WASHINGTON — In pointed remarks that raised questions Sunday about future relations between the elected Iranian regime and the United States, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld accused the government in Tehran of helping Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters flee Afghanistan.
Asked on ABC's "This Week" if he could confirm a Time magazine report that Iran had aided Islamic militants escaping across the Afghan border, Rumsfeld replied: "I can."
"We have any number of reports that Iran has been permissive and allowed transit through their country of Al Qaeda," he said.
"There isn't any doubt in my mind but that the porous border between Iran and Afghanistan has been used for Al Qaeda and Taliban to move into Iran and find refuge, and that the Iranians have not done what the Pakistan government has done: put troops along the border and prevent terrorists from escaping . . . into their country."
Asked if the United States planned any response to Iran's actions, Rumsfeld said, "We don't announce things we're going to do before we do them."
Rumsfeld's comments were the latest in a series of signals that the Washington-Tehran relationship--warmer after the Sept. 11 attacks, when Iran showed signs of cooperating with the Bush administration's war on terrorism--has cooled.
Until about a month ago, U.S. officials had expressed hope that the Afghan crisis might provide common ground for the United States and Iran to improve their relations, which were broken in 1979 when Islamic militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
When the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan began, Iran pledged to help with search and rescue missions if U.S. pilots were lost. And Iranian diplomats backed U.S. and United Nations efforts to build an alternative regime in Afghanistan.
But last month, President Bush said Tehran had been trying to exercise influence that could undermine the new, internationally backed, broad-based Afghan government. He warned the Iranian regime to stay out of Afghan affairs.
If the warning was ignored, Bush said, the U.S. would deal with Iran "in diplomatic ways, initially."
Last week, in his State of the Union address, Bush described Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil" bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
And on Sunday, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice joined Rumsfeld in lashing out at Iran.
