By David Blair, Diplomatic Correspondent
The Daily Telegraph – President George W Bush escalated his rhetorical attacks on Iran today when he authorised American troops in Iraq to take all necessary steps to combat agents deployed by Teheran.
The Bush administration believes that Iran is fuelling the insurgency in Iraq by supplying Shia militias with weapons, cash, bomb-making equipment and expertise.
A list of 31,690 alleged Iranian agents active inside Iraq was released by an exiled opposition group.
This dossier detailed the position supposedly held by each operative, most of whom are affiliated to Iraq’s Shia parties, and their monthly salary in Iranian Rials.
American intelligence assessments say that Teheran is increasingly trying to stir chaos inside its western neighbour.
In particular, the Bush administration believes that Iran is supplying Shia militias with the expertise and material to build more powerful improvised explosive devices (IEDs), for use as roadside bombs against US and British convoys.
"The president and his national security team over the last several months have continued to receive information that Iranians were supplying IED equipment and or training that was being used to harm American soldiers," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the National Security Council in Washington.
"As a result American forces, when they receive actionable information, may take the steps necessary to protect themselves as well as the population," he added.
Mr Bush defended this new policy. "It makes sense that if somebody is trying to harm our troops, or stop us from achieving our goals or killing innocent civilians in Iraq, that we will stop them," he said.
But the president added that US forces would not carry out attacks inside Iran itself and America was pursuing a "diplomatic" solution to its "problems" with Teheran.
Iran has longstanding links with Shia political parties inside its neighbour, notably the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the party’s leader, and most of its senior figures lived in exile in Teheran during Saddam Hussein’s rule. In the 1980s, they founded an anti-Saddam militia, known as the Badr Brigades, making use of Iranian weapons and advice.
When Anglo-American forces toppled Saddam in 2003, Mr Hakim and SCIRI returned to Iraq.
They are accused of becoming a bridgehead for Iranian influence. According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an exiled opposition group, thousands of members of SCIRI and the Badr Brigades are still on Teheran’s payroll. They receive monthly sums in Rials in return for carrying out "terrorist attacks" and causing "chaos", said Dowlat Nowrouzi, the British representative of the resistance council.
Weapons and personnel are said to come through the Shalamchech border crossing, which is allegedly under the control of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
"For them, what matters is to create as much chaos as possible because they are the only party which would benefit," she said. By tying down US forces in a violent and anarchic Iraq, Teheran limits Mr Bush’s military options for retaliation against its nuclear programme.
Thousands of centrifuges, which could be used to produce weapons grade uranium, are likely to be installed in Iran’s main nuclear facility in Natanz next month.
Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy, said the only way to resolve the confrontation between Iran and the West would be for both sides to agree a "time- out".
Under this proposed deal, Iran would stop enriching uranium and the West would lift sanctions simultaneously.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr ElBaradei added that military strikes against Iran would be ineffective because Iran may acquire the expertise to build nuclear weapons and "you cannot bomb knowledge".
