Iranian leader calls U.S. hurdle to stable Iraq

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's supreme leader told Iraq's prime minister Monday that the U.S. forces in Iraq were the biggest obstacle to stability there.

The message from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was the most authoritative public word yet on Iran's objections to long-term security accords being negotiated between the Bush administration and Iraq Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki.

The U.S. military has been operating in Iraq under a U.N. resolution that expires at the end of this year.

At a meeting with al-Maliki as part of the Iraqi leader's three-day visit to Iran, Khamenei told him "the most fundamental problem of Iraq is the presence of the foreign forces," according to the news agency ISNA's reports.

Iranian officials strongly oppose the U.S. military presence in Iraq, which they consider a major threat on their border. Yet it was the U.S.-led effort that overthrew their hated enemy, Saddam Hussein, and brought about a coalition government in Baghdad dominated by Shiite political leaders, including al-Maliki, with strong ties to Iran.

Tensions have risen under the Bush administration, which has accused the Iranians of working on a nuclear-weapons program in secret and of financing and supplying weapons to anti-U.S. extremists in Iraq. Iran denies this.

In Iraq, negotiations over the security pact have become a major political issue, further splitting Shiite allies of al-Maliki and the political movement of Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric.

The New York Times reported last month that aides to al-Maliki from his Dawa Party said U.S. negotiators were demanding continued control of Iraqi airspace, immunity for U.S. soldiers and security contractors, authority for more than 50 long-term bases and the right to continue to carry out unimpeded military operations.

Iraqi officials object to those terms and are particularly insistent about limiting immunity for security contractors and ensuring that future U.S. military operations are restricted and have the blessing of the Iraqi government, according to Ali Adeeb, a senior Dawa official close to al-Maliki.

Some Iraqi officials also have complained that while the U.S. military would maintain a large presence, it would not be obligated to protect the Iraqi government from aggression, either from outside or inside the country.

U.S. officials have denied any plans for long-term military bases but have acknowledged they are seeking some other terms Iraqi officials object to.

Also

Detainees: U.S. combat commanders are sending about 30 prisoners a day to the main U.S.-run detention centers in Iraq, with more of the detainees likely to be held for longer periods as security risks than those prisoners taken when the U.S. troop buildup first began last year, according to Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone Jr., the former head of the Iraq detention program.

Combat: U.S. soldiers called in an airstrike Monday during an attack on a suspected hideout in a remote area of northwest Iraq, killing five men and capturing more than a dozen others, the U.S. military said.

Information from The Associated Press and The Washington Post is included in this report.