Cheney builds an explosive case

For many months, the propaganda line that explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) that could penetrate United States armored vehicles were coming straight from Iran has been embraced publicly by the entire George W Bush administration. But when that argument was proposed internally by military officials in January 2007, it was attacked by key administration officials as unsupported by the facts.

Vice President Dick Cheney was able to get around those objections and get his Iranian EFP line accepted only because of arrangements he and Bush made with General David Petraeus before he took command of US forces in Iraq.

The initial draft of the proposed military briefing on the issue of EFPs, which asserted flatly that EFPs were being manufactured and smuggled to Iraqi Shi'ite groups directly by the Iranian regime, was met with unanimous objection from the State Department, Defense Department and National Security Council staff, as administration officials themselves stated publicly.