United States Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has accused Iran of providing sanctuary to associates of suspected terror mastermind Osama bin Laden and raised the possibility that military force would be used against Iraq.
The charges came as Washington increased pressure on both countries in the hope of minimizing their involvement in escalating Israeli-Palestinian violence, AFP said.
"Iran has been helping al-Qaeda, there's no question," said Rumsfeld on CNN's "Larry King Live" program.
"They have a long border with Afghanistan and there is no question that al-Qaeda have moved in and found sanctuary - some have stayed there, some have been in transit - and that Iran has not been helpful to the war on terrorism," he expressed.
Meanwhile, a US Central Command spokesman told AFP he could not provide any specific information on how many fighters from al-Qaeda had sought refuge in Iran and where they might be located.
Rumsfeld refused to say whether the US military would consider launching cross-border raids into Iran from Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda safe havens, arguing "that's not for me to decide".
However earlier that day, in response to a broader question about future United States operations in Washington's "campaign against terrorism" during an interview with MSNBC television, the defense secretary made clear that cross-border pursuit of suspected terrorists was under consideration.
"They're in the mountains, they're in the villages, they're also over the borders and attempting to regroup from time to time," he said of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
"We intend to find those pockets as they assemble and go after them and capture them to the extent we're successful."
Commenting on the situation in Iraq, Rumsfeld said President Saddam Hussein's quest for weapons of mass destruction and his readiness to kill people, including his own, made a hand-off approach to that country impossible.
"You know, you could live with that in an earlier era, where a person was a dictator and a vicious, repressive person, as long as he was basically harming his own people and didn't have weapons of mass destruction," he said in the CNN interview.
"With weapons of mass destruction on the horizon, I think people do have to use diplomacy and economic power, as well as military power," he emphasized.
Rumsfeld denied that the escalating violence between Israel and the Palestinians and a wave of anti-Israeli and anti-American protests throughout the Arab world had thus far affected US plans vis-a-vis Iraq, Iran or other nations branded by Washington as state sponsors of terrorism.
"We simply have to be very aggressive and attentive to those countries and do everything humanly possible," he told MSNBC. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
