Major General Jeffrey Buchanan, the US military spokesman in Iraq, told reporters last week that Iraqi troops have uncovered a large number of caches of Iranian weapons inside Iraq, but have intercepted few munitions as they are coming across the border.
He said it appears that many shipments are coming into Iraq at legal border crossings, including in buses that bring Iranian pilgrims to Iraq. Under an Iran-Iraq agreement, 3,000 pilgrims enter Iraq every day on dozens of buses that are rarely searched.
Buchanan did not indicate if the United States military would now press Iraq for searches of pilgrim buses.
