WASHINGTON — The Obama administration's leading foreign policy ally in Congress said on Wednesday that aid to Iraq might be made contingent on cutting off flights shuttling military supplies from Iran to the repressive regime in Syria.
Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, warned at a confirmation hearing for the new ambassador to Baghdad that the mood in Congress was not generous toward recipients of foreign aid that "seem to be trying to have it both ways."
The administration has been protesting for at least a month the resumption in July of flights that Iraq's government has allowed to cross uninspected over Iraqi territory from Iran to Syria, in violation of international sanctions.
"If so many people have entreated the government to stop and that doesn't seem to be having an impact," Mr. Kerry said, "that sort of alarms me a little bit and seems to send a signal to me maybe we should make some of our assistance or some of our support contingent on some kind of appropriate response."
"It just seems completely inappropriate that we're trying to help build their democracy, support them, put American lives on the line, money into the country, and they're working against our interest so overtly — against their interests, too, I might add," he said
The nominee, Robert S. Beecroft, a career Foreign Service officer who is already running the enormous Baghdad embassy as chargé d'affaires, said that the United States was adamant that Iran not be permitted to airlift arms to Syria.
He and other officials have "made very clear that we find this unacceptable and we find it unhelpful and detrimental to the region and to Iraq and, of course, first and foremost, to the Syrian people," Mr. Beecroft said.
"It's something that needs to stop and that we are pressing and will continue to press until it does stop," he said.
"I share your concerns 100 percent," Mr. Beecroft told Mr. Kerry, promising to pass on the message to the Iraqis that "you find it alarming and that it may put our assistance and our cooperation on issues at stake."
Mr. Kerry said that "around here I think right now there is a lot of anxiety about places that seem to be trying to have it both ways."
Mr. Kerry is involved in a showdown with Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, who has been holding up ambassadorial nominations and other Senate business in an attempt to get a Senate vote on withholding aid from Pakistan, Egypt and Libya unless they are more cooperative with the United States.
Under questioning, Mr. Beecroft said that Iraq had been accepting Iran's declarations that its planes were not carrying military equipment and had not been requiring that the planes land and be inspected.
"They're taking the manifests at face value," he said. "We're pressing them to have the aircraft -- either disapprove the flights or have them land and be inspected, which is their right to do."
By ANDY NEWMAN 20 Sep, 2012
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/world/middleeast/kerry-says-iraq-aid-could-be-tied-to-halting-flights-to-syria.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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