Monday, May 26, 2003

U.S. Demands That Iran Turn Over Qaeda Agents And Join Saudi Inquiry

New York Times
May 26, 2003
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN


The United States is pressing Iran to cooperate with the investigation into the recent bombings of foreign compounds in Saudi Arabia and to hand over operatives of Al Qaeda believed by American intelligence officials to have been working on Iranian territory, Bush administration officials said today.

The officials said the American message to Iran demanding the turnover of Qaeda suspects was delivered this month, shortly after the bombings in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and also after American intelligence picked up indications that Qaeda members based in Iran might have been involved. The attacks on May 12 killed 34 people, including 9 Americans.

Since the war in Afghanistan that followed the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration has held a series of secret meetings with Iranian officials. The meetings have taken place in Europe and New York and were not discussed openly by American officials until recently.

''We passed them a message instead of meeting them face to face,'' a senior administration official said. ''The message was that this Al Qaeda link is very serious. We and others concerned about the Saudi bombings have made clear that Iran needs to cooperate with the Saudi investigation, and there's no reason to allow Al Qaeda on Iranian territory.''

Iranian officials have repeatedly denied any involvement with Al Qaeda.

In an interview on the ABC News program ''This Week,'' Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, Javad Zarif, said Tehran was cooperating in attempts to control Al Qaeda, but would not respond to ''the language of pressure.''

He said Iran had arrested members of the terrorist network, was interrogating them and would share information with other governments. But he added that if there were members of the network operating in Iran, it was without the government's knowledge or beyond its control.

Commenting on a report in today's issue of The Washington Post that the United States had cut off diplomatic contacts with Iran and was considering steps to destabilize its government, Mr. Zarif said ''certain elements'' in Washington had always held that ambition.

An administration official said today that an interagency meeting of top American officials had been scheduled for Tuesday and that one topic of discussion would be whether to suspend further diplomatic contacts with Iran. The official said that without signs of Iranian cooperation, it was possible that such contacts would be suspended indefinitely.

Another administration official said there had been no ''across-the-board decision to never talk to the Iranians again.'' He and others have said there has been some evidence of cooperation by Iran in the last year or so on some issues, particularly in standing aside while American troops operated in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The new demands on Iran were nonetheless described as a factor sharpening an administration debate over what to do about Iran, which along with Iraq and North Korea was listed as a member of President Bush's ''axis of evil'' in early 2002.

There is also a debate in intelligence circles about the reliability of the links between the Saudi bombings and Al Qaeda in Iran. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld suggested last week that there was ''no question'' of such links, but others are said to disagree.

''There is a dispute in the intelligence community about what the latest evidence represents,'' an administration official said. He said that intercepts and so-called chatter of talk about the bombings could be interpreted different ways, and that there was disagreement over ''whether it represents a link to the Saudi bombings or to the Iranian regime.''

Administration officials also said there was uncertainty about the exact nature of the links between the Iranian government and Qaeda members, who are apparently operating in northern Iran after being driven from northern Iraq by American and other forces in the recent war.

It could be, some officials said, that such groups use Iranian territory temporarily but not necessarily with the approval of the government in Tehran, or that while some parts of the Iran government want them to leave, others want them to stay. This complex reality offers a particular challenge to American policy makers, various officials said.

The Bush administration's usual divide between hard-liners and those favoring diplomacy has now opened on Iran, officials said. On one side are those who say Iran has been cooperating in a few limited but helpful instances, including a willingness to hand over some suspected terrorists with links to Al Qaeda to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan last year.

In response, the administration has made certain gestures to Iran, like listing an Iraq-based Iranian opposition group, the People's Mujahedeen, as a terrorist group. Some officials say there is still a chance for diplomatic pressure to work with Iran, particularly if Russia, other European nations and China are enlisted.

But many administration officials skeptical of the efficacy of diplomacy in dealing with terrorists have grown alarmed about recent Iranian actions. There is heightened concern that Iran is supporting Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq, including armed groups seeking to destabilize the American and British occupation and even to take control of Iraq itself.

Of greater concern, according to American, European and Israeli officials, is the acceleration of Iran's nuclear weapons program, particularly at a facility to produce highly enriched uranium in the country's central desert. The Natanz facility was not known to nuclear inspectors until late last year.

Iran asserts that its nuclear programs are strictly for its energy needs, not weapons.

The Bush administration is pressing the International Atomic Energy Agency to issue a finding soon that the Natanz facility is, contrary to Tehran's assertions, intended for the production of fuel for nuclear weapons, a violation of Iran's obligations to maintain a peaceful nuclear program as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

According to administration officials, a major debate is unfolding in the administration about Iran, somewhat comparable to the debate over Iraq in the early days of the the Bush presidency, and then again after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

As before, hard-liners at the Pentagon -- with some support from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney -- are said to favor a policy of confrontation, or are at least threatening confrontation, with the government in Tehran.

The official administration position has also been to advocate a form of ''regime change'' in Iran, by supporting the elected government of President Mohammed Khatami in its battle with hard-line clerics.

But some in the administration are said to favor firmer action, including even the possibility of a military strike against the Natanz facility and more active support of Iranian opposition groups, including the Iraq-based People's Mujahedeen.

The People's Mujahedeen has been the focus of particular uncertainty in American policy circles, administration officials say. After listing it as a terrorist organization as a gesture to Iran, American military officials signed a cease-fire with it as they extended their occupation of Iraq this year.

At the time, American officials said their aim was to disarm the People's Mujahedeen so that it could not longer operate. But an administration official said there was now a move afoot among Pentagon hard-liners to protect the group, and perhaps reconstitute it later as a future opposition organization in Iran, somewhat along the lines of the American-supported Iraqi opposition under Ahmed Chalabi that preceded the war in Iraq.

While Pentagon officials have pressed the possibility of engineering such changes in Iran, others, primarily in the State Department, are said to be highly skeptical of that line of policy. Among other things, they note that George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, has testified that even the secular ''moderates'' in Iran favor development of nuclear weapons.

''Sure, there are some in the administration who would like to see a revolution in Iran,'' an administration official said. ''But that's fantasy stuff.''