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WASHINGTON (Newsweek) January 14, 2007 — Has George W. Bush ordered up a "secret war" against Iran and Syria? Some administration opponents on Capitol Hill began asking this question after U.S. forces in recent weeks arrested two groups of Iranian government representatives inside Iraq. Bush particularly alarmed critics when, in announcing his new Iraq policy, he pledged to "interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria" and to "seek out and destroy the networks." Sen. Joseph Biden, now Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman (and a Dem presidential contender), sent a letter to Bush after a question-and-answer confrontation with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Biden said Rice had been evasive on whether Bush's statements meant that U.S. military personnel could cross into Iran or Syria in pursuit of insurgent support networks. He also asked whether the administration believes the president could order such action without first seeking explicit congressional approval—as Biden thinks he must. A White House aide declined to comment on Biden's letter. But the tough approach stunned even America's firmest Iraqi allies, the Kurds. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, told NEWSWEEK that one of the U.S. Special Forces raids on Iranians working in Iraq "caught everyone by surprise. We should have been alerted and informed."

In fact, administration officials (anonymous due to diplomatic sensitivities) concede that Bush's Iran language may have been overly aggressive, raising unwarranted fears about military strikes on Tehran. Instead, they say, Bush was trying to warn Iran to keep its operatives out of Iraq, and to reassure Gulf allies—including Saudi Arabia—that the United States would protect them against Iranian aggression. A senior administration official, not authorized to speak on the record, says the policy is part of the new Iraq offensive. "All this comes out of our very detailed, lengthy review of strategy from last fall," he says. Recent intel indicates the government of Iran, or elements in it, have stepped up interference in Iraqi political affairs and the supply of weapons to Iraqi Shiite insurgents, say several U.S. intel and national-security officials, anonymous when discussing sensitive material. "The reason you keep hearing about Iran is we keep finding their stuff there," Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace said Friday. Two of the officials, however, indicated Bush had not signed a secret order—known as an intel "finding"—authorizing the CIA or other undercover units to launch covert operations to undermine the governments of Iran and Syria.