The Bush administration has authorized the US military to kill
or capture Iranian operatives in Iraq as part of an aggressive new
strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East and
compel it to give up its nuclear program, The Washington Post
reported Friday.
The new "kill or capture" program was authorized by President
George W. Bush in a meeting with his most senior advisers last
fall, along with other measures meant to curtail Iranian influence
from Kabul to Beirut and, ultimately, to shake Iran's commitment to
its nuclear efforts, the report said.
In Iraq, US troops now have the authority to target any member
of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, as well as officers of its
intelligence services believed to be working with Iraqi militias.
The policy does not extend to Iranian civilians or
diplomats.?
?
US President George W. Bush
(R) speaks after meeting with incoming Commander of Multi-National
Force Iraq Lt. Gen. David Petraeus(L) in the Oval Office of the
White House in Washington, DC. US forces in Iraq are targeting
Iranian agents there for capture or killing under a tough new
policy aimed at starving sectarian violence of outside support, US
and Iraqi officials said.?
Though US forces are not known to have used lethal force against
any Iranian to date, Bush administration officials have been urging
top military commanders to exercise the authority, the report
said.
The wide-ranging plan has several influential skeptics in the
intelligence community, at the State Department and at the Defense
Department. They warned that it could push the growing conflict
between Tehran and Washington into the center of a chaotic Iraq
war.
For more than one year, US forces in Iraq have secretly detained
dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four
days at a time, the newspaper quoted government and
counter-terrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort
assaying.
The "catch and release" policy was designed to avoid escalating
tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries.
US forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians
without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and
fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go,
the report said.
Last summer, senior US officials decided that a more
confrontational approach was necessary, as Iran's regional
influence had grown and US efforts to isolate Tehran appeared to be
failing, according to The Washington Post.
Three officials were quoted as saying that about 150 Iranian
intelligence officers, plus members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Command, were believed to be active inside Iraq at any given
time.
However, there is no evidence that the Iranians have directly
attacked US troops in Iraq, intelligence officials said.
(Xinhua News Agency January 27, 2007)
