Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Philadelphia Inquirer
April 14, 2008 By Hope Yen, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - With al-Qaeda's influence diminishing in Iraq, U.S. troops have much work to do in stemming Iranian support for militias, President Bush's national security adviser said yesterday.
"Iran is very active in the southern part of Iraq. They are training Iraqis in Iran who come into Iraq and attack our forces, Iraqi forces, Iraqi civilians," adviser Stephen J. Hadley said. "There are movements of equipment. There's movements of funds. So we have illegal militia in the southern part of the country that really are acting as criminal elements that are pressing the people down there."
"Al-Qaeda, they're on the defensive," he added, citing the illegal militias as an emerging threat. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "decided it was time to take control of the situation down there. . . . He's had some success. He's taken control of the port [in Basra]. But there's more work to do."
Last week, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the United States would be as aggressive as possible to counter the increase in Iranian support for militias. He said the Iraqis "are in a position themselves to bring some pressures to bear on Iran."
"I think that one of the interesting developments of Prime Minister Maliki's offensive in Basra is that it has revealed to the Shia, particularly, in the Iraqi government, the level of Iranian malign influence in the south and on their economic heartline through Basra," Gates said in an interview aired yesterday.
"And so I think what has happened is that the hand of Iran has been exposed, in a way that perhaps it had not been before, to some of the Iraqi government," he said.
Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was struck during last week's hearings by the repeated references to Iran.
"Iran kept being mentioned. The fact that the Iranians are intruding," he said. "It was almost as if we were justifying our continued presence in Iraq with the fact that we may be in a conflict with Iran, and furthermore, the al-Qaeda, wherever they may be. It's a very confusing picture to say the least."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) criticized the administration's strategy of taking a "pause" before deciding whether a major drawdown was warranted. She noted that the United States had been in Iraq for more than five years and she blamed Republicans for not working with Democrats to change the course of the war.
Regarding troop drawdowns, Hadley reiterated that Bush would give Gen. David H. Petraeus the time that he needs to assess the security situation in Iraq.
Hadley spoke on Fox News Sunday, Lugar appeared on CNN's Late Edition, and Gates and Pelosi taped interviews Friday that were broadcast yesterday on Face the Nation on CBS.
April 14, 2008 By Hope Yen, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - With al-Qaeda's influence diminishing in Iraq, U.S. troops have much work to do in stemming Iranian support for militias, President Bush's national security adviser said yesterday.
"Iran is very active in the southern part of Iraq. They are training Iraqis in Iran who come into Iraq and attack our forces, Iraqi forces, Iraqi civilians," adviser Stephen J. Hadley said. "There are movements of equipment. There's movements of funds. So we have illegal militia in the southern part of the country that really are acting as criminal elements that are pressing the people down there."
"Al-Qaeda, they're on the defensive," he added, citing the illegal militias as an emerging threat. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "decided it was time to take control of the situation down there. . . . He's had some success. He's taken control of the port [in Basra]. But there's more work to do."
Last week, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the United States would be as aggressive as possible to counter the increase in Iranian support for militias. He said the Iraqis "are in a position themselves to bring some pressures to bear on Iran."
"I think that one of the interesting developments of Prime Minister Maliki's offensive in Basra is that it has revealed to the Shia, particularly, in the Iraqi government, the level of Iranian malign influence in the south and on their economic heartline through Basra," Gates said in an interview aired yesterday.
"And so I think what has happened is that the hand of Iran has been exposed, in a way that perhaps it had not been before, to some of the Iraqi government," he said.
Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was struck during last week's hearings by the repeated references to Iran.
"Iran kept being mentioned. The fact that the Iranians are intruding," he said. "It was almost as if we were justifying our continued presence in Iraq with the fact that we may be in a conflict with Iran, and furthermore, the al-Qaeda, wherever they may be. It's a very confusing picture to say the least."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) criticized the administration's strategy of taking a "pause" before deciding whether a major drawdown was warranted. She noted that the United States had been in Iraq for more than five years and she blamed Republicans for not working with Democrats to change the course of the war.
Regarding troop drawdowns, Hadley reiterated that Bush would give Gen. David H. Petraeus the time that he needs to assess the security situation in Iraq.
Hadley spoke on Fox News Sunday, Lugar appeared on CNN's Late Edition, and Gates and Pelosi taped interviews Friday that were broadcast yesterday on Face the Nation on CBS.