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*John Bolton: US should bomb Iranian camps*

By Damien McElroy
UK Telegraph
06/05/2008

*John Bolton, America's ex-ambassador to the United Nations, has called for
US air strikes on Iranian camps where insurgents are trained for war in
Iraq. *

Mr Bolton said that striking Iran would represent a major step towards
victory in Iraq. While he acknowledged that the risk of a hostile Iranian
response harming American's overseas interests existed, he said the damage
inflicted by Tehran would be "far higher" if Washington took no action.

"This is a case where the use of military force against a training camp to
show the Iranians we're not going to tolerate this is really the most
prudent thing to do," he said. "Then the ball would be in Iran's court to
draw the appropriate lesson to stop harming our troops."

Mr Bolton, an influential former member of President George W Bush's inner
circle, dismissed as "dead wrong" reported British intelligence
conclusions that the US military had overstated the support that Iran was
providing to Iraqi fighters.

A US military spokesman revealed last week that the elite Quds Force of
Iran's Revolutionary Guards had drafted in personnel from Lebanon's
Hizbollah to train fighters from Iraq's Shia militias.

Colonel Donald Bacon, a spokesman for the coalition in Baghdad, said
captured fighters had told interrogators that thousands of Iraqi fighters
were undergoing training in the Islamic Republic.

The main camp is located near the town of Jalil Azad, near Tehran,
according to coalition officials. The capture of Qais Khazali, a major
figure in the Shia insurgency alongside Ali Mussa Daqduq, a senior
Lebanese Hizbollah guerilla, last year yielded a treasure trove of
information on Hizbollah's activities in Iraq.

"Ali Mussa Daqduq confirmed Lebanese Hizbollah were providing training to
Iraqi Special Group members in Iran and that his role was to assess the
quality of training and make recommendations on how the training could be
improved," said Col Bacon. "In this role, he travelled to Iraq on four
occasions and was captured on his fourth trip."

Five Britons kidnapped in Iraq are believed to have been put under the
control of Quds Force agents after failed attempts to barter the men for
Khazali and Daqduq's freedom.

The importance of the Quds Force to stability in Iraq was demonstrated
last week when a five-member Iraqi delegation was sent to Tehran to meet
with its commander, General Ghassem Soleimani. The delegation was
dispatched by the Iraqi government to plead for an end to Iranian meddling
in its enfeebled neighbor.