MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th November, 2019) The Iranian leadership, in an interview with Sputnik, has refuted The New York Times (NYT)'s claims of possessing secret Iranian intelligence cables that reveal Tehran's "vast influence" on Iraqi politics, suggesting that the "fake" was created to deflect attention from the US unauthorized military presence in the region and discredit counterterrorism efforts of the Islamic Republic.
On November 18, the NYT published an article "The Iran Cables: Secret Documents Show How Tehran Wields Power in Iraq," allegedly based on some 700 pages of leaked intelligence reports obtained by The Intercept and shared with the newspaper.
The leaks allegedly show that Iran coopts Iraqi leaders and bribes the country's agents working for the US to "switch sides." Iran, the newspaper claims, seeks to "infiltrate every aspect of Iraq's political, economic and religious life" and, "at nearly every turn, has outmaneuvered the United States in the contest for influence."
The NYT, in particular, claims that Iran seeks to prop up Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi to "maintain Iraq as a pliable client state," saying that the politician built a "special relationship" with Tehran during his tenure as oil minister in 2014.
The newspaper also notes that the influence of the powerful neighbor on Iraqi politics is one of the grievances that have been at the heart of protests ravaging the country since October.
DENIGRATING IRAN'S ANTI-TERROR EFFORTS
Commenting on the NYT article, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi told Sputnik that Tehran's initial examination showed that "all of these documents are by no means authentic," stressing that Iran had not secret activities in Iraq.
"It is not difficult to find 'traces' of the [influence] of the Islamic Republic of Iran on a neighboring country with which it has deep, close and inseparable ties, both at the level of the governments and ordinary people. There is no need to forge any documents and put them on public display in the form of such reports. We have nothing secret in Iraq, we just have a very good relationship with this country," Mousavi said.
According to the diplomat, Iran did have a military presence in Iraq when the latter fought the Islamic State terror group (IS, ISIS, banned in Russia), stressing that it was "at the request of the legitimate Iraqi government."
Mousavi also reacted to the NYT reports about the visit of the head of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force unit, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, to protest-hit Iraq in mid-October. According to the newspaper, he had "come to persuade an ally in the Iraqi Parliament to help the prime minister hold onto his job."
"It is natural that in its intrigues, [the West] ... has targeted the most popular and influential figure in the fight against terrorism, especially against ISIS - Gen. Qasem Soleimani. By denigrating Gen. Soleimani, the West [believes it] can succeed in spreading Iranophobia. For them, Gen. Soleimani is certainly an intimidating figure and an object of envy," he pointed out.
DIVERTING ATTENTION FROM UNAUTHORIZED US PRESENCE
Hossein Sheikholislam, an Iranian Foreign Ministry adviser and ex-ambassador to Syria, similarly believes that the NYT materials are a "lie."
Speaking of Iranian-Iraqi ties, he argued that the victory over IS, announced by the Iraqi leadership in late 2017, would be impossible without the Islamic republic's help.
"If not for that [Iran's military presence], ISIS would not have been defeated. Iran has provided military assistance [to Iraq] under three prime ministers: Nouri Maliki, Haider Abadi and Adel Abdul Mahdi; and they all formally requested military assistance from the Iranian government," Sheikholislam told Sputnik.
Abolfazl Abutorabi, a member of the Iranian parliament's legal and judicial commission, in turn, noted that, contrary to the NYT claims, there were currently no Iranian troops in Iraq.
"After the ISIS elimination, Iran has helped Iraq to form paramilitary groups known as the Popular Mobilization Forces and completely withdrawn its troops from the country," Abutorabi told Sputnik.
According to the lawmaker, the NYT has no reliable sources, failing to show photos of the alleged leaked documents.
He also suggested that the "US is spreading rumors and fake news in media" to divert public attention from its "illegal military campaign" in Iraq.
