[NYTr] Cheney Wants More War, but There's a Debate inside Bush Regime

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Dave Muller (southnews)

Behind the scenes, however, the president's top aides have been engaged 
in an intensive internal debate over how to respond to Iran's support 
for Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq and its nuclear program. Vice
President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes
at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special
unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S.
officials who are involved in Iran policy.


McClatchy Newspapers - August 9, 2007
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/18834.html

Cheney urging military strikes on Iran

By Warren P. Strobel, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON  President Bush charged Thursday that Iran continues to arm 
and train insurgents who are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and he 
threatened action if that continues.

At a news conference Thursday, Bush said Iran had been warned of 
unspecified consequences if it continued its alleged support for 
anti-American forces in Iraq. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had 
conveyed the warning in meetings with his Iranian counterpart in 
Baghdad, the president said.

Bush wasn't specific, and a State Department official refused to 
elaborate on the warning.

Behind the scenes, however, the president's top aides have been engaged 
in an intensive internal debate over how to respond to Iran's support 
for Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq and its nuclear program. Vice
President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes
at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special
unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S.
officials who are involved in Iran policy.

The debate has been accompanied by a growing drumbeat of allegations 
about Iranian meddling in Iraq from U.S. military officers, 
administration officials and administration allies outside government 
and in the news media. It isn't clear whether the media campaign is 
intended to build support for limited military action against Iran, to 
pressure the Iranians to curb their support for Shiite groups in Iraq
or both.

Nor is it clear from the evidence the administration has presented 
whether Iran, which has long-standing ties to several Iraqi Shiite 
groups, including the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr and 
the Badr Organization, which is allied with the U.S.-backed government 
of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, is a major cause of the
anti-American and sectarian violence in Iraq or merely one of many. At
other times, administration officials have blamed the Sunni Muslim
group al Qaida in Iraq for much of the violence.

For now, however, the president appears to have settled on a policy of 
stepped-up military operations in Iraq aimed at the suspected Iranian 
networks there, combined with direct American-Iranian talks in Baghdad 
to try to persuade Tehran to halt its alleged meddling.

The U.S. military launched one such raid Wednesday in Baghdad's 
predominantly Shiite Sadr City district.

But so far that course has failed to halt what American military 
officials say is a flow of sophisticated roadside bombs, known as 
explosively formed penetrators, into Iraq. Last month they accounted
for a third of the combat deaths among U.S.-led forces, according to
the military.

Cheney, who's long been skeptical of diplomacy with Iran, argued for 
military action if hard new evidence emerges of Iran's complicity in 
supporting anti-American forces in Iraq; for example, catching a 
truckload of fighters or weapons crossing into Iraq from Iran, one 
official said.

The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't 
authorized to talk publicly about internal government deliberations.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opposes this idea, the officials 
said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has stated publicly that "we think 
we can handle this inside the borders of Iraq."

Lea Anne McBride, a Cheney spokeswoman, said only that "the vice 
president is right where the president is" on Iran policy.

Bush left no doubt at his news conference that he intended to get tough 
with Iran.

"One of the main reasons that I asked Ambassador Crocker to meet with 
Iranians inside Iraq was to send the message that there will be 
consequences for . . . people transporting, delivering EFPs, highly 
sophisticated IEDs (improvised explosive devices), that kill Americans 
in Iraq," he said.

He also appeared to call on the Iranian people to change their
government.

"My message to the Iranian people is, you can do better than this 
current government," he said. "You don't have to be isolated. You don't 
have to be in a position where you can't realize your full economic 
potential."

The Bush administration has launched what appears to be a coordinated 
campaign to pin more of Iraq's security troubles on Iran.

Last week, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. military commander 
in Iraq, said Shiite militiamen had launched 73 percent of the attacks 
that had killed or wounded American troops in July. U.S. officials
think that majority Shiite Iran is providing militiamen with EFPs,
which pierce armored vehicles and explode once inside.

Last month, Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a multinational force spokesman, 
said members of the Quds force had helped plan a January attack in the 
holy Shiite city of Karbala, which lead to the deaths of five American 
soldiers. Bergner said the military had evidence that some of the 
attackers had trained at Quds camps near Tehran.

Bush's efforts to pressure Iran are complicated by the fact that the 
leaders of U.S.-supported governments in Iraq and Afghanistan have a 
more nuanced view of their neighbor.

Maliki is on a three-day visit to Tehran, during which he was 
photographed Wednesday hand in hand with Iranian President Mahmoud 
Ahmadinejad. Unconfirmed media reports said Maliki had told Iranian 
officials they'd played a constructive role in the region.

Asked about that, Bush said he hadn't been briefed on the meeting. "Now 
if the signal is that Iran is constructive, I will have to have a 
heart-to-heart with my friend the prime minister, because I don't 
believe they are constructive. I don't think he in his heart of hearts 
thinks they're constructive either," he said.

Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai differed on Iran's role when
they met last weekend, with Karzai saying in a TV interview that Iran
was "a helper" and Bush challenging that view.

The toughening U.S. position on Iran puts Karzai and Iraqi leaders such 
as Maliki in a difficult spot between Iran, their longtime ally, and
the United States, which is spending lives and treasure to secure their 
newly formed government.

A senior Iraqi official in Baghdad said the Iraqi government received 
regular intelligence briefings from the United States about suspected 
Iranian activities. He refused to discuss details, but said the
American position worried him.

The United States is "becoming more focused on Iranian influence inside 
Iraq," said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss private 
talks with the Americans. "And we don't want Iraq to become a zone of 
conflict between Iran and the U.S."

Proposals to use force against Iran over its actions in Iraq mark a new 
phase in the Bush administration's long internal war over Iran policy.

Until now, some hawks within the administration  including Cheney  are 
said to have favored military strikes to stop Iran from furthering its 
suspected ambitions for nuclear weapons.

Rice has championed a diplomatic strategy, but that, too, has failed to 
deter Iran so far.

Patrick Clawson, an Iran specialist at the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy, said a strike on the Quds camps in Iran could make
the nuclear diplomacy more difficult.

Before launching such a strike, "We better be prepared to go public
with very detailed and very convincing intelligence," Clawson said.

McClatchy Newspapers 2007