IRAQ:President Bush has said he is certain that Iran is supplying deadly roadside bombs that have killed US soldiers in Iraq but he admitted he has no evidence that the orders came from the highest levels of government in Tehran.
In his first press conference this year, the president said there was no doubt that the Quds force, part of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, is supplying improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to Shia militias in Iraq. "I can say with certainty that the Quds force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided these sophisticated IEDs that have harmed our troops . . . I do not know whether or not the Quds force was ordered from the top echelons of government," he said.
Mr Bush's statement appeared to contradict a claim made on Sunday by US officials that the weapons were being smuggled into Iraq under the direction of "the highest levels of the Iranian government". Joint chiefs of staff chairman Peter Pace said yesterday there was no evidence that the Iranian government knew about the weapons.
Mr Bush rejected suggestions his administration is seeking to use Tehran's alleged interference in Iraq as a pretext to attack Iran.
He said he wanted to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear ambitions through multilateral talks similar to those that saw a breakthrough this week in the nuclear stand-off with North Korea.
"We're working hard to send a concerted message to the Iranians - a focused, unified message that the world believes you should not have a nuclear programme. And so this is a multilateral approach to try to get the government to alter its course on a nuclear weapons programme," he said.
Mr Bush said that, although he hoped to resolve the dispute with Tehran peacefully, history would judge harshly a failure to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
"It's an important issue whether or not Iran ends up with nuclear weapons. It's one of these issues that people are going to look back and say, you know, how come they couldn't see the impending danger? What happened to them?" he said.
Mr Bush defended his decision to send 20,000 more US troops to Iraq, despite the opposition of a majority in Congress and almost two-thirds of the American people. He warned that failure in Iraq would have "disastrous consequences" for the region and for the US itself.
"The Iraqi government could collapse, chaos would spread, there would be a vacuum, into the vacuum would flow more extremists, more radicals, people who have stated intent to hurt our people.
"I believe that success in Baghdad will have success in helping us secure the homeland. What's different about this conflict than some others is that if we fail there, the enemy will follow us here. I firmly believe that," he said.