Yesterday, the price of oil futures spiked to a record $147.00. Most of it was due to ‘war threat’ news out of the Middle East that appears to be a purposeful disinformation campaign by the taqiyya artists in Tehran. The Jerusalem Post kicked off the media hype by publishing an ‘unconfirmed’ report that IAF aircraft were ‘practicing’ by making flights out of US airfields in Iraq.

As WorldNetDaily Jerusalem bureau chief, Aaron Klein reported it was a total fake, attested to by the IDF, even though they don’t comment on IAF exercises and operations.

Klein punctured the media hysteria by noting the following:

U.S. media hysteria broke out today after the Jerusalem Post published an uncredited report quoting sources in the Iraqi Defense Ministry telling a “local news network” that Israeli war planes were practicing in Iraqi airspace and that massive Israeli flyovers were detected at U.S. bases in Iraq.

The Post report, which did not name the local news network that aired the information, further quoted local sources stating they heard from “former military officers” in Iraq’s Anbar province that Israeli jets arrive at night from Jordan and land on a runway near the city of Hadita.

But neither the Jerusalem Post nor dozens of other English news reports today quoted the original source of the information – an Iranian newspaper quoting an unspecified Iraqi news website. That claimed Iraqi news website could not immediately be found.

Security officials here said the report may have entirely originated with Iran.

The Iranian dispatch citing a purported Iraqi news website was quoted last night by the Hebrew Israeli media and then it finally made it to the pages of the Jerusalem Post today. The Post did not tell its readers where the information comes from.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the evaluation of those ‘digitally enhanced’ pictures of Iranian missiles released by the Sepah press agency in Tehran also revealed that the Shahab missiles were the older version circa 1998 with a radius of less than 746 miles and not the Shahab III with an estimated range of 1,250 miles.

Here’s what MSNBC reported from the ArmsControlWonk.com blog noted in its findings released yesterday:

But an independent national security blog, ArmsControlWonk.com, analyzed video footage of the launch posted by the Iranian government. It determined the missiles were identical to a version of the Shahab missile first demonstrated in Iran in 1998 that has a known range of 746 miles.

In a post called “Same old Boring Shahab 3,” it compared the diameter of the missile to its length and found it to be identical to the 1998 version.

Unless the Iranians built a larger missile with the same length to width ratio, dramatically improved the thrust of the rocket or decreased its internal structural mass, the missile could not achieve the range Iran claimed it did. Otherwise, it is the same knockoff of North Korea’s Nodong-1, according to the blog.