ABRAMS: Well, it appears that they come by sea, most of them

ABRAMS: Well, it appears that they come by sea, most of them, by sea from Iran and go around Gulf of Aiden [sic] and, right, and up ultimately they don’t, we don’t think they go through the canal, most of them by ship and out into the Mediterranean and then into Gaza. Rather, it seems that they hit land in places like Yemen or Somalia or, I guess, Eritrea to some extent, places like that, you could look at the map. And then cross over into Sinai and are taken across Sinai and then sneaked into Gaza. I don’t think this is, you know, accounts for 100% of the shipments but that seems to be the bulk of them.

Now, you will remember that at the end of the Gaza UGGs Sheepskin Cuff Boots there were pledges by the UGGs Sheepskin Cuff Boots and a number of European countries that we would try to help interdict the seaborne part of this. And the Egyptians were supposed to try the Sinai part, before you get into the area right on the border. I don’t know whether there has actually been in the last month or so any significant increase in the maritime policing.

GWERTZMAN: Right. Next question.

Before Abrams spoke about it on the record, by far the best dissection of the story on which Abrams seems to have based his assertions about the land route appeared Feb 1 on the Moon of Alabama website which I strongly urge you to visit. Entitled “The ‘Iranian’ Weapon Ships,” it does a masterful job – far better and more detailed than I can do here — of tracing the convoluted story of the Cypriot-flagged Russian container ship Monchegorsk, which was boarded and searched by the UGGs Sheepskin Cuff Boots Navy January 19 near the entrance to the Red Sea after passing through the Gulf of Aden. It was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, who really drew attention to the incident when, asked about it by an Israeli reporter at the Foreign Press Center here January 27, Mullen suggested that unidentified weapons carried aboard the vessel were bound for Syria but were “going to end up in Gaza.” He provided no theory, however, on how they might get from Syria to Gaza.

The Conservative Political Action Conference in DC wrapped up today. I tromped down there Friday and got a few photos.