[Dialogue] Iran Target of US Gulf Military Moves, Gates Says

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 by the Guardian
<http://www.guardian.co.uk>  (UK) 

Iran Target of US Gulf Military Moves, Gates Says 

by Mark Tran and agencies

 

Increased US military activity in the Gulf is aimed at Iran's "very
negative" behaviour, the Bush administration said today. 

The defence secretary, Robert Gates, told reporters that the decision to
deploy a Patriot missile battalion and a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf
in conjunction with a "surge" of troops in Iraq was designed to show Iran
that the US was not "overcommitted" in Iraq. 

Speaking in Brussels after meeting Nato officials, Mr Gates said: "We are
simply reaffirming that statement of the importance of the Gulf region to
the United States and our determination to be an ongoing strong presence in
that area for a long time into the future." 

His remarks followed tough comments on Iran at the weekend from other senior
US officials. The vice-president, Dick Cheney, accused Iran of "fishing in
troubled waters inside Iraq", while the national security adviser, Stephen
Hadley, said the US was "going to need to deal with what Iran is doing
inside Iraq". 

Such remarks, following the prospect of "hot pursuit" raids into Iran as
raised by George Bush in his televised address last week, have fuelled
speculation that the US is softening up the American public for possible
action against Tehran. 

The increasingly confrontational pose struck by the US is a repudiation of
one of the key recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which called for the
start of a dialogue with Iran and Syria in an effort to extricate the US
from Iraq. 

Mr Gates, who as recently as 2004 publicly called for diplomatic engagement
with Iran, said the situation was now different. In 2004, Iran was concerned
by the presence of US forces on its eastern and western borders, in Iraq and
Afghanistan, but its behaviour had changed. 

"The Iranians clearly believe that we are tied down in Iraq, that they have
the initiative, that they are in position to press us in many ways," he
said. "They are doing nothing to be constructive in Iraq at this point." 

"And so the Iranians are acting in a very negative way in many respects. My
view is that when the Iranians are prepared to play a constructive role in
dealing with some of these problems then there might be opportunities for
engagement." 

Besides concerns about Iran's nuclear programme, the US has accused Tehran
of supporting Shia militia and of not doing enough to stop foreign fighters
from infiltrating Iraq. 

US-led forces in northern Iraq arrested five Iranians last week who the US
military says were connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard faction that
funds and arms insurgents in Iraq - a claim Iran has rejected. 

Meanwhile, Iran said it was installing 3,000 centrifuges, effectively
confirming that its nuclear programme was running behind schedule as these
devices for uranium enrichment were meant to have been in place by the end
of last year. 

"We are moving toward the production of nuclear fuel, which requires 3,000
centrifuges and more than this figure," the government spokesman
Gholamhossein Elham told a news conference. "This programme is being carried
out and moving toward completion." 

At the weekend, Iran dismissed reports from Europe that its uranium
enrichment programme had stalled. Enriched uranium is used as fuel in
nuclear reactors and, at a higher degree of enrichment, in atomic bombs. 

Iran has condemned as "invalid" and "illegal" a UN security council
resolution that imposed sanctions on it last month for its refusal to halt
uranium enrichment. 

Guardian Unlimited C Guardian News and Media Limited 2007

###

 

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