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The Telegraph reports that extremely lethal sniper rifles manufactured in Austria and sold to Iran have turned up in Iraq. Over 100 of the 800 sold to Iran have turned up, in fact. The Austrian government approved the sale of the weapons over the objections of Britain and the United States.

Austrian sniper rifles that were exported to Iran have been discovered in the hands of Iraqi terrorists, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

More than 100 of the.50 calibre weapons, capable of penetrating body armour, have been discovered by American troops during raids.

The guns were part of a shipment of 800 rifles that the Austrian company, Steyr-Mannlicher, exported legally to Iran last year.

The sale was condemned in Washington and London because officials were worried that the weapons would be used by insurgents against British and American troops.

Within 45 days of the first HS50 Steyr Mannlicher rifles arriving in Iran, an American officer in an armoured vehicle was shot dead by an Iraqi insurgent using the weapon.

Over the last six months American forces have found small caches of the £10,000 rifles but in the last 24 hours a raid in Baghdad brought the total to more than 100, US defence sources reported.

It's hard to fathom why the Austrian government approved a sale of these things to Iran. It is even harder to fathom how people can go on believing that Iran has nothing to do with the violence in Iraq. Here is what a Steyr HS50 looks like.

UPDATE: The rifles were purchased by the Iranian government supposedly for anti-drug efforts. Others: Confederate Yankee, Jules Crittenden, Roger L. Simon, Power Line, QandO, Gateway Pundit, The Bullwinkle Blog, Polimom Says, The Moderate Voice, Captain's Quarters, Protein Wisdom, Hot Air, TigerHawk, Argghhh!, Instapundit, Hugh Hewitt, Outside The Beltway, Beltway Blogroll, Classical Values, The Political Pit Bull,

Iran, War | Gaius February 13, 2007

By TC@LeatherPenguin, February 13, 2007 @ 9:53 am

“It’s hard to fathom why the Austrian government approved a sale of these things to Iran.”

No, it’s not. They knew the odds of any Austrian getting shot by one of those guns were nil, and they didn’t bloody care if some Yanks or Brits ended up getting hit.
By Quilly Mammoth, February 13, 2007 @ 10:05 am

No compelling evidence that Iran is supplying the Terrorists? Right.
By jpe, February 13, 2007 @ 10:14 am

Iran sells to 40-odd countries. Their weapons are distributed throughout the world. There are at least three ways those weapons could’ve gotten into Iraq that wouldn’t merit a finding of culpability: 1) via 3rd party purchaser; 2) theft & sales on black market; 3) sales by renegade factions w/in gvt.

Alternately, Iran could’ve rushed in to help ala America and, like America, had no way of tracing where their weaponry and cash went. That was reckless for America to have done, and would be reckless for Iran if that’s what happened, and Iran would be as culpable as America for aiding the militias.
By Pam, February 13, 2007 @ 10:44 am

What TC said…
By AB, February 13, 2007 @ 11:15 am

Time to boycott Austria.
By Gaius, February 13, 2007 @ 11:24 am

No, jpe. The weapons were specifically purchased by the Iranian government, supposedly for drug enforcement.

This is, quite literally, the smoking gun.
By TC@LeatherPenguin, February 13, 2007 @ 12:16 pm

I gotta really laugh at that bogus reasoning the Austrian’s used to defend this sale. “The Iranians assure us they will be used to battle the Persian drug lords destabilizing their society”

Right… because everyone knows you gotta take out Majid selling dope on the corner with high ordinance fired from at least one hundred yards out….

It’s the only way to be sure!
By Deb (x_dhimmi), February 13, 2007 @ 1:13 pm

Wikipedia says Austria “is one of six European countries that have declared permanent neutrality and one of the few countries that includes the concept of everlasting neutrality in their constitution.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria

I hereby declare my own f’d-up NEUTRALITY by swearing never to buy another can/bottle of Red Bull Energy Drink. Furthermore, I will be informing all local merchants of the drink of its provenance and what that implies to the United States and allied troops. Moreover, a letter to the editor of the local newspaper is all but written.

LIST OF AUSTRIAN COMPANIES (RED BULL INCLUDED)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Austrian_companies

RED BULL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull
By jpe, February 13, 2007 @ 2:09 pm

The weapons were specifically purchased by the Iranian government, supposedly for drug enforcement.

Couldn’t they have been resold? And they could’ve been stolen, smuggled, diverted, etal.
By Gaius, February 13, 2007 @ 2:13 pm

More than 100? Do you even believe yourself when you try these kinds of statements? Really?

45 days after they arrived in Iran, one was used to kill an American soldier in Iraq. 100 or so more have turned up so far.
By TC@LeatherPenguin, February 13, 2007 @ 2:29 pm

Do the math, JPE: 100 guns out of an 800 count lot military purchase=32%; that’s not a “theft,” that’s “a deployment.” You think someone broke into a military storage facility and just strolled away with those things? This is a country where they hang women who piss off the local clerics by getting raped; can you imagine the consequences if you got caught boosting toys from the Iranian military?

Are you truly that damn dense? Or has the BDS so scrambled your marbles that you just automatically have to try to defend anyone who seems to stand up the the current President of the United States?
By cfaller96, February 13, 2007 @ 6:01 pm

So, gaius, and others here, knowing what you know now, do you want to go war with Iran?

For the record, I don’t. I don’t believe we can afford to wage a third war, and this one with a much more powerful army, much larger civilian population, and much larger landmass than Iraq. We’re in enough trouble as it is.

