. Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika said Tuesday in a rare on-the-record press briefing streamed from the Baghdad headquarters of the anti-ISIS coalition. “I’m not going to go into the detail of it, but there are a substantial number of militia groups in Iraq and Syria and we don’t see any increased threat from many of them at this stage.” 

The remarks by Ghika, the coalition’s deputy commander for strategy and information, appeared to rebut Trump administration claims that Iran is “mobilizing proxy groups in Iraq and Syria to attack American forces,” as the New York Times put it. They also seemed to rule out one way Iran could be posing an “escalating” threat, as administration officials have claimed without detail for several weeks.”…] 

(continuing): “Maj. Gen. Ghika said that there has been “no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces,” despite the claims from US officials, mostly Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and John Bolton. Perhaps more damningly, Ghika says he does not believe there is any daylight between Britain’s assessment of “no increased threat” and the assessment from US intelligence. 

In other words, the US officials are [or may be] lying about the intelligence, presumably to justify the growing US buildup and to keep hyping the possibility of a war with Iran. US Central Command, however, angrily shot back contradicting Ghika, insisting his statement runs counter to established US position on the matter. 

CENTCOM’s statement is not exactly a refutation of Ghika’s position on UK and US intelligence. Rather, it refers to “identified credible threats” but provides no indication where they came from. It clearly wasn’t intelligence agencies, because the threats were only made available to intelligence agencies after their identification. 

Early reports on the “Iranian proxies” allegation suggested it came out of Israel, and that it was built around Israeli officials believing it would make sense for Iran to do that sort of thing to attack the US. This could suggest it was never verified by US or UK intelligence, and was rather just accepted as the official version because it fit with US policy at the time.”


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