Former officials say Iran helped on al-Qaida

By  BARRY SCHWEID  –

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an effort to help the United States counter
al-Qaida after the 9/11 attack, Iran rounded up hundreds of Arabs who
had crossed the border from Afghanistan, expelled many of them and made
copies of nearly 300 of their passports, a former Bush administration
official said Tuesday.

The copies were sent to Kofi Annan, the
U.N. secretary-general, who passed them on to the United States, while
U.S. interrogators were given a chance by Iran to question some of the
detainees, Hillary Mann Leverett said in an Associated Press interview.

Leverett,
who said she negotiated with Iran for the Bush administration in the
2001-3 period, said Iran sought a broader relationship with the United
States. "They thought they had been helpful on al-Qaida, and they
were," she said.

For one thing, she said, suspected al-Qaida operatives were not given sanctuary in Iran.

Some
administration officials took the view, however, that Iran had not
acknowledged all likely al-Qaida members nor provided access to them,
Leverett said.

Many of the expelled Arabs were deported to Saudi
Arabia and to other Arab and Muslim countries, even though Iran had
poor relations with the Saudi monarchy and some other countries in the
region, Leverett said.

James F. Dobbins, the Bush
administration’s chief negotiator on Afghanistan in late 2001, said
that Iran was "comprehensively helpful" in the aftermath of the 9/11
attack in working to overthrow the Taliban and collaborating with the
United States in installing the Karzai government in Kabul.

Iranian
diplomats made clear at the time they were looking for broader
cooperation with the United States, but the Bush administration was not
interested, the author of "After the Taliban: Nation-Building in
Afghanistan," said in a separate interview.

The Bush
administration has acknowledged contacts with Iran over the years even
while denouncing Iran as part of an "axis of evil" and declining to
consider a resumption of diplomatic relations.

"It isn’t
something that is talked about," Leverett said in describing Iran’s
role during a forum at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan policy
institute.

Leverett and her husband, Flynt Leverett, a former
career CIA analyst and a former National Security Council official,
jointly proposed the next U.S. president seek a "grand bargain" with
Iran to settle all major outstanding differences.

"The next
president needs to reorient U.S. policy toward Iran as fundamentally as
President Nixon did with China in the 1970s," Flynt Leverett said.

Among
the provisions: The United States would clarify that it is not seeking
change in the nature of the Iranian regime but rather in its policies,
while Iran would agree to "certain limits" on its nuclear program.

Iran
considers most of its neighbors as enemies. Among its incentives for
improving U.S. relations is that they feel that Pakistan and Saudi
Arabia would be less provocative, the Leveretts said.