Ranger Against War makes a simple point:

Reports indicate three U.S. helicopters have been shot down in Iraq this past week. The method used has not been clearly elaborated, but it's possible that air-ground Strella-type shoulder-fired missiles are being introduced into this scenario.

If so, then they will be coming from Russia, via Iran. The Russians defend their sale of "defensive rockets" to Iran as legitimate. Legitimate or not, it would be ironic payback for U.S. support of the Mujahadeen in the Russo-Afghan war, where the U.S. introduced Stinger (air-to-ground) missiles to help shoot down Soviet helicopters.

The US has lost quite a few helicopters over the four years of our illegal occupation of Iraq. News reports have specified that several of them were hit by “rockets.” While it has been suggested by CENTCOM that some of the strikes were RPGs that’s realistic only if the helicopters were in a stationary hover.

The Cheney lunatic group has insisted that the lack of evidence of the existence of WMDs does not mean there are none, only that they haven’t been found yet. If we turn that around we can reliably state that the lack of proof that Russia is supplying the resisters with Strelas does not mean they aren’t.

Tragically, we may find out for certain once the attention of the Army is concentrated on destroying Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Baghdad.