HUGE NYTIMES SCOOP: IRAN CAUGHT SMUGGLING FORGED BALLOTS INTO IRAQ!

NYTIMES - DEXTER FILKINS, (Khalid al-Khassan contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article, and Kirk Semple from Ramadi):

Less than two days before nationwide elections, the Iraqi border police seized a tanker on Tuesday that had just crossed from Iran filled with thousands of forged ballots, an official at the Interior Ministry said. The tanker was seized in the evening by agents with the American-trained border protection force at the Iraqi town of Badra, after crossing at Munthirya on the Iraqi border, the official said. According to the Iraqi official, the border police found several thousand partly completed ballots inside.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the Iranian truck driver told the police under interrogation that at least three other trucks filled with ballots had crossed from Iran at different spots along the border. The official, who did not attend the interrogation, said he did not know where the driver was headed, or what he intended to do with the ballots.

The seizure of the truck comes at a delicate time in Iran's relations with both Iraq and the United States. The American government has said Iranian agents are deeply involved in trying to influence events in Iraq, by funneling money to Shiite political parties and by arming and training many of the illegal militias that are bedeviling the country.

If you ask me: this is an act of WAR. Iraq's next government ought to declare war on Iran and Syria and ask us to attack them both. We'd get THREE birds with one stone: we eliminate Assad; we eliminate Iran's nukes; and WE WITHDRAW FROM IRAQ! Everyone's happy!

Seriously: this should AT THE VERY LEAST result in SERIOUS sanctions against Iran. This is as bad an interference in the democracy of a neighbor as Hariri's assasination was.

WHICH REMINDS ME: We shouldn't be surprised the Iranians are doing this - for 3 reasons: (1) They're allies of Assad and other global jihadoterrorists who have been undermining democracy allover the world (but especially in the Middle East) for decades. Voter fraud for this crowd is kid's stuff. (2) These people train kids to become genocidal islamikaze bombers and to behead hostages; so OF COURSE they wouldn't bat an eye over voter fraud. And (3) THE MULLAHS OF IRAN have been doing VOTER FRAUD in Iran for decades!

GEORGE W. BUSH: It's time to ACT! Act 1: "Bolton UNLEASHED!" ACT 2: US CRUISE MISSILES LAUNCHED, and Iran's nuke program vaporized.

UPDATE -- 12/14/05 MAYBE THIS POST SHOULD BE RE-TITLED: "HUGE NYTIMES OOPS! -- (hat tip commenter MARK): "Reuters" -

The head of Iraq's border guards denied police reports on Wednesday that a tanker truck stuffed with thousands of forged ballot papers had been seized crossing into Iraq from Iran before Thursday's elections.

"This is all a lie," said Lieutenant General Ahmed al-Khafaji, the chief of the U.S.-trained force which has responsibility for all Iraq's borders. "I heard this yesterday and I checked all the border crossings right away. The borders are all closed anyway," he told Reuters. Iraq's frontiers are closed for the period of the election.

"I contacted all the border crossing points and there was no report of any such incident," Khafaji said. Interior Minister Bayan Jabor also denied the reports, which the New York Times ran prominently, quoting a single unnamed Interior Ministry source, and said it was an attempt to discredit the election process.

WHY WOULD THE NYTIMES WANT TO DISCREDIT THE ELECTION - OR DISCREDIT A RESULT WHICH IS PRO-SHIA, OR AT LEAST AID THOSE WHO WANT TO DISCREDIT THE ELECTION?! COULD THEY BE PRO-SUNNI?! COULD THEY BE ANTI-BUSH?!

I mean, couldn't the NYTIMES have done the fact-checking that "Reuters" did!? Or has the NYTIMES lost all ability to fact-check and become totally incompetent!? Maybe the NYTIMES has merely lost its desire to fact-check any article which is anti-Bush!? Or is the story TRUE, and "Reuters" wrong!? I mean, it's hardly a good choice when one has to choose between the NYTIMES and "Reuters" is it!?