Mostly True:

PolitiFact checks Michael McCaul’s statement that Iran’s “regime is responsible for more than 1,000 American casualties during the Iraq war.”

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, says Iran warrants blame for American casualties in Iraq and for plotting an attack in Washington, D.C.

McCaul, chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, delivered the Republican Party’s Sept. 12 weekly address, speaking mostly about why he opposes the Iran nuclear agreement.

Fourteen years after the 9/11 attacks, McCaul said, “the struggle continues. ... We cannot forget that the radical Shiite regime in Iran remains the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism. Iran’s leaders have called for our defeat and the destruction of our close ally, Israel. The regime is respon-

sible for more than 1,000 American casualties during the Iraq War; they have plotted a terrorist attack here in our nation’s capital and launched destructive cyberattacks against American companies.”

We wondered if McCaul was right about Iran being responsible for the described casualties in Iraq and plotting an attack on our nation’s capital.

McCaul spokesman Walter Zaykowski answered our request for elaboration by saying the casualty count originated with the Pentagon. He said McCaul’s mention of Iran plotting an attack in Washington, D.C., reflected the May 2013 conviction of an Iranian-American resident of Texas for plotting to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States.

Let’s check casualties, then come back to the described plot.

In his email, Zaykowski pointed out September 2015 news stories about more than 1,000 Iranlinked American casualties in Iraq published by Defense One.

A Sept. 8 Defense One story said that according to recently declassified Pentagon documents, 196 American soldiers were killed in Iraq from November 2005 to December 2011 by 1,526 “explosively formed penetrators,” which are particularly deadly roadside bombs, with another 861 American soldiers getting injured.

The Iran connection? The story said the Pentagon attributes the presence of the EFPs in Iraq “to the Quds Force, the special forces arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard led by Qasem Soleimani. Various EFP ‘factories’ were found throughout Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

The Defense One story noted that Gen. Joseph Dunford, the incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at his July 9, 2015, Senate confirmation hearing: “We weren’t always able to attribute the casualties that we had to Iranian activity, although many times we suspected it was Iranian activity, even though we didn’t necessarily have the forensics to support that.” At the hearing, the story said, Dunford said the numbers of American soldiers killed by Iran “has been recently quoted as about 500.”

To our inquiry, U.S. Central Command spokesman Max Blumenfeld emailed a clarifying statement saying 196 “U.S. service member deaths resulted from Iranian Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) which are very deadly improvised explosive devices.” He said that those deaths were a subset of “all the Iranian activities estimated to have killed approximately 500 U.S. troops in Iraq during” Operation Iraqi Freedom, the U.S.-led operations in Iraq from March 2003 through August 2010. “For example,” Blumenfeld wrote, “there were rocket attacks and IRAM (improvised rocket-assisted munitions) among other tactics that also contributed to American soldier deaths.”

We asked Blumenfeld to specify casualties believed to have been caused by Iranian-connected explosives. He declined, emailing: “We cannot provide more information than what has been already furnished.”

So, when did Iran plot a terrorist attack in the U.S. capital?

On May 30, 2013, U.S. District Judge John Keenan sentenced Mansour J. Arbabsiar, a naturalized American citizen living in Texas, to 25 years in prison for plotting to hire assassins to murder Saudi Arabia’s U.S. ambassador.

Arbabsiar had pleaded guilty to his role in a

The military will not confirm the number of injuries associated with allegedly Iranian-connected explosives.

scheme in which he evidently thought he was lining up a Mexican drug cartel to plant a bomb in a Washington restaurant where, the described plot went, the ambassador would be dining.

When Arbabsiar was arrested, Attorney General Eric Holder said the plot had been “directed and approved by elements of the Iranian government and, specifically, senior members of the Quds Force,” which is part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The Iranian government has denied it had anything to do with the plot.

Our ruling:

McCaul said Iran’s “regime is responsible for more than 1,000 American casualties during the Iraq war” and “has plotted a terrorist attack here in our nation’s capital.”

McCaul has backing for this statement, although it needs clarification. To our query, a military spokesman stopped short of confirming the number of injuries the Pentagon associates with allegedly Iranian-connected explosives, and Iran (perhaps unbelievably) has denied any connection to the Texas-tied plot to hire a hit man to plant a bomb in Washington, D.C.

We rate this statement Mostly True.