IRAN SEEN PROMOTING SHIITE RULE IN IRAQ

  Artículo de Douglas Jehl en “The International Herald Tribune” del 23.04.2003

Tehran agents rally clerics to build influence, U.S. says

WASHINGTON Iranian-trained operatives have crossed into southern Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein and are working in the cities of An Najaf, Karbala and Basra to promote sympathetic Shiite clerics and advance Iranian interests, according to defense and other U.S. government officials.

The officials cited intelligence reports that say the operatives include members of the military wing of an Iraqi exile group that operates from Iran with that government's training and support. Known as the Badr Brigade, the militia is the armed force of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite group with headquarters in Tehran.

Other operatives who have crossed into Iraq may include irregular members of a special unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the officials said.

They said that the infiltration from Iran was not unexpected, but they described it as a matter of significant concern at a time when outside powers are jockeying for influence to fill the political vacuum in Iraq. They said it suggested that Iran, which stayed on the sidelines during the American-led war in Iraq, may be trying to take a more assertive role in shaping developments in southern Iraq, whose population - like that of Iran - is composed overwhelmingly of Shiite Muslims.

"They are not looking to promote a democratic agenda," one military official said.

Southern Iraq has been a center of much rivalry and rancor in recent weeks, to an extent that has surprised officials in the Bush administration. The toppling of Iraq's Sunni-dominated government opened the lid to fierce disputes among Shiite leaders about the proper place of religion and politics in the Iraq of the future.

Against that backdrop, administration officials said, they were worried about meddling that might seek to promote an Iranian model of government, an Islamic republic headed by a Shiite cleric who functions as both the supreme religious and political leader.

One sign of that concern came on Monday, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing that an Iranian model of government would not be consistent with the democratic and pluralistic principles the United States believes should be adopted by an emerging Iraqi government.

"I think there are an awful lot of people in Iran who feel that that small group of clerics that determine what takes place in that country is not their idea of how they want to live their lives," Rumsfeld said.

The major Shiite pilgrimage under way in the holy city of Karbala has helped to provide cover for the activities of Iranian operatives, the government officials say. In the case of the Badr Brigade, some of whose members operate from bases in Iran, "what we've seen is that they shed their uniforms, put on civilian clothes, and disappear," a defense official said.

American soldiers, including members of the Special Forces, have been trying to keep watch on the Iranian border, the administration officials said, but the frontier is too long and porous to secure with any certainty.

The officials who described the intelligence reports said that the reports did not characterize exactly what the Iranian operatives might be doing or who they seemed to be supporting in southern Iraq. But the officials called attention to the close links between the Iranian government and the Iranian-based Iraqi opposition group, whose leader, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir Hakim, has yet to return to Iraq.

In an interview with Iranian television last week after returning to Iraq, the group's deputy leader and Hakim's brother, Abdelaziz Hakim, said, "We will first opt for a national political system, but eventually the Iraqi people will seek an Islamic republic system."

Hakim said in that interview that the will of Shiites for an Islamic system would prevail in democratic elections, since they are 60 percent of the population.

Until last week, some gunmen from the group's Badr Brigade maintained a visible presence in the town of Baquba, near the Iranian border, and in the larger city of Kut, according to U.S. intelligence officials. American forces have since taken control of those cities, and the armed Badr forces have largely melted away.

The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq is among several Iraqi opposition groups recognized by the Bush administration for inclusion in discussions about Iraq's future, even though some in the administration regard the group with deep suspicion because of its close ties with the Iranian government. The group's Badr Brigade, a force of about 10,000 men, received training and support from the Iranian government, U.S. officials say.

Nevertheless, the group has declined two U.S. invitations to participate in sessions designed to lead to the formation of an interim government. Hamid Bayati, the group's representative in London, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that the organization would not send an emissary to the next meeting, to be held in Baghdad on Saturday, because it mistrusted the U.S. sponsorship role.

"If they are talking about democracy, they should leave the Iraqi people to organize themselves," Bayati said.

Bayati said that no members of the Badr Brigade had crossed from Iran into Iraq since the end of the fighting.

But administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they believed that members of the militia were in fact now operating in parts of southern Iraq and were playing at least an intelligence-gathering role.