Also, just because anonymous government officials kinda sorta hint that Iran is directly supplying Iraqi insurgents with weapons, doesn’t make it so. That’s how we ended up in Iraq with no WMDs. I seek more proof than what I see here. But before we debate that, we must all discuss whether we really want to go to war with Iran or not.
By Gaius, February 13, 2007 @ 6:08 pm

I already answered. Leaving the same question on multiple threads won’t make that change.

Question for you: Do you think letting Iran kill Americans with no penalty is a good thing? Let’s get you on the record since you seem desperate to get me to commit to something.

That’s a yes or no answer, incidentally.
By Stew, February 13, 2007 @ 6:44 pm

What is being discussed should require questions.

1) where does the number 800 rifles come from…state the source…was it the manufacturer.

2) If the manufacturer states the Iranian Givernment … show me the purchase order and shipping details.

3) Show me the serial numbers and match them to the captured rifles.

4) Show me the reports assigned to the captured rifles.

If we are going to commit to a war - whoch we cannot win by the way with nukes.. then we should have the full proof that the Iranian governement is suppling weapons and logistical support.

Why? You ask.

Well…Because we all have emotional responses to our troops being killed and on the other hand we have heard this stuff before. We should ask these questions and get the valid answers.

Also think about the logistics of fighting a war against a counrty on its territory from a war zone itself with a 10 to 1 disavantage. We cannot win even if nukes are used and then we would probably start WWIII. I just can’t wait for the rapture so all 144,000 (est.) of us can be saved… the rest be damned.

It’s basically insanity. We didn’t attack the USSR even when they were supplying North Vietnam and we didn’t start with China in Korea until they felt threatened by our advance to their border and jumped in. Should we have Nuked them like MacArthur wanted to….nuts. Somethings are just unattainable and the current neocons didn’t think things through. Unless…. just maybe they have a completely different agenda than what is good for us… mmmm.
By Gaius, February 13, 2007 @ 6:50 pm

Same question for you, stew. Good idea to allow Iranians to kill Americans with no penalties? Yes or no.
By TC@LeatherPenguin, February 13, 2007 @ 9:42 pm

Stew? Your questions show an almost blindingly stupity level.

Austria freely admits selling the hardware, and freely admits to the number of weapons involved. You want copies of the PO? Bring it up with the EU; I’m certain they have it filed in triplicate.

These are facts, as are the serial numbers of the weapons in question, that no one on either side has yet to refute.

Put your “neocon” crap in your back pocket for a moment, and riddle me this: if your next-door neighbor was allowing folks to climb over your fence and ransack your house, would you “nuke” your neighbor?

Or would you shoot his dogs and say, “Master’s going down next if this crap don’t stop.”
By cfaller96, February 14, 2007 @ 9:24 am

gaius said:
Question for you: Do you think letting Iran kill Americans with no penalty is a good thing?

First, let me apologize gaius, because after I posted on your other thread, I assumed I was too late to the party, and so asked again here. From what I can tell from your answer, you DO want to go to Iran, because they’re (in your opinion) supplying weapons to our enemies, and (in your words) Iran is already at war with us.

To answer your question, no I don’t think Iran killing Americans with no penalty is a good thing. So what? I don’t see how that question is relevant, for two reasons:

1. Because those conditions don’t, in my mind, exist yet. Rail on me all you want, but I seek more proof than anonymous government officials making assertions about the links between the weapons on the ground and the Iranian government. I want to see the direct evidence, I want to have many, many experts reviewing the evidence, and I want to have a grand and open discussion about how serious this evidence is. Call me crazy, but I would like a much freer and more open debate about war with Iran than we had about war with Iraq. It was a mistake to ignore/stifle/marginalize dissent and doubt prior to the Iraq War, and I think it would be a mistake to do it again in Iran.

2. Just because there is reason to go to war, does not necessarily mean we should go to war. If nations automatically attacked other nations that supplied weapons to their enemies, we would have been in several nuclear holocausts by now. The USSR supplied weapons to North VietNam, China supplied weapons (and troops!) in Korea, we supplied weapons to the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, but we didn’t immediately push the button and start more wars, did we? Perhaps you think it was a mistake not to start a “hot” war with the Soviet Union or China, or vice versa, but I don’t. Peace is, inherently, better than war, and sometimes peace comes at a price.

…

More generally, this is one of the consequences of going to war and occupying a foreign country- other nations will indirectly supply the resistance. It happened in VietNam, Korea, Afghanistan, and it’s (probably) happening in Iraq. It’s just an inevitable price that we absorb when we occupy another country.

Other nations can and will do this because they know the occupying army cannot adequately respond, due to being tied down in the occupation. That’s reality, and that’s something we should have realized before we went in and invaded Iraq in the first place.

Having other nations supply our enemies is an inevitable cost of war and occupation, and what everyone must decide is, is this offense worth war? It wasn’t worth war in Korea- gaius, are you saying that General MacArthur was right, President Truman was wrong, and we should have opened a wider, bloodier war with China back in the ’50s?

Is it worth it to go to war with an even more formidable country, with a bigger military, population, land mass than Iraq, while we’re still trying to stabilize Iraq, all because of 100 sniper rifles and however many IEDs?

If the answer is yes, then the next question is, what are the objectives?
By Chet, February 14, 2007 @ 11:13 am

Whenever I see a report that refers to “Iraq terrorists” in general, I suspect somebody is trying to palm the pea.

Specifically which terrorists were these found in the hands of? Iran is ideologically bound to Shi’a Islam, but al-Qaeda is entirely Sunni. There’s no way Iran would supply the terrorists who are trying to kill as many Iranian Shiites as possible.

And I don’t understand the “percentage disproves theft” argument.