WASHINGTON,
March 28 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - U.S. Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld Friday, March 28, issued a dire warning to Damascus and
Tehran to steer clear of Iraq, claiming military equipment had crossed
into the country from Syria.
"We
have information that shipments of military supplies have been crossing
the border from Syria into Iraq, including night vision goggles,"
he said at a Pentagon news conference. Syria is Iraq's neighbor to the
West.
"These
deliveries pose a direct threat to the lives of coalition forces. We
consider such trafficking as hostile acts and will hold the Syrian
government accountable for such shipments," he said.
Rumsfeld
declined to say whether the Syrian government was behind the shipments,
but stressed: "They control their border. We're hopeful that kind
of thing does not happen again".
"There
is no question but that to the extent military supplies, equipment or
people move borders between Iraq and Syria that it vastly complicates
our situation," he said.
Asked
if the United States was threatening military action against Syria,
Rumsfeld said: "I'm saying exactly what I'm saying. It was
carefully phrased."
Syria
vehemently repudiated the U.S. accusations, with its ambassador to the
U.N. saying they are only meant to cover-up for a humiliating military
failure of the U.S. forces in Iraq.
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Bashar
has described the U.S.-led war on Iraq as "clear occupation
and a flagrant aggression against a United Nations member
state."
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Syrian
President Bashar Assad has described the U.S.-led war on Iraq as
"clear occupation and a flagrant aggression against a United
Nations member state."
Syria
is the only Arab country currently on the U.N. Security Council.
In
an interview published in Lebanese daily As-Safir, Assad also
predicted that, if the United States and Britain were to take over Iraq,
they would be confronted by a "popular resistance" that would
prevent them from controlling the country.
Earlier
in the day, Syria's mufti, the highest religious figure in the country,
called for martyrdom operations against the Anglo-American invaders.
The
religious call, which must necessarily have had the approval of Assad's
government, echoed a warning by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the
Lebanese Hezbollah movement, that such attacks might be expected.
Assad
publicly predicted that Washington would become bogged down in Iraq as
it was in Vietnam.
"Responsible"
The
U.S. Defense Secretary also claimed that armed Iranian proxies gathered
inside Iraq will be considered combatants if they interfered with U.S.
occupation forces.
"They
report up to the (Iranian) Revolutionary Guard, and they're armed, and
there are some additional ones that are close to the border,"
Rumsfeld told the Pentagon news briefing, referring to the Badr Corps,
the military wing of the Supreme Council on Islamic Revolution in Iraq,
the main Iran-based Iraqi opposition movement.
"To
the extent they interfere with (U.S.) Gen. (Tommy) Franks activities
they would have to be considered combatants.
"The
Badr Corps is trained, equipped and directed by Iran's Islamic
Revolutionary Guard and we will hold the Iranian government responsible
for their actions and will view Badr Corps activity inside Iraq as
unhelpful," alleged Rumsfeld.
"Armed
Badr Corps members found in Iraq will have to be treated as
combatants," he said.
"We
don't want neighboring countries or anyone else for that matter to be in
there assisting Iraqi forces," Rumsfeld said.
Skeptical
Rumsfeld's
stern warning to Syria and Iran is skeptically considered by analysts as
a new attempt to prepared the ground for extending the now-Iraq-limited
aggression to two other strategic countries on Washington's "hit
list".
"The
warning only demonstrates a perceived state of disappointment in
securing victory in the war against Iraq and an intention to stretch the
conflict from Iraq to other neighboring countries," said
Abdel-Barri Attwan, the editor-in-chief of the London-based Al-Quds
al-Arabi.
The
United States said before unleashing its war against Iraq on Thursday,
March 20, that war will be as short as few days or weeks.
But
facing stiffer-than-expected Iraqi resistance and a
higher-than-anticipated casualties in the ranks of its forces,
Washington conceded war could last for more than six months.
"Rumsfeld
lost his tempers, with U.S. soldiers captured or killed by Iraqi forces
becoming a daily occurrence and a possibility that war could drag on for
months which contradict his early assurances for a short and victorious
war," Atwan told al-Jazeera satellite channel.
