Iran’s people would face ”deprivation” over their leaders’ nuclear ambitions, United States President George Bush said in an interview on Monday, warning Tehran against sowing ”discord and harm” in Iraq.
Bush said in an interview with National Public Radio that he had no plans to invade Iran. But he cautioned: ”If Iran escalates its military action in Iraq to the detriment of our troops and/or innocent Iraqi people, we will respond firmly.”
The president last week authorised US forces to capture or kill Iranian operatives in Iraq, amid charges from Washington that the Islamic republic has been helping insurgents strike at US troops. Tehran denies the charges.
”We will do what it takes to protect our troops,” Bush said. ”It makes common sense for the commander-in-chief to say to our troops and the Iraqi people — and the Iraqi government — that we will help you defend yourself from people that want to sow discord and harm.”
In the annual State of the Union speech on January 23, Bush vowed to crack down on Iranian and Syrian networks suspected of funnelling weapons and fighters to Iraq’s insurgency.
There are no plans to invade Iran, Bush said in the interview, despite worries from some in the US Congress.
”I don’t know how anybody can then say, ‘well, protecting the troops means that we’re going to invade Iran’,” he said.
”I have no intent upon going into Iran,” he added.
Bush also said that the US was working ”diplomatically” on halting Tehran’s alleged push to develop nuclear weapons, an issue he stressed was separate from Iraq.
”One of the things that is very important in discussing Iran is not to mix issues … One is what is happening in Iraq. Another is their ambitions to have a nuclear weapon. And we’re dealing with this issue diplomatically.”
Bush acknowledged there was ”a certain scepticism about [US] intelligence” on Tehran’s nuclear plans following the flawed case for war in Iraq.
”I’m like a lot of Americans that say, ‘well, if it wasn’t right in Iraq, how do you know it’s right in [Iran]. And so we are constantly evaluating, and answering this legitimate question by always working to get as good intelligence as we can.
”I take the Iranian nuclear threat very seriously even though the intelligence on Iraq was not what it was thought to be, and we have to,” he said. — AFP
