Iran is 'bigger threat than Al Qaida' in Iraq

By Karen DeYoung, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service

Published: April 13, 2008, 00:15

Washington: Last week's violence in Basra and Baghdad has convinced the Bush administration that actions by Iran, and not Al Qaida, are the primary threat inside Iraq, and has sparked a broad reassessment of policy in the region, according to senior US officials. (Sounds like G.Bush want to whack another country!)

Evidence of an increase in Iranian weapons, training and direction for the Shiite militias that battled US and Iraqi security forces in those two cities has fixed new US attention on what Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Friday called Tehran's "malign" influence, the officials said. (Their so called weapon of mass destruction never existed in Iraq!)

The intensified focus on Iran coincides with diminished emphasis on Al Qaida in Iraq as the leading justification for an ongoing US military presence in Iraq.

President George W. Bush reiterated on Friday that if Iran continues to help militias in Iraq, "then we'll deal with them," saying in an interview with ABC News that "we're learning more about their habits and learning more about their routes" for infiltrating or sending equipment. (Warlord... George Bush... Hail the Hero... Kill them all!)

But he also reaffirmed that he has no desire to go to war with Tehran. Saying that his job is to "solve these issues diplomatically," Bush suggested heightened interest in reaching a solution with other countries. "You can't solve these problems unilaterally. You're going to need a multilateral forum."

In congressional hearings last week, Army General David Petraeus said the US military has driven Al Qaida from Baghdad, Anbar province and central Iraq, and he depicted the group as now largely concentrated around the northern city of Mosul.

During their Washington visit, Petraeus, the top US military commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker barely mentioned Al Qaida, but spoke extensively of Iran.

With "Al Qaida in retreat and disarray" in Iraq, said one official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, "we see other obstacles that were under the waterline more clearly. ... The Iranian-armed militias are now the biggest threat to internal order."

The administration has initiated an interagency assessment of what is known about Iranian activities and intentions, how to combat them and how to capitalise on them.