Jackson Jambalaya

http://www.understandingwar.org/IraqReport/IraqReport06.pdf

The Institute for the Study of War published a report by Dr. Kimberly Kagan, Fellow at the Olin Foundation. While the report is 32 pages, do not quake at the thought of reading 32 pages of boring bureaucratese as the actual report, excluding charts, pictures, and endnotes, is a little over 20 pages and worth reading as it documents the Iranian involvement in the insurgency in Iraq. A chart (page 11) explains the relationships between the leadership in Iran and the Iraqi insurgency while another chart (page 8) lists the important events involving Iranian intervention in Iraq. There is also a map (page 23) that shows the major supply and communications routes used by the Iranians. An executive summary of the report is included as well: http://www.understandingwar.org/IraqReport/IraqReport06ExecSum.pdf. The summary makes the following points:

"Executive Summary
This Iraq Report summarizes evidence of Iranian involvement in Iraq.
Iran, and its proxy Lebanese Hezbollah, have actively supported Shia and even Sunni resistance groups since 2003, providing arms and training so as to target Coalition and Iraqi forces and forment sectarian violence.
Iranian influence has increased since 2003, spanning from Kurdistan to Basrah; currently, roughly half of all attacks on Coalition forces are now attributed to Shia insurgent groups.
In response to mounting Iranian intervention, Coalition forces have conducted an increasing number of special and conventional military operations targeting Iranian-backed secret cells. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker has conducted tripartite meetings with his Iranian and Iraqi counterparts.
Iran has continued to deny that it promotes violence in Iraq. ......

Iranian Intervention in Iraq 2003-2005
Iranian preparations for Iranian intervention in Iraq date from as early as 2002.
Beginning in 2003, Iran has worked to create a vast network to transport and distribute Iranian arms to insurgents across Iraq.
Iranian and Hezbollah agents in Iraq began to recruit and train Shia militia members, including the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr, in 2003.
These groups of twenty to sixty Iraqis trained, armed, and funded by Hezbollah and Iran are known as ‘Special Groups’ or ‘secret cells.’ (The report states that these groups return to Iraq intact and thus able to function as cohesive units.)
With the creation of militia training facilities in Iran in 2005, the number of secret cells in Iraq has grown and they have become much more deadly. Today, there are three of these training camps outside Tehran to train Iraqis for four to six weeks.

Undermining the Government of Iraq: Special Group Activities in 2006
In May 2006, the Qods Force and Hezbollah reorganized the Special Groups in Iraq along a Hezbollah-like model. Ali Mussa Daqduq, a Lebanese Hezbollah operative, became the chief advisor in Iraq.
By June 2006, Qais Khazali, an Iraqi and former Sadrist, became the head of Special Groups in Iraq.
The precise aims of the IRGC-QF remain unclear, but the results are not. They developed a Hezbollah-like secret cell network dependent on Iranian support. They developed an organization that could operate within the umbrella of government institutions to undermine or replace the elected government of Iraq.
Special Groups have actively undermined the Maliki government since its inception in May 2006. They have targeted important government figures, Coalition forces, and Iraqi Security Forces.
Special Groups have kidnapped or assassinated Iraqi government officials; individuals working for the government (including the November 15, 2006 mass kidnapping of employees from the Ministry of Education); and U.S. soldiers at the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center.
Iranian-funded and made explosively-formed projectiles (EFPs), rockets, and mortars flowed into and around Iraq via the Special Groups’ transit routes.
Special Groups have escalated attacks on Coalition forces in the Diyala province and the Green Zone in Baghdad. ...."

The report makes clear that we are fighting an Iran that seeks to take over Iraq as it has used Hezbollah to control all or part of Lebanon, not just Al Qaida, Sunnis fearful of Shia domination, or Baathists.

Dr. Kagan's bio:Kimberly Kagan is a military historian who has taught at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Yale University, Georgetown University, and American University. She is currently an affiliate of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. Dr. Kagan previously held an Olin Postdoctoral Fellowship in Military History at Yale International Security Studies in 2004-2005 and was a National Security Fellow at Harvard’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies in 2002-2003. She is the author of The Eye of Command (University of Michigan Press, 2006) and editor of The Imperial Moment (under contract with Harvard University Press). She received her Ph.D. in History from Yale University