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REGION: Money from Iran fuels Iraq insurgency: Rumsfeld

* US defence secretary says Tehran’s behaviour shows it is ‘not part of civilised world’
* Declines to give more details

WASHINGTON: Money and people channelled from Iran fuel the insurgency in Iraq, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in an interview published on Wednesday.

“They have put people in there. They have put money in there,” Rumsfeld said in an interview with The Washington Times. “By ‘they,’ I’m not going to say which element of the government or whether it’s even known to the government. But money has come in from Iran. People have come in from Iran.”

He gave no further details. Iran has denied previous charges of meddling in Iraq.

Rumsfeld said it was “a very difficult thing to stop” because Iran has shown by its behaviour that it is “not part of the civilised world.”

But he said other countries are not willing to join in pressuring Tehran to change.

“And when you have countries of the world that are not willing to participate in an organised effort to try to persuade a country to behave in a civilised way, it encourages them simply to continue on its merry way. And that’s a problem,” Rumsfeld said.

The Washington Times said it had been told by military sources that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard helped fund Iraq’s rebel Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who led a series of insurrections.

Asked about reforming the US intelligence structure as recommended by the commission that investigated the Sept 11 attacks on the United States, Rumsfeld cautioned against moving too quickly.

“You know, a lot of damage can be done in the name of reform, if one gets in a hurry and doesn’t think it through carefully,” Rumsfeld told the newspaper.

Rumsfeld was quoted as saying that an “enormous number” of changes have already been made to try to fix intelligence shortcomings. reuters

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