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Think Progress: McCain Was Right!

4:02 PM, Mar 20, 2008 • By MICHAEL GOLDFARB
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So Think Progress went batty when McCain, earlier this week, said that Iran was "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back." Today, they continue to pound away on this issue by quoting a statement made by Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno last summer:

We don't see any evidence, significant evidence, that shows that [Iranian-controlled] groups that are funding and providing arms to Shi'a extremists are directly related to al Qaeda. Now, we all know that al Qaeda uses Iran and they do in some cases traffic some of their individuals through Iran to Iraq, but it's a very small number of people and it's mostly through the Kurdish regions up north, where you have the old Ansar al-Sunna connections. But beyond that, there is no specific connection between the Shi'a extremists - excuse me - the [Iranian] Quds Force operations and supporting the Shi'a extremists and that of al Qaeda, and supporting al Qaeda.

Am I missing something, or isn't that exactly what McCain said? And since no one is disputing that Iran has control over its borders, we are now talking about degrees of support, which is to say, Iran is supporting al Qaeda, we just don't know to what extent.

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