Bush authorizes U.S. troops to kill Iranian agents in Iraq

WASHINGTON: American soldiers will do what they must to protect themselves from Iranian agents operating inside Iraq, the White House said Friday, following a report that President George W. Bush had authorized the killing of Iranian agents.

"If our troops get actionable intelligence that agents are going to cause our troops or Iraqi citizens harm, they're going to take whatever force protections that are necessary," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Agency.

Bush said Friday that "it just makes sense that if somebody is trying to harm our troops or stop us from achieving our goal, or killing innocent citizens in Iraq, that we will stop them.""And so, yeah, we're going to continue to protect ourselves in Iraq and at the same time work to solve our problems with Iran diplomatically," Bush went on. "And I believe we can succeed."But Bush said any notion that the United States wanted to widen its military campaign beyond the borders of Iraq "simply is not accurate."

The president and his top aides have said several times in recent weeks that there are no plans to pursue Iranian agents into Iran.But more questions about the campaign in Iraq, and in particular whether it includes a more aggressive approach to Iraq's neighbor Iran, seem certain after a report in The Washington Post on Friday.The newspaper reported that the Bush administration had authorized the American military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of a new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence in the Middle East and to give up its nuclear ambitions.The Post said lethal force against Iranians was not known to have been used to date.

But the newspaper did say that dozens of suspected Iranian agents had been detained over the past year for three to four days at a time under a "catch and release" policy intended to avoid increasing tensions with Iran.Johndroe took issue with The Post's description of the administration's approach. He acknowledged that two Iranians had been detained in highly publicized incidents, and added that "Iranians with diplomatic immunity were released."

He did not say how many, nor would he comment on The Post's report that dozens of Iranians were involved.Defense Secretary Robert Gates scheduled a news conference at the Pentagon on Friday. In the meantime, an overriding question was whether the administration had indeed adopted a new, more aggressive approach toward Iranians operating in Iraq.

Bush bluntly warned Iran on Jan. 10 to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs, as his administration has long accused Tehran of doing. The next day, American troops backed by helicopters and armored vehicles raided an Iranian diplomatic office in Erbil, Iraq, in the middle of the night and detained a half- dozen Iranians working inside.The Iranian government said the raid violated international law. The American military said in a statement that documents and equipment removed from the office "will be examined to determine the extent of the alleged illegal or terrorist activity," and that "appropriate action" would be taken regarding the detainees.The Jan. 11 raid was one of a series of American operations against Iranians in Iraq, authorized under an order that Bush issued several months ago. "There has been a decision to go after these networks," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a Jan. 12 interview with The New York Times.Rice's willingness to discuss the Iranian issue seemed to reflect a new hostility toward Iran that was on display in Bush's Jan. 10 speech, in which he accused Tehran of providing material support for attacks on American troops and vowed to respond.The administration has long accused Iran of providing weapons and training to Shiite forces in Iraq with the aim of keeping the United States bogged down in the war and teaching Washington a bitter lesson about the perils of regime change and nation-building. In his 2002 State of the Union address, Bush described Iran as part of an "axis of evil," along with Iraq and North Korea.