ABC News cites an exclusive noting U.S. military personnel in Iraq are now saying they have direct evidence Iran is arming “Shia militias.”  They aren’t arming Shit militias, they are arming and training the Mahdi Army who is a Shia militia.  The distinction is important because it is the Mahdi Army’s leader, Muqtada al Sadr, who controls a powerful voting block within the Iraqi government and has traveled to Iran countless times.

According to a senior defense official, coalition forces have recently seized Iranian-made weapons and munitions that bear manufacturing dates in 2006.

This suggests, say the sources, that the material is going directly from Iranian factories to Shia militias, rather than taking a roundabout path through the black market. “There is no way this could be done without (Iranian) government approval,” says a senior official.

Iranian-made munitions found in Iraq include advanced IEDs designed to pierce armor and anti-tank weapons. U.S. intelligence believes the weapons have been supplied to Iraq’s growing Shia militias from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is also believed to be training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran.

But we’ve really known this for some time, though there was no “smoking gun” as this find is being called.  Iran has been at war with the United States since November 4, 1979.  It’s about time we recognize it.

Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and U.S. President George Bush met earlier today in Amman, Jordan, and Malaki said all militias in Iraq must be ended.  That does include the Mahdi Army, but in the past Malaki has balked at offensives aimed at clensing the slums of Sadr City of Mahdi Army.  The Mahdi Army, now with evidence of Iranian influence and weaponry, consists of both anti-Coalition forces and death squads intent on murdering Sunnis in Iraq. Whether or not Malaki will say the same thing once he’s in Baghdad and actually carry it out may be another thing.

Malaki also said the Iraqi military will fully take over in June of 2007.  The Iraqi military already controls most of the passive regions and the violence we continue to see comes out of the same regions it always has.