Telegraph - Straw and Bush aide clash over Iran trip By Sarah Womack, Political Correspondent (Filed: 29/09/2001)

JACK STRAW, the Foreign Secretary, criticised a senior adviser to President Bush yesterday, saying he was a man of "very, very extreme views".

In words which expose tensions between Tony Blair's government and influential elements in the Bush administration, Mr Straw claimed that Richard Perle, a consultant to Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, was unimportant.

His comments followed criticism by Mr Perle of his visit to Iran this week to build support for an international coalition against terrorism. Israeli officials have also expressed their outrage at the trip, claiming that it was a "knife in Israel's back".

Mr Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's defence policy advisory board, said: "There was a rather foolish foray from the British foreign minister to Teheran, for exactly what purpose I cannot be sure.

"But it certainly looked as though it was an effort to add Iran to the coalition which, in light of Iran's support for terrorists, seems to me absurd. We are not going to fight terrorism effectively by inviting into the organisation the very states that are sponsoring terrorists."

Clearly irritated, Mr Straw said Mr Perle was "fortunately not in too significant a position in Washington these days". He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We in the United Kingdom have taken a different view about relations with Iran than has the US."

Asked if Washington had approved the visit, Mr Straw said: "There is no question of them approving the visit. I was there on behalf of the United Kingdom.

He went on: "None of us are under any illusions about what has happened in Iran with the continued support for Hizbollah terrorists which I raised with them."

Asked twice whether he believed that Iran had sponsored terrorism, Mr Straw said: "Iran is a country that supports Hizbollah which is active in south Lebanon, and from time to time active in terms of violence in the occupied territories.

"Interestingly the US has not banned Hizbollah, but we have. You have a dialogue not only to identify areas where you agree, but also to identify areas where you disagree. In Iran there is overwhelming hostility and opposition to the Taliban."

Told that after his visit Teheran distanced itself from American plans to wage war on terrorism, Mr Straw replied: "One visit by a British foreign secretary, even though it was the first visit for 22 years, is not going to produce a dramatic change in the stance taken by some people in Teheran and the history of relations between Iran and America are, I think, well known."

Last night Mr Perle dismissed Mr Straw's comments as "rubbish" and challenged Britain's willingness to treat with a country that he maintained sponsors terrorism.

Mr Straw's only accurate claim, he said, was that his position was unimportant. He accused Mr Straw of obfuscating when he said Hizbollah was "from time to time active in terms of violence".

Mr Perle said: "What he chooses to describe as 'from time to time' actually describes the murders of innocent teenagers in discotheques."

He added: "As for the extremity of my own views it's simply this: we will not win the war against terrorism until we challenge it wherever it appears, and until we eliminate the state sponsorship of precisely the sort in which Iran now engages that enables terrorists to kill thousands of civilians."

Mr Perle has criticised the Labour Government before. In the run-up to the general election, he accused the Prime Minister of being "wishy washy and ambivalent" over America's planned missile shield.

-- Anonymous, September 29, 2001