U.S. Warns Iran Against Interfering in Iraq

WASHINGTON —  As Shiite Muslims in Iraq flexed their political muscle, the Bush administration said Wednesday that it had warned Iran’s fundamentalist Shiite government against interfering with its neighbor’s “road to democracy.” But a senior U.S. military official said the Iranian influence is not yet a problem and may itself be a manifestation of democracy.

In a message to Tehran, the Bush administration “made clear to Iran that we would oppose any outside organization’s interference in Iraq,” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said.

The warning came as hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims, some from Iran, enjoyed newfound freedom to pray in the Iraqi holy city of Karbala. Thousands also took to the streets there to demonstrate against the United States.

Elsewhere in Iraq, oil began flowing from wells in the South Rumaila field near the southern city of Basra for the first time since the early days of the war. In Baghdad, U.S. military officials said they had captured the man who oversaw the activities of Iraqi spies in the United States.

The demand to Iran was issued even though U.S. intelligence officials said they have not seen large numbers of Iranians entering Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Southern Iraq is a bastion of Shiite Islam and has close cultural ties to Iran, where Shiite leaders rule.

In Baghdad, Army Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, did not sound overly concerned about any Iranian moves. “Right now, the Shiite and any Iranian-influenced Shiite actions are not an overt threat to coalition forces, but we’re watching all these competing interests,” he said. “And if truth be known, this is probably a little bit of democracy in process right now, here in Iraq.”

Iraq’s Shiite majority suffered brutal repression under Hussein’s regime, which was secular but dominated by members of the rival Sunni sect of Islam. Many Shiites see the regime’s overthrow as an opportunity to claim political power, perhaps in an Iranian-style religious government.

In recent days, hundreds of thousands of Shiites have taken part for the first time in decades in a religious pilgrimage to Karbala, where demonstrators marched Wednesday in an anti-American, pro-Islamic show of force.

“No to America, no to Israel, yes to Islam,” read the banners as thousands of joyous pilgrims took to the streets of the sacred city, where evidence of Iranian influence was not hard to find: Religious edicts from Iranian scholars were pasted on mosque walls.

One U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted that the Iran-Iraq border is porous and that U.S. intelligence had expected there would be some flow of people into Iraq once Hussein was deposed.

“Iranians have interests there and have had a presence in southern Iraq off and on over the years,” the official said. “They support Iraqi Shiite groups who have been opposed to Saddam. It’s not surprising.”

Nor, he said, is it any cause for alarm.

Fleischer refused to provide details of how or precisely when the administration’s message was conveyed to Tehran, saying only that it was delivered recently. Although the U.S. and Iran do not have diplomatic relations, he said, “we have a number of channels to talk to the Iranian government and they are open.”

President Bush believes it is “essential that the Iraqi people determine their own future” and hopes other countries in the region “seize on the opportunity to make a positive contribution to the Iraqi people,” Fleischer said. At the same time, he cast doubt on the ability of Iranians to win converts in Iraq.

Given the history of the two countries, which fought a war in the 1980s, no one should assume that the Iraqis would welcome Iranians with open arms, Fleischer told reporters in his daily briefing at the White House.

“People should not over-interpret the capability of the Shiite Iranians to influence the Shiite Iraqis. They are not one [and] the same,” he said.

The questions over a possible Iranian role came as the United States reported progress in its efforts to capture top officials of Hussein’s government and to begin rebuilding Iraq’s shattered economy.

U.S. officials expressed hope that the arrest of Salim Said Khalaf Jumayli, identified as former chief of the American Desk in the Iraqi Intelligence Service, could lead to information about potential terrorist plots in the United States. Jumayli is suspected of having knowledge of Iraqi intelligence activities in the U.S., “including names of persons spying for Iraq,” said a statement from the U.S. Central Command.

Also reported captured were Muzahim Sa’b Hassan, head of Iraq’s air defense network, and Mohammed Mahdi Saleh, former trade minister. Both were on the U.S. most-wanted list.

Jumayli was arrested by Special Forces troops in an operation that led to one Iraqi casualty, U.S. officials said.

FBI and Justice Department officials said that they spent months investigating potential Iraqi terrorist cells in the United States and that they found little direct evidence of plots. But those officials said new information from someone such as Jumayli could provide invaluable help in rooting out sleeper cells.

On the economic front, officials said 50,000 barrels of oil were pumped Tuesday from four wells in Iraq’s South Rumaila field, marking the first production since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began shutting down wells, pipelines and other petroleum facilities several weeks ago. The production halt gave the corps an opportunity to assess the condition of the wells and distribution network, look for booby traps, respond to any signs of sabotage and make initial repairs where needed.

“They shut down everything, all the pipelines, all the oil wells,” said Robert Ebel, energy program director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Now they’re going back in and making repairs and getting everything ready to go back on line. But it will come back slowly.”

Ebel said the initial goal is to pump the estimated 300,000 to 400,000 barrels a day needed domestically. “Exports are a long way away,” he said.

Before the war, Iraq was producing about 2 million barrels of oil a day.

Times staff writers Sonni Efron, Josh Meyer and Greg Miller in Washington and Megan K. Stack in Karbala contributed to this report.