Beating the War Drums

US threatens Iran over Iraq
14/01/2007 - 3:13:04 PM

The White House said today that Iranians are aiding the insurgency in Iraq and that the US has the authority to pursue them because they “put our people at risk.”

“We are going to need to deal with what Iran is doing inside Iraq,” national security adviser Stephen Hadley said.

And said Vice President Dick Cheney: “Iran is fishing in troubled waters inside Iraq.”

Earlier today, the US military in Baghdad said that five Iranians arrested in northern Iraq last week were connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard faction that funds and arms insurgents in Iraq.

Raids that US President George Bush has approved against Iranian targets in Iraq are part of broad efforts to confront Tehran’s aggression, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday while in Jerusalem.

“We do not want them doing what they can to destabilise the situation inside Iraq,” Cheney said.

President Bush’s revised war strategy seeks to isolate Iran and Syria, which the US has accused of fuelling attacks in Iraq. The president also says that Iran and Syria have not done enough to block terrorists from entering Iraq over their borders.

“We know there are jihadists moving from Syria into Iraq. ... We know also that Iran is supplying elements in Iraq that are attacking Iraqis and attacking our forces,” Hadley said.

“What the president made very clear is these are activities that are going on in Iraq that are unacceptable. They put our people at risk. He said very clearly that we will take action against those. We will interdict their operations, we will disrupt their supply lines, we will disrupt these attacks,” Hadley said.

